Ringdal.
[As Lundestad descends from the rostrum.] And one cheer more for old Lundestad!
Some of the Crowd.
[Hissing.] Ss! Ss!
Many Voices.
[Drowning the others.] Hurrah for Lundestad! Long live old Lundestad! Hurrah!
[The Crowd gradually disperses. Monsen, his son Bastian, Stensgård, and Aslaksen make their way forward through the throng.
Monsen.
'Pon my soul, it's time he was laid on the shelf!
ASLAKSEN.
It was the local situation[1] he was talking about! Ho-ho!
Monsen.
He has made the same speech year after year as long as I can remember. Come over here.
Stensgård.
No, no, not that way, Mr. Monsen. We are quite deserting your daughter.
Monsen.
Oh, Ragna will find us again.
1 "Local situation" is a very ineffectual rendering of Aslaksen's phrase, "lokale forholde"—German, Verhältnisse—but there seems to be no other which will fit into all the different contexts in which it occurs. It reappears in An Enemy of the People, Act V.
