had done him.  Not only because he had tried to tempt him and ruin him, but, worst of all, because he had driven him away from that town, where Petter Nord could have remained Petter Nord all the days of his life.  Oh, what fun he had had in those days, how happy and glad he had been, how open his heart, how beautiful the world!  Lord God, if he had only been allowed always to live here!  And he thought of what he was now—­silent and stupid, serious and industrious—­quite like a prodigal.

He grew passionately angry with Halfvorson, and instead of, as before, following his companions, he dashed past them.

But the tramps, who had not come merely to punish Halfvorson, but also to let their wrath break loose, hardly knew how to begin.  There was nothing for an angry man to do here.  There was not a dog to chase, not a street-sweeper to pick a quarrel with, nor a fine gentleman at whom to throw an insult.

It was early in the year; the spring was just turning into summer.  It was the white time of cherry and hawthorn blossoms, when bunches of lilacs cover the high, round bushes, and the air is full of the fragrance of the apple-blossoms.  These men who had come direct from paved streets and wharves to this realm of flowers were strangely affected by it.  Three pairs of fists that till now had been fiercely clenched, relaxed, and three pairs of heels thundered a little less violently against the pavement.

From the market-place they saw a pathway that wound up the hill.  Along it grew young cherry-trees which formed vaulted arches with their white tops.  The arch was light and floating, and the branches absurdly slender, altogether weak, delicate and youthful.

The cherry-tree path attracted the eyes of the men against their will.  What an unpractical hole it was, where people planted cherry trees, where any one could take the cherries.  The three Petters had considered it before as a nest of iniquity, full of cruelty and tyranny.  Now they began to laugh at it, and even to despise it a little.

But the fourth one of the company did not laugh.  His longing for revenge was seething ever more fiercely, for he felt that this was the town where he ought to have lived and labored.  It was his lost paradise.  And without paying any attention to the others he walked quickly up the street.

They followed him; and when they saw that there was only one street, and when they saw only flowers, and more flowers the whole length of it, their scorn and their good humor increased.  It was perhaps the first time in their lives that they had ever noticed flowers, but here they could not help it, for the clusters of lilac blossoms brushed off their caps and the petals of cherry-blossoms rained down over them.

“What kind of people do you suppose live in this town?” said Long-Petter, musingly.

“Bees,” answered Cobbler-Petter, who had received his name because he had once lived in the same house as a shoemaker.