To Lars Peter the highroad was life itself. It gave daily bread to him and his, and satisfied his love of roaming. Such a piece of highroad between rows of trimmed poplars with endless by-ways off to farms and houses was full of possibilities. One could take this turning or that, according to one's mood at the moment, or leave the choice of the road to the nag. It always brought forth something.
And the highroad was only the outward sign of an endless chain. If one liked to wander straight on, instead of turning off, ay, then one would get far out in the world—as far as one cared. He did not do it of course; but the thought that it could be done was something in itself.
On the highroad he met people of his own blood: tramps who crawled up without permission on to his load, drawing a bottle from their pocket, offering it to him, and talking away. They were people who traveled far; yesterday they had come from Helsingör; in a week's time they would perhaps be over the borders in the south and down in Germany. They wore heavily nailed boots, and had a hollow instead of a stomach, a handkerchief round their throat and mittens on their red wrists—and were full of good humor. Klavs knew them quite well, and stopped of his own accord.
Klavs also stopped for poor women and school-children; Lars Peter and he agreed that all who cared to drive should have that pleasure. But respectable people they passed by; they of course would not condescend to drive with the rag and bone man.
They both knew the highroad with its by-ways equally well. When anything was doing, such as a thrashing-machine in the field, or a new house being built, one or other of them always stopped. Lars Peter pretended that it was the horse's inquisitiveness. "Well, have you seen enough?" he growled when they had stood for a short while, and gathered up the reins. Klavs did not mind the deception in the least, and in no way let it interfere with his own inclinations; Klavs liked his own way.
Things must be black indeed, if the highroad did not put the rag and bone man into a good temper. The calm rhythmic trot of the nag's hoofs against the firm road encouraged him to hum. The trees, the milestones with the crown above King Christian the Fifth's initials, the endless perspective ahead of him, with all its life and traffic—all had a cheering effect on him.
The snow had been trodden down, and only a thin layer covered with ice remained, which rang under the horse's big hoofs. The thin light air made breathing easy, and the sun shone redly over the snow. It was impossible to be anything but light-hearted. But then he remembered the object of the drive, and all was dark again.
Lars Peter had never done much thinking on his own account, or criticized existence. When something or other happened, it was because it could not be otherwise—and what was the good of speculating about it? When he was on the cart all these hours, he only hummed a kind of melody and had a sense of well-being. "I wonder what mother'll have for supper?" he would think, or "maybe the kiddies'll come to meet me today." That was all. He took bad and good trade as it came, and joy and sorrow just the same; he knew from experience that rain and sunshine come by turns. It had been thus in his parents' and grandparents' time, and his own had confirmed it. Then why speculate? If the bad weather lasted longer than usual, well, the good was so much better when it came.
And complaints were no good. Other people beside himself had to take things as they came. He had never had any strong feeling that there was a guiding hand behind it all.
But now he had to think, however useless he found it. Suddenly something would take him mercilessly by the neck, and always face him with the same hopeless: Why? A thousand times the thought of Sörine would crop up, making everything heavy and sad.