At any rate he
forbade us to go out too, and promised us a whipping if we so much
as touched the lamp with the tips of our fingers. Why, we should
as soon have thought of fingering the priest's gold-embroidered
chasuble. We were only afraid that the cord which held up all this
splendor might break and we should get the blame of it.
But time hung heavily in the sitting-room, and as we couldn't hit
upon anything else, we resolved to go in a body to the sleighing
hill. The town had a right of way to the river for fetching water
therefrom, and this road ended at the foot of a good hill down
which the sleigh could run, and then up the other side along the
ice rift.
"Here come the Lamphill children," cried the children of the town,
as soon as they saw us.
We understood well enough what they meant, but for all that we did
not ask what Lamphill children they alluded to, for our farm was,
of course, never called Lamphill.
"Ah, ah! We know! You've gone and bought one of them lamps for
your place. We know all about it!"
"But how came you to know about it already?"
"Your mother mentioned it to my mother when she went through our
place. She said that your father had bought from the storeman one
of that sort of lamps that burn so brightly that one can find a
needle on the floor--so at least said the justice's maid."
It is just like the lamp in the parsonage drawing-room, your
father told us just now. I heard him say so with my own ears,"
said the innkeeper's lad.
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