The dark figure, an old man, was speaking,--I saw him move his lips; he held a short pipe in his hand, which he only put to his mouth now and then to keep it alight by these occasional puffs. When I approached the group, the story had either come to an end or he had been interrupted; he stooped forward, put some glowing embers in his pipe, smoked incessantly and appeared to be attentively listening to what a fourth person, who had just arrived, had to say. This person, who apparently also belonged to the party, was carrying a bucket of water from the brook. His hair was red, and he was dressed in a long jersey jacket, and had more the appearance of a tramp than a wood-cutter. He looked as if he had been frightened by something or other. The old man had now turned round towards him, and as I had crossed the brook and was approaching the party from the side, I could now see the old man plainly in the full glare of the fire. He was a short man with a long hooked nose. A blue skull-cap with a red border scarcely covered his head of bristly grey hair, and a short-bodied but long Ringerike coat of dark grey frieze with worn velvet borders, served to make the roundness and crookedness of his back still more conspicuous. The new-comer appeared to be speaking about a bear. "Well, who would believe it?" said the old man, "what did he want there? It must have been some other noise you heard, for there doesn't grow anything on the dry heath hereabout which he would be after. No, not Bruin, not he" he added; "I almost think you are telling lies, Peter! There's an old saying that red hair and firs don't thrive in good soil," he continued half aloud. "If it had been down in the bear's den or in Stygdale, where Knut and I both heard him and saw him the other day--but here?--No, no! he doesn't come so near the fire, he doesn't! You have been frightening yourself!" [Illustration] "Frightening myself? Oh, dear no! Didn't I hear him moving and crushing through the underwood, my canny Thor Lerberg?" answered the other, somewhat offended and chagrined at the old man's doubts and taunts. "Well, well, my boy," continued Thor in his former tone, "I suppose it was something bigger than a squirrel, anyhow!" I now stepped forward, and said it must have been me that he had heard, and told them how I had lost my way, and the fright I had undergone, and how hungry and tired I was. I asked whereabouts I was now, and if one of them would show me the way to Stubdale. My appearance created considerable surprise to the party, which however was not so much apparent in their words, as in the attention with which they regarded me and heard my story. The old man, whose name I had heard was Thor Lerberg, seemed particularly interested in it; and as it appeared that he was accustomed to thinking aloud, I could on hearing some of the remarks which he now and then mumbled to himself, participate in his reflections thus: