en in silence he flung the crowbar down, and
began sharpening a pick, it was sufficiently evident that there was
thunder in the air.

By degrees during the morning they arrived, with staring eyes, beating
temples, and faces either pale or red from being up all night, one with
a swollen eye, another with a plaster across his nose. Their voices were
hoarse, and they each went silently to work. They must exert themselves
if they were to get through all the tool-work that remained.

Work went on uninterruptedly almost the whole afternoon, without a word
being spoken over the whole smithy. By that time most of the work had
been got through, and Haegberg himself went out to do business in the
town.

Those who were left at work shone with perspiration, and either because
work had been the best cure for the excesses of the preceding Midsummer
Day and Midsummer Eve, or it was the general relief at the departure of
the master, one man began suddenly to sing, a couple more to yawn and
stretch themselves lazily in the enjoyment of their pleasant
recollections; and then the talk began about the way they had each spent
their holiday.

Only Nikolai went on undisturbed; he cared more about a screw-hole in
the hinge on his probation work than all their Midsummer Eve outings,
and if he only worked away now, it would be finished by the end of the
month.

His small hammer sounded above their talk,--the tar-barrels, wood-stacks
and old house-walls that they had burnt, and their drinking and
merriment until they had not a penny left,--haw-haw!

The hammer rang above it all.

Jan Peter had gone in a boat over to the islands, and seen so many
bonfires,[3] both there and on the hills round, that it was impossible
to count them.

[Footnote 3: It is the custom in Norway on Midsummer Eve to burn large
bonfires, which can be seen for many miles round.]

Yes, when a fellow's drunk!

The hammer went on again.

One man stretched himself and yawned with the whole Midsummer holiday in
his jaws. "Up on Grefsen ridge, cold punch had flowed down the hill as
good as free. Veyergang's son had given the girls at the factory an old
boat from Maridal Lake and half a barrel of pitch; heard the cuckoo and
had larks all night--came down again when it was nearly eight o'clock."

The hammer rang no longer.

"Veyergang's son--the girls at Veyergang's factory!" Nikolai stood,
anxious and uncertain, listening, and now and again glancing quickly and
sh