The road from the fishing-village to the town passes over windy marshes and swampy cow-pastures. It is two miles long, and there is a tradition that the inhabitants of the fishing-village are so rich that they could pave it with shining silver coins. It would give the road a strange attraction. Glimmering like a fish’s belly, it would wind with its white scales through clumps of sedge and pools filled with water-bugs and melancholy bullfrogs. The daisies and almond-blossoms which adorn that forsaken ground would be mirrored in the shining silver coins; thistles would stretch out protecting thorns over them, and the wind would find a ringing sounding-board when it played on the thatched roof of the cow-barns and on telephone-wires. Perhaps old Mattsson would have found some comfort if he could have set his heavy sea boots on ringing silver, for it is certain that he for a time had to go that way oftener than he liked. He had not had “clean papers.” The bans could not be published. It came from his having run away from his bride the last time. Some time passed before the clergyman could write to the consistory about him and get permission for him to contract a new marriage. As long as this time of waiting lasted, old Mattsson came to the town every week. He sat by the door of the pastor’s room and remained there in silent expectation until all had spoken in turn. Then he rose and asked if the clergyman had anything for him. No, he had nothing. The pastor was amazed at the power that all-conquering love had acquired over that old man. There he sat in a thick, knitted jersey, high sea-boots and weather-beaten sou’wester with a sharp, clever face and long, gray hair, and waited for permission to get married. The clergyman thought it strange that the old fisherman should have been seized by so eager a longing. “You are in a hurry with this marriage, Mattsson,” said the clergyman. “Oh yes, it is best to get it done soon.” “Could you not just as well give up the whole thing? You are no longer young, Mattsson.” The clergyman must not be too surprised. He knew well enough that he was too old, but he was obliged to be married. There was no help for it. So he came again week after week for a half year, until at last the permission came. During all that time old Mattsson was a persecuted man. Round the green drying-place, where the brown fish-nets were hung out, along the cemented walls by the harbor, at the fish-tables in the market, where cod and crabs were sold, and far out in the sound among the shoals of herring, raged a storm of wonder and laughter. “So he is going to be married, he, Mattsson, who ran away from his own wedding!” Neither bride nor groom were spared. But the worst thing for him was that no one could laugh more at the whole thing than he himself. No one could find it more ridiculous. His mother’s portrait was driving him mad.