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 A Summer Night in a Norwegian Forest. 285 where the firs stood in rows like lofty pillars and where the ground resoanded under my steps. On the outskirt of this wood trickled a small brook, where the alder and the pine trees again sought to maintain their place, and on a small plot on the slope on the other side of a brook burned a great log-fire, which threw its red light far in between the trees. In front of the fire sat a dark figure, which, on account of its position between me and the blazing fire, appeared to me to be of super natural proportions. The old stories about robbers and thieves in this forest came suddenly back to me, and I was on the point of running away when my eyes caught sight of a hut, made out of fir-branches, close to the fire, and two other men, who sat outside it, and the many axes, which were fixed into the stump of a felled tree, and it became evident to me that they were wood cutters. The dark figure, an old man, was speaking, — I saw him move his lips ; he held a short pipe in his hand, which he only put to his mouth now and then to keep it alight by these occasional pulls. When I approached the group, the story had either come to an end or he had been interrupted, he stooped forward, put some glowing embers in his pipe, smoked incessantly and appeared to be atten tively listening to what a fourth person, who had just arrived, had to say. This person, who apparently also belonged to the party, was carrying a bucket of water from the brook. His hair was red, and he was dressed in a long jersey jacket, and had more the ap pearance of a tramp than a wood-cutter. He looked as if he had been frightened by something or other. The old man had now turned round towards him, and as I had crossed the brook and was approaching the party from the side, I could now see the old man plainly in the full glare of the fire. He was a short man with a long hooked nose. A blue skull-cap with a red border scarcely covered his head of bristly grey hair, and a short-bodied but long Ringerike coat of dark grey frieze with worn veivet borders served to make the roundness and crookedness of his back still more conspicuous. The new-comer appeared to be speaking about a bear.