Ragna stood spellbound: a greyhound and a hare--her dream! And the rest, the chains, the man with the burning eyes! She shivered; it was as though the shadow of a dark wing had passed over her, her flesh crept. Neither spoke for some time; it grew darker. A maidservant entered the room with a light. Ragna shook herself to throw off the incubus. The maid began to speak of the Grandmother, of how good she had been, and the girls looked at one another ashamed--they had quite forgotten it all for the moment. "Come, Ingeborg," said Ragna, "let us go down again." Hand in hand they descended the stair. CHAPTER VII The funeral was set for the day week and the intervening time seemed interminable, at least to the younger members of the family. Fru Boyesen was invaluable; her practical good sense which not even grief could impair, employed itself in arranging the thousand and one details incident to a death. Ragna took her turn with her elders in watching at night in the death-chamber. She had begged to do it and had obtained permission, but when the night came and she was left alone in the terrible silent room, a single candle burning on the table beside her, casting grotesque and fitful shadows over the motionless form on the bed, and over the walls, a kind of panic seized her. She wished she had not persisted in obtaining the vigil. It was horribly lonely, more so than she could have imagined by day. She could hear the ticking of the tall clock on the landing outside the door; no other sound came from the sleeping house--it was like sitting in a funeral vault she thought. An owl was hooting dismally in a tree far off and the mournful noise had an uncanny sound in the pervading stillness. The window was partly open and occasionally a puff of air would make the candle gutter, and then the shadows moved and took on unearthly shapes. Ragna tried to keep her mind on the book her mother had left with her, but without avail; her mind would wander, and her eyes turned continually to the bed in the corner--it was as though the dead woman called her, requiring insistently her whole attention. She was a healthy girl, not in the least morbid, but the stillness, the tension wore on her nerves until the strain became unbearable. She looked uneasily to right and left and over her shoulder as though she expected to see strange and grisly shapes emerging from the shadows. A kind of panic seized her; she felt as if she must scream. A terrible unreasoning fear overcame her, the horror of the presence of the dead body submerged her spirit, a curious stiffness possessed her limbs and seemed to bind her to her chair; she felt the roots of her hair crawl, and her fingers worked convulsively. The book she had been reading dropped to the floor with a bang. The noise broke the spell and she gave a long shuddering sigh; she raised her hand to her forehead and was surprised to find it wet.