Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/50

 dim lantern hung in the archway, turning slowly round at the end of a cord. The curate had to alight under this lantern, for the courtyard was so packed with snow, that the sledge couldn't go any further. He walked up a narrow path which had been cleared, through the drifts to a low dwelling house.

A dead silence reigned. Only the faint rattle of a chain was to be heard in the stable, and somewhere behind a wall a cat mewed. When he got to the entrance he heard a door open inside, and a soft woman's voice said quietly, "I thought I heard bells—th' Provst must hae come." He knocked at the door, and the next moment he found himself in a long, low room, with old-fashioned furniture, small windows, a timbered ceiling, and dark earthen floor. A thin tallow candle with a flaring wick, was burning on one end of a heavy oaken table, and, at his entrance, a little, middle-aged man got up. He had a shock head of iron-gray hair, and a pair of rusty brass spectacles were resting on a broad thick nose. The man had been reading a paper, which he now—visibly flustered—hastened to hide under the table, and, at the same moment, remembering his spectacles, he tore them off with embarrassment, as if he had been caught in some piece of folly.

As he was about to approach the expected Provst, he fell back in amazement, and stared open-mouthed at the stranger, who remained