CHAPTER III.
_THE SERVANTS' HALL_ The ghostly spirit which ran through our house, first had free outlet down in the servants' hall, when the men and maids, and the wayfarers who were putting up for the night, sat in the evening in the red glow from the stove, and told all kinds of tales about shipwrecks and ghosts.
On the bench in the space between the stove and the wall, sat the strong, handsome man Jens with his carpentering and repairs; he used to do his work, and listen in silence to the others.

By the stove "Komag-Nils" busied himself with greasing komags [Komag--a peculiar kind of leather boot used by the Fins.] or skins--he had this name, because he made komags.

Komag-Nils was a little fellow, with untidy yellow hair, which hung over his eyes, and a face as round as a moon, on which the nose looked like a little button; when he laughed, his wide thin-lipped mouth and large jaws gave him almost the expression of a death's-head.
His small, watery eyes blinked at you mysteriously, but showed plainly that he was not wanting in common sense.

It was he, in fact, who could tell the greatest number of stories, but still more was it he who could get a stranger to tell stories of the visible or the invisible world just as they occurred to him.
A third man went by a nickname, which, however, they never gave him within his hearing; Anders Lead-head, was so called, because he now and then had bad fits of drinking, and nearly lost his place in consequence.
And yet in his way he was extremely capable.

In any real dilemma--in a storm--he rose at once to the responsible post of captain in the boat; for there was but one opinion of his capability as a sailor.