A few days after, the mother and son agreed on going together to the wedding of some relations in one of the neighboring places. The mother had not been to a party ever since she was a girl; and both she and Arne knew but very little of the people living around, save their names.

Arne felt uncomfortable at this party, however, for he fancied everybody was staring at him: and once, as he was passing through the passage, he believed he heard something said about him, the mere thought of which made every drop of blood rush into his face.

He kept going about looking after the man who had said it, and at last he took a seat next him.

When they were at dinner, the man said, "Well, now, I shall tell you a story which proves nothing can be buried so deeply that it won't one day be brought to light;" and Arne fancied he looked at him all the time he was saying this. He was an ugly-looking man, with scanty red hair, hanging about a wide, round forehead, small, deep-set eyes, a little snub-nose, and a large mouth, with pale out-turned lips, which showed both his gums when he laughed. His hands were resting on the table; they were large and coarse, but the wrists were slender. He had a fierce look; and he spoke quickly, but with difficulty. The people called him "Bragger;" and Arne knew that in bygone days, Nils, the tailor, had treated him badly.

"Yes," continued the man, "there is indeed, a great deal of sin in the world; and it sits nearer to us than we think.... But never mind; I'll tell you now of a foul deed. Those of you who are old will remember Alf—Alf, the pedlar. 'I'll call again,' Alf used to say: and he has left that saying behind him. When he had struck a bargain—and what a fellow for trade he was!—he would take up his bundle, and say, 'I'll call again.' A devil of a fellow, proud fellow, brave fellow, was he, Alf, the pedlar!

"Well he and Big Lazy-bones, Big Lazy-bones—well, you know Big Lazy-bones?—big he was, and lazy he was, too. He took a fancy to a coal-black horse that Alf, the pedlar, used to drive, and had trained to hop like a summer frog. And almost before Big Lazy-bones knew what he was about, he paid fifty dollars for this horse! Then Big Lazy-bones, tall as he was, got into a carriage, meaning to drive about like a king with his fifty-dollar-horse; but, though he whipped and swore like a devil, the horse kept running against all the doors and windows; for it was stone-blind!

"Afterwards, whenever Alf and Big Lazy-bones came across each other, they used to quarrel and fight about this horse like two dogs. Big Lazy-bones said he would have his money back; but he could not get a farthing of it: and Alf drubbed him till the bristles flew. 'I'll call again,' said Alf. A devil of a fellow, proud fellow, brave fellow that Alf—Alf, the pedlar!

"Well, after that some years passed away without his being seen again.

"Then, in about ten years or so, a call for him was published on the church-hill,[2] for a great fortune had been left him. Big Lazy-bones stood listening. 'Ah,' said he, 'I well knew it must be money, and not men, that called out for Alf, the pedlar.'

"Now, there was a good deal of talk one way and another about Alf; and at last it seemed to be pretty clearly made out that he had been seen for the last time on this side of the ledge, and not on the other. Well, you remember the road over the ledge—the old road?

"Of late, Big Lazy-bones had got quite a great man, and he owned both houses and land. Then, too, he had taken to being religious; and that, everybody knew, he didn't take to for nothing—nobody does. People began to whisper about these things.

"Just at this time the road over the ledge had to be altered. Folks in bygone days had a great fancy for going straight onwards; and so the old road ran straight over the ledge; but now-a-days we like to have things smooth and easy; and so the new road was made to run down along the river. While they were making it, there was digging and mining enough to bring down the whole mountain about their ears; and the magistrates and all the officers who have to do with that sort of thing were there. One day while the men were digging deep in the stony ground, one of them took up something which he thought was a stone; but it turned out to be the bones of a man's hand instead; and a wonderfully strong hand it seemed to be, for the man who got it fell flat down directly. That man was Big Lazy-bones. The magistrate was just strolling about round there, and they fetched him to the place; and then all the bones belonging to a whole man were dug out. The Doctor, too, was fetched; and he put them all together so cleverly that nothing was wanting but the flesh. And then it struck some of the people that the skeleton was just about the same size and make as Alf, the pedlar. 'I'll call again,' Alf used to say.

"And then it struck somebody else, that it was a very queer thing a dead hand should have made a great fellow like Big Lazy-bones fall flat down like that: and the magistrate accused him straight of having had more to do with that dead hand than he ought—of course, when nobody else was by. But then Big Lazy-bones foreswore it with such fearful oaths that the magistrate turned quite giddy. 'Well,' said the magistrate, 'if you didn't do it, I dare say you're a fellow, now, who would not mind sleeping with the skeleton to-night?'—'No; I shouldn't mind a bit,—not I,' said Big Lazy-bones. So the Doctor tied the joints of the skeleton together, and laid it in one of the beds in the barracks; and put another bed close by it for Big Lazy-bones. The magistrate wrapped himself in his cloak, and lay down close to the door outside. When night came on, and Big Lazy-bones had to go in to his bedfellow, the door shut behind him as though of itself, and he stood in the dark. But then Big Lazy-bones set off singing psalms, for he had a mighty voice. 'Why are you singing psalms?' the magistrate asked from outside the wall. 'May be the bells were never tolled for him,' answered Big Lazy-bones. Then he began praying out loud, as earnestly as ever he could. 'Why are you praying?' asked the magistrate from outside the wall. 'No doubt, he has been a great sinner,' answered Big Lazy-bones. Then a time after, all got so still that the magistrate might have gone to sleep. But then came a shrieking that made the very barracks shake: 'I'll call again!'—Then came a hellish noise and crash: 'Out with that fifty dollars of mine!' roared Big Lazy-bones: and the shrieking and crashing came again. Then the magistrate burst open the door; the people rushed in with poles and firebrands; and there lay Big Lazy-bones on the floor, with the skeleton on the top of him."

