r
faces, they often lost the road, had to stand still at times and look
about them to see where they were and gather breath, or turn around to
let the strongest gusts go by; it took them three-quarters of an hour to
go the scant fifteen minutes' walk to the parsonage. There they first
shook off the snow as well as they could, then knocked on the door. But
they knocked long in vain; the sound was swallowed up in the howling of
the wind, which raged awesomely through the chimneys. Then Freneli lost
patience; in place of Uli's reverent knock she now tried her own, and it
was such that the indwellers started up from their seats and the
pastor's wife cried, "Mercy on us, what's that?" But the pastor calmed
her by saying that it was either a baptism or a wedding, only that, as
usual, Mary had not heard their first knocks. While Mary answered the
door he was lighting a light, so that the people need not wait long, and
as soon as Mary opened the door to say, "There's two people here, Sir,"
he was already stepping out.

Back of the house door stood the two, Freneli behind Uli. The pastor,
somewhat short, of middle age, but already venerable in appearance and
with shrewd features that could be either very sharp or very pleasant,
raised the light above his head, peered out with head bowed slightly
forward, and cried at last, "Why, Uli, is it you, in such weather? And I
suppose Freneli's behind you," he said, letting the light fall on her.
"But dear me," he cried, "in such weather? And the good mistress let you
go? Come, Mary," he called, "brush off these folks for me, and take this
collar and dry it." Mary came up very willingly with her lamp.

Now the pastor's wife opened the door, her light in her hand, and said,
"Bring them in here, why don't you? It's warmer than your study, and
Freneli and I know each other right well." There stood Freneli now in
the blaze of three lights, still between Uli and the door, not knowing
what expression to assume. Finally she put a good face on a bad game, as
the saying goes, came forward, and saluted the pastor and his wife quite
properly, saying that her aunt bade her wish them good evening, and
Joggeli too. All this Freneli said with the most innocent face in the
world.

"But," said the pastor, "why do you come in such a storm? You might have
lost your lives!"

"We couldn't manage it any other way," said Uli, who began to feel the
man's duty of taking his wife's obstinacy on his own shoulde