HOLGER. (_Awed, hesitant_) Someone--sobbing--at the door! (_He goes
to it, the others watching him startled, he opens the door, finds nothing,
closes it and comes back_) Nothing there!

BERTEL. The wind!--Thy old tricks, Holger,--always dreaming some strange
thing.

HOLGER. (_Recalled by_ BERTEL'S _words to something else_) Didst
thou pass an old woman on the road--near here?

BERTEL. Not a soul nearer than the town gate. (HOLGER _stands thinking,
absorbed_) Come, boy, eat,--_eat_! See how Steen eats!

HOLGER. (_Breaks through his abstraction and reverts to his bright
self_) Oh, Uncle Bertel,--I'm too glad to eat!

BERTEL. (_More seriously_) Thou art right, lad,--fasting were better
than feasting this day in Tralsund!--they say,--do you know what they
say in the town?

HOLGER. What?

BERTEL. They say--that to-night in the great church--when the offerings
are laid upon the altar for the Christ child,--_something will happen_!

(STEEN _has finished his porridge, puts the bowl on the shelf near
him, seizes his cloak and cap from the peg near the hearth and
stands eager to be gone._)

HOLGER. What?