of persons asleep, and knew that they had not awakened--the night
was not nearly over yet. "Good-evening!" he said.

A hand began to grope for the matches.

"Is any one there?" said a drowsy woman's voice.

"Good-evening!" he cried again, and went forward into the room.
"It's Pelle!" He brought out the name in a singsong voice.

"So it's you, boy!" Lasse's voice quavered, and the hands could not
manage the matches; but Pelle stepped toward the voice and clasped
his wrist. "And how did you find your way here in the wilderness--
and at night, too? Yes, yes, I'll get up!" he continued, and he
tried, with a groan, to sit up.

"No, you stop there and let me get up," said Karna, who lay against
the wall--she had kept silence while the men-folk were speaking. "He
gets this lumbago, I can tell you!" she declared, jumping out of bed.

"Ay, I've been at it a bit too hard. Work comes easy when a man's
his own master--it's difficult to leave off. But it'll be all right
when once I've got things properly going. Work's a good embrocation
for the lumbago. And how goes it with you then? I was near believing
you must be dead!"

So Pelle had to sit on the edge of the bed and tell about everything
in town--about the workshop, and the young master's lame leg, and
everything. But he said nothing of the disagreeable things; it was
not for men to dwell upon such things.