What was there to stand about there for? No one could find any satisfactory answer.
It was dark and cold, and wife and supper were waiting at home.
The crowd broke up in little groups by common instinct. Lund and Trane went. The workmen from the factory went. All of them together.
Over between the two bushes Rothe was giving orders in a low voice. It was Henrik Vang being lifted on to a wheelbarrow. Sivert and his bosom friend, Ditlev Pløk, the cobbler’s boy, were hauling each at one leg. When they came up to the level road, Sivert left the work to Ditlev, and clambered up himself beside Vang. The boy was wild with delight, and bubbling over with laughter and snatches of song. Madam Hermansen hurried up after them.
What had they been thinking of?
Away, away! homeward; see, the lights were lit already in the town.
The factory boys whistled like rockets, and marched in procession two and two about Petrea and her father.
The respectable citizens stepped out briskly to get warm, and laughed modestly one to another, like peasants emerging from a conjurer’s tent.
But never again!