There was a deep silence all round the table. At last a man who was lighting his clay-pipe said, "Didn't he go mad from that very time?"

"Yes, he did."

Arne fancied everybody was looking at him, and he dared not raise his eyes. "I say, as I said before," continued the man who had told the tale, "nothing can be buried so deeply that it won't one day be brought to light."

"Well, now I'll tell you about a son who beat his own father," said a fair stout man with a round face. Arne no longer knew where he was sitting.

"This son was a great fellow, almost a giant, belonging to a tall family in Hardanger; and he was always at odds with somebody or other. He and his father were always quarrelling about the yearly allowance; and so he had no peace either at home or out.

"This made him grow more and more wicked; and the father persecuted him. 'I won't be put down by anybody,' the son said. 'Yes, you'll be put down by me so long as I live,' the father answered. 'If you don't hold your tongue,' said the son, rising, 'I'll strike you.'—'Well, do if you dare; and never in this world will you have luck again,' answered the father, rising also.—'Do you mean to say that?' said the son; and he rushed upon him and knocked him down. But the father didn't try to help himself: he folded his arms and let the son do just as he liked with him. Then he knocked him about, rolled him over and over, and dragged him towards the door by his white hair. 'I'll have peace in my own house, at any rate,' said he. But when they had come to the door, the father raised himself a little and cried out, 'Not beyond the door, for so far I dragged my own father.' The son didn't heed it, but dragged the old man's head over the threshold. 'Not beyond the door, I say!' And the old man rose, knocked down the son and beat him as one would beat a child."

"Ah, that's a sad story," several said. Then Arne fancied he heard some one saying, "It's a wicked thing to strike one's father;" and he rose, turning deadly pale.

"Now I'll tell you something," he said; but he hardly knew what he was going to say: words seemed flying around him like large snowflakes. "I'll catch them at random," he said and began:—

"A troll once met a lad walking along the road weeping. 'Whom are you most afraid of?' asked the troll, 'yourself or others?' Now, the boy was weeping because he had dreamed last night he had killed his wicked father; and so he answered, 'I'm most afraid of myself.'—'Then fear yourself no longer, and never weep again; for henceforward you shall only have strife with others.' And the troll went his way. But the first whom the lad met jeered at him; and so the lad jeered at him again. The second he met beat him; and so he beat him again. The third he met tried to kill him; and so the lad killed him. Then all the people spoke ill of the lad; and so he spoke ill again of all the people. They shut the doors against him, and kept all their things away from him; so he stole what he wanted; and he even took his night's rest by stealth. As now they wouldn't let him come to do anything good, he only did what was bad; and all that was bad in other people, they let him suffer for. And the people in the place wept because of the mischief done by the lad; but he did not weep himself, for he could not. Then all the people met together and said, 'Let's go and drown him, for with him we drown all the evil that is in the place.' So they drowned him forthwith; but afterwards they thought the well where he was drowned gave forth a mighty odor.

"The lad himself didn't at all know he had done anything wrong; and so after his death he came drifting in to our Lord. There, sitting on a bench, he saw his father, whom he had not killed, after all; and opposite the father, on another bench, sat the one whom he had jeered at, the one he had beaten, the one he had killed, and all those whom he had stolen from, and those whom he had otherwise wronged.

"'Whom are you afraid of,' our Lord asked, 'of your father, or of those on the long bench?' The lad pointed to the long bench.

"'Sit down then by your father,' said our Lord; and the lad went to sit down. But then the father fell down from the bench with a large axe-cut in his neck. In his seat, came one in the likeness of the lad himself, but with a thin and ghastly pale face; another with a drunkard's face, matted hair, and drooping limbs; and one more with an insane face, torn clothes, and frightful laughter.

"'So it might have happened to you,' said our Lord.

"'Do you think so?' said the boy, catching hold of the Lord's coat.

"Then both the benches fell down from heaven; but the boy remained standing near the Lord rejoicing.

"'Remember this when you awake,' said our Lord; and the boy awoke.

"The boy who dreamed so is I; those who tempted him by thinking him bad are you. I am no longer afraid of myself, but I am afraid of you. Do not force me to evil; for it is uncertain if I get hold of the Lord's coat."

He ran out: the men looked at each other.