human speech and laughter again; but there was no place here where I could
stay, and in any case I had come too early. I had much to carry on my way
home to my hut again. About halfway I met a man, a casual laborer, a
vagabond, whose name was Solem. Later I heard that he was the bastard son
of a telegraph operator who had been in Rosenlund nearly a generation
before.

That this man should have stepped off the path to let me pass with my
burden was a good trait in him, and I thanked him and said, "I shouldn't
have run over you in any case, ha, ha!"

He asked me if there was much snow on the way to the village. I told him
it was much the same as here. "I see," he said, and turned away. I thought
that perhaps he had come a long way, and since he carried nothing that
looked like provisions, I offered him some of mine in order to make him
talk a little. He thanked me and accepted.

He was above middle height, and quite young, not more than in his
twenties, possibly just on thirty--a fine fellow. After the swaggering
fashion of wanderers, he had a lock of hair escaping from under the peak
of his cap; but he wore no beard. This full-grown man still shaved without
growing tired of doing so, and this, together with his fringe of hair and
his general manner, gave me the impression that he wished to seem younger
than he was.

We talked while he ate; he laughed readily and was in a cheerful mood, and
since his face was beardless and hard, it looked like a laughing iron
mask. But he was sensible and pleasant. There was only one thing: I had
been silent for so long that I talked now perhaps too readily; and if it
happened that both this boy Solem and I spoke at once, he would stop