The shadows of the fir-trees grew black, and the stars came out; while a fiery streak in the west glowed through the darkness and threw a glare upon the ice. It shone upon the plating of the harness and sledge, and cast long shadows of man and horse, that steadily kept pace with their owners. Scarcely a living being was to be seen on the desolate expanse. A solitary fisherman was visible at his hole far out, where the red reflection met the pointed shadows of the mountains; and out at the promontory might be seen a little dot of a man moving out from the land, dragging a sledge after him.
"And Herlufsen of Rud! Won't he be delighted!"
Norby, being himself of a combative disposition and hard in his dealings with others, imagined that a number of persons were always on the watch to pick a quarrel with him. If he did a good stroke of business in timber, his first feeling was one of satisfaction as he thought: "How they will envy me!" And in unfortunate transactions he did not care a rap about the money he lost; he was only troubled at the thought that it was now the turn of other people to exult.
He was now out in the middle of the ice, and had passed from the fiery reflection into the dark shadows. The horse heard sledge-bells near the shore, and without slackening its pace raised its head and neighed. "Suppose the ice were to give way!" thought the old man with a cold shiver of apprehension. His father, a wealthy old peasant, was once driving a heavy load of polished granite blocks across the lake. When the ice began to give loud reports and to bend under the weight, the old man, unwilling to throw off any of the valuable blocks in order to lighten the load, knelt down and prayed: "If only Thou wilt let me get safely to land, I'll send ten bushels of my best barley to the pastor." He got to land; but when he stood on the shore, he looked back across the ice with a chuckle, saying: "I had Him there!" And the pastor got no barley.
The sledge-bells rang out their clear, bright, silvery tones, but all the time the old man sat thinking the ice was giving way.
"If I go through, it will probably be because I didn't want to go to the sacrament next Sunday," he thought; for when he left home he had half promised his wife to call at the clerk's and give in their names for the sacrament. But at the last moment the old pagan had come to life within him, and he had driven past the clerk's house.
