“ ’Tis no impertinence, I hope, for I to come in,” said the stonecutter, humbly; and it struck Wolf’s mind as a kind of mad dream⁠—not a nightmare, but just one of those dreams where men and houses and animals and trees are all involved and interchanged⁠—that this grotesque figure of a man should be the father of Gerda!

“ Mr. Torp and I are old friends,” said Wolf, with cordial emphasis, “and I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you again, Vicar! Will you let me order you something? The brandy here seems to me uncommonly good.”

In answer to Wolf’s appeal, the barmaid, whose personality, as she appeared and disappeared at that square orifice, grew more and more dreamlike, brought three large glasses of the drink he demanded, two of which he promptly handed to Valley and Torp, while the third he appropriated for himself.