eight o’clock
`` But it 's silly all the same ; she might well be your mother -- apart from her age . '' And they both laugh . It can be still cozier on work-day evenings . Then the fire is burning openly in the stove , even after eight o'clock , and the lamp is shining , and Morten is there again . People come from all directions and look in for a moment 's visit , and the cold , an impediment to everything else , awakens all sorts of notable reminiscences . It is as though the world itself comes creeping into the workshop . Jeppe conjures up his apprentice years in the capital , and tells of the great bankruptcy ; he goes right back to the beginning of the century , to a wonderful old capital where the old people wore wigs , and the rope 's - end was always at hand and the apprentices just kept body and soul together , begging on Sundays before the doors of the townsfolk .