Anna tried to laugh at her terror, but she insisted.
“We shall soon hear his sleigh-bells, you will see. We shall hear them before we reach the top of the next hill.”
And when Disa drew breath for a second at the top of Elof’s hill sleigh-bells could be heard behind them.
Old Ulrika became quite mad with fright. She trembled, sobbed, and wailed as she had done in the drawing-room at Fors. Anna tried to urge Disa on, but she only turned her head and gave her a glance of unspeakable surprise. Did she think that Disa had forgotten when it was time to trot and when it was time to walk? Did she want to teach her how to drag a sledge, to teach her who had known every stone, every bridge, every gate, every hill for more than twenty years?
All this while the sleigh-bells were coming nearer.
“It is he, it is he! I know his bells,” wails old Ulrika.
The sound comes ever nearer. Sometimes it seems so unnaturally loud that Anna turns to see if Sintram’s horse has not got his head in her sledge; sometimes it dies away. They hear it now on the right, now on the left of the road, but they see no one. It is as if the jingling of the bells alone pursues them.
Just as it is at night, on the way home from a party, is it also now. These bells ring out a tune; they sing, speak, answer. The woods echo with their sound.
Anna Stjärnhök almost wishes that their pursuer would come near enough for her to see Sintram himself and his red horse. The dreadful sleigh-bells anger her.