As he ran forward, he suddenly caught sight of a man who stood on a gravel path and beckoned to him.  “There is certainly someone who will help me!” thought the boy; he became intensely happy, and hurried off in that direction.  He was actually so frightened that the heart of him fairly thumped in his breast.

But when he came up to the man who stood on the edge of the gravel path, upon a low pedestal, he was absolutely thunderstruck.  “Surely, it can’t have been that one who beckoned to me!” thought he; for he saw that the entire man was made of wood.

He stood there and stared at him.  He was a thick-set man on short legs, with a broad, ruddy countenance, shiny, black hair and full black beard.  On his head he wore a wooden hat; on his body, a brown wooden coat; around his waist, a black wooden belt; on his legs he had wide wooden knee-breeches and wooden stockings; and on his feet black wooden shoes.  He was newly painted and newly varnished, so that he glistened and shone in the moonlight.  This undoubtedly had a good deal to do with giving him such a good-natured appearance, that the boy at once placed confidence in him.

In his left hand he held a wooden slate, and there the boy read: 

Most humbly I beg you,
  Though voice I may lack: 
Come drop a penny, do;
  But lift my hat!

Oh ho! the man was only a poor-box.  The boy felt that he had been done.  He had expected that this should be something really remarkable.  And now he remembered that grandpa had also spoken of the wooden man, and said that all the children in Karlskrona were so fond of him.  And that must have been true, for he, too, found it hard to part with the wooden man.  He had something so old-timy about him, that one could well take him to be many hundred years old; and at the same time, he looked so strong and bold, and animated—­just as one might imagine that folks looked in olden times.

The boy had so much fun looking at the wooden man, that he entirely forgot the one from whom he was fleeing.  But now he heard him.  He turned from the street and came into the churchyard.  He followed him here too!  Where should the boy go?

Just then he saw the wooden man bend down to him and stretch forth his big, broad hand.  It was impossible to believe anything but good of him; and with one jump, the boy stood in his hand.  The wooden man lifted him to his hat—­and stuck him under it.

The boy was just hidden, and the wooden man had just gotten his arm in its right place again, when the bronze man stopped in front of him and banged the stick on the ground, so that the wooden man shook on his pedestal.  Thereupon the bronze man said in a strong and resonant voice:  “Who might this one be?”

The wooden man’s arm went up, so that it creaked in the old woodwork, and he touched his hat brim as he replied:  “Rosenbom, by Your Majesty’s leave.  Once upon a time boatswain on the man-of-war, Dristigheten; after completed service, sexton at the Admiral’s church—­and, lately, carved in wood and exhibited in the churchyard as a poor-box.”