Old Ekdal, whom Gregers remembers as Lieutenant Ekdal, his father's partner in the timber business up north and a mighty Nimrod, has, after a term of imprisonment for illicit tree-felling, become a shambling old drunkard, who solaces himself by sporting expeditions in the lean-to attic which his son and he have fitted up for the purpose with withered Christmas trees and a little menagerie of hens, rabbits and the like.