"Every one thought it most strange that a dead hand could upset a fellow like Big Lazy-bones, even when it did not strike at all. The lensmand talked seriously to him about it,—of course when no one was by to hear. But then Big Lazy-bones swore until everything grew black about the lensmand.
"'Well, well,' said the lensmand, 'if you had nothing to do with this, you are just the fellow to go to bed with the skeleton to-night; hey?' 'To be sure I am,' replied Big Lazy-bones. And now the doctor jointed the bones firmly together, and placed the skeleton in one of the beds of the barracks. In the other Big Lazy-bones was to sleep, but the lensmand laid down in his gown, close up to the wall. When it grew dark and Big Lazy-bones had to go in to his bed-fellow, it just seemed as though the door shut of itself, and he stood in the dark. But Big Lazy-bones fell to singing hymns, for he had a strong voice. 'Why are you singing hymns?' asked the lensmand, outside of the wall. 'No one knows whether he has had the chorister,' answered Big Lazy-bones. Afterward he fell to praying with all his might. 'Why are you praying?' asked the lensmand, outside of the wall. 'He has no doubt been a great sinner,' answered Big Lazy-bones. Then for a long time all was still, and it really seemed as though the lensmand must be sleeping. Then there was a shriek that made the barracks shake. 'Sure to come back!' An infernal noise and uproar arose: 'Hand over those fifty dollars of mine!' bellowed Big Lazy-bones, and there followed a screaming and a wrestling; the lensmand flung open the door, people rushed in with sticks and stones, and there lay Big Lazy-bones in the middle of the floor, and on him was the skeleton."
It was very still around the table. Finally a man who was about to light his clay pipe, said:—
"He surely went mad after that day."
"He did."
Arne felt every one looking at him, and therefore he could not raise his eyes.
"It is, as I have said," put in the first speaker; "nothing can be buried so deep down in night that it will not find its way into daylight!"
"Well, now I will tell about a son who beat his own father," said a fair, heavily-built man, with a round face. Arne knew not where he was sitting.
"It was a bully of a powerful race, over in Hardanger; he was the ruin of many people. His father and he disagreed about the yearly allowance, and the result of this was that the man had no peace at home or in the parish.
"Owing to this he grew more and more wicked, and his father took him to task. 'I will take rebuke from no one,' said the son. 'From me you shall take it as long as I live,' said the father. 'If you do not hold your tongue I will beat you,' said the son, and sprang to his feet. 'Aye, do so if you dare, and you will never prosper in the world,' answered the father, as he too rose. 'Do you think so?'—and the son rushed at him and knocked him down. But the father did not resist; he crossed his arms and let his son do as he chose with him.