boots, his thumb groping over his face as though he wanted to wipe
the tormented look away; then he picked up his portmanteau and went.
He was evidently not very comfortable.

"I'll willingly take over the ticket and the bride," shouted Pelle
merrily. He felt in the deuce of a good humor.

Everybody to-day was treading the road along which Pelle's own young
blood had called him--every young fellow with a little pluck, every
good-looking wench. Not for a moment was the road free of traffic;
it was like a vast exodus, an army of people escaping from places
where everyone had the feeling that he was condemned to live and die
on the very spot where he was born; an army of people who had chosen
the excitement of the unknown. Those little brick houses which lay
scattered over the green, or stood drawn up in two straight rows
where the high-road ran into the town--those were the cottages of
the peasant folk who had renounced the outdoor life, and dressed
themselves in townified clothes, and had then adventured hither;
and down on the sea-front the houses stood all squeezed and heaped
together round the church, so close that there looked to be no room
between them; there were the crowds who had gone wandering, driven
far afield by the longing in their hearts--and then the sea had set
a limit to their journey.

Pelle had no intention of allowing anything whatever to set a
limit to his journeying. Perhaps, if he had no luck in the town,
he would go to sea. And then one day he would come to some coast
that interested him, and he would land, and go to the gold-diggings.
Over there the girls went mother-naked, with nothing but some blue
tattoo-work to hide their shame; but Pelle had his girl sitting at