About eight o’clock in the evening
Four or five years passed and Erik became a lieutenant . It was during the first year after his graduation from the military academy that he was invited to spend the Christmas holidays with a friend , whose parents lived on a fine estate about twenty miles from the city . Seated in their narrow sleighs , which were drawn by brisk horses , they drove merrily along , shouting to each other to make their voices heard above the jingling of the bells . About eight o'clock in the evening , when the moon was shining brightly and the snow sparkling , they turned in at a wayside tavern to order their supper . Here a great crowd of lumbermen had congregated , and all along the fences their overworked , half-broken-down horses stood , shaking their nose-bags . The air in the public room was so filled with the fumes of damp clothes and bad tobacco that Erik and his friend , while waiting for their meal , preferred to spend the time under the radiant sky . They were sauntering about , talking in a desultory fashion , when all of a sudden a wild , joyous whinny rang out upon the startled air .