She sang some more verses. Arne lay still; a blessed peace came over him, and under its soothing influence he slept. The last word he heard distinctly was, "Christ;" it transported him into regions of light; and he fancied that he listened to a chorus of voices, but his mother's voice was clearer than all. Sweeter tones he had never heard, and he prayed to be allowed to sing in like manner; and then at once he began, gently and softly, and still more softly, until his bliss became rapture, and then suddenly all disappeared. He awoke, looked about him, listened attentively, but heard nothing save the little rivulet which flowed past the barn with a low and constant murmur. The mother was gone; but she had placed the half-made shirt and his jacket under his head.

IV.
THE UNLAMENTED DEATH.

Then, about midsummer, he met with Christian, the Captain's eldest son, who one day came to the wood with the servant boy, to catch the horses, and to ride them home. He was a few years older than Arne, light-hearted and jolly, restless in mind, but nevertheless strong in purpose; he spoke fast and abruptly, and generally about two things at once; shot birds in their flight; rode bare-backed horses; went fly-fishing; and altogether seemed to Arne the paragon of perfection. He, too, had set his mind upon travelling, and he talked to Arne about foreign countries till they shone like fairy-lands. He found out Arne's love for reading, and he carried up to him all the books he had read himself; on Sundays he taught him geography from maps: and during the whole of that summer Arne read till he became pale and thin.

Even when the winter came, he was permitted to read at home; partly because he was going to be confirmed the next year, and partly because he always knew how to manage with his father. He also began to go to school; but while there it seemed to him he never got on so well as when he shut his eyes and thought over the things in his books at home: and he no longer had any companions among the boys of the parish.

The father's bodily infirmity, as well as his passion for drinking, increased with his years; and he treated his wife worse and worse. And while Arne sat at home trying to amuse him, and often, merely to keep peace for the mother, telling things which he now despised, a hatred of his father grew up in his heart. But there he kept it secretly, just as he kept his love for his mother. Even when he happened to meet Christian, he said nothing to him about home affairs; but all their talk ran upon their books and their intended travels. But often when, after those wide roaming conversations, he was returning home alone, thinking of what he perhaps would have to see when he arrived there, he wept and prayed that God would take care he might soon be allowed to go away.

In the summer he and Christian were confirmed: and soon afterwards the latter carried out his purpose of travelling. At last, he prevailed upon his father to let him be a sailor; and he went far away; first giving Arne his books, and promising to write often to him.

Then Arne was left alone.

About this time a wish to make songs awoke again in his mind; and now he no longer patched old songs, but made new ones for himself, and said in them whatever most pained him.

But soon his heart became too heavy to let him make songs any more. He lay sleepless whole nights, feeling that he could not bear to stay at home any longer, and that he must go far away, find out Christian, and—not say a word about it to any one. But when he thought of the mother, and what would become of her, he could scarcely look her in the face; and his love made him linger still.

One evening when it was growing late, Arne sat reading: indeed, when he felt more sad than usual he always took refuge in his books; little understanding that they only increased his burden. The father had gone to a wedding party, but was expected home that evening; the mother, weary and afraid of him, had gone to bed. Then Arne was startled by the sound of a heavy fall in the passage, and of something hard pushing against the door. It was the father, just coming home.

"Is it you, my clever boy?" he muttered; "come and help your father to get up." Arne helped him up, and brought him to the bench; then carried in the violin-case after him, and shut the door. "Well, look at me, you clever boy; I don't look very handsome now; Nils, the tailor's no longer the man he used to be. One thing I—tell—you—you shall never drink spirits; they're—the devil, the world, and the flesh.... 'God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.' ... Oh dear! oh dear!—How far gone I am!"

He sat silent for a while, and then sang in a tearful voice,

"'Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldest come under my roof; but speak the word only....'" He threw himself forward, hid his face in his hands, and sobbed violently. Then, after lying thus a long while, he said, word for word out of the Scriptures, just as he had learned it more than twenty years ago, "'But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table.'"

Then he was silent, and his weeping became subdued and calm.

The mother had been long awake, without looking up; but now when she heard him weeping thus like one who is saved, she raised herself on her elbows, and gazed earnestly at him.

But scarcely did Nils perceive her before he called out, "Are you looking up, you ugly vixen! I suppose you would like to see what a state you have brought me to. Well, so I look, just so!" ... He rose; and she hid herself under the fur coverlet. "Nay, don't hide, I'm sure to find you," he said, stretching out his right hand and fumbling with his forefinger on the bed-clothes, "Tickle, tickle," he said, turning aside the fur coverlet, and putting his forefinger on her throat.

"Father!" cried Arne.

"How shrivelled and thin you've become already, there's no depth of flesh here!" She writhed beneath his touch, and seized his hand with both hers, but could not free herself.

"Father!" repeated Arne.

"Well at last you're roused. How she wriggles, the ugly thing! Can't you scream to make believe I am beating you? Tickle, tickle! I only want to take away your breath."

"Father!" Arne said once more, running to the corner of the room, and snatching up an axe which stood there.

"Is it only out of perverseness, you don't scream? you had better beware; for I've taken such a strange fancy into my head. Tickle, tickle! Now I think I shall soon get rid of that screaming of yours."

"Father!" Arne shouted, rushing towards him with the axe uplifted.

But before Arne could reach him, he started up with a piercing cry, laid his hand upon his heart, and fell heavily down. "Jesus Christ!" he muttered, and then lay quite still.

Arne stood as if rooted in the ground, and gradually lowered the axe. He grew dizzy and bewildered, and scarcely knew where he was. Then the mother began to move to and fro in the bed, and to breathe heavily, as if oppressed by some great weight lying upon her. Arne saw that she needed help; but yet he felt unable to render it. At last she raised herself a little, and saw the father lying stretched on the floor, and Arne standing beside him with the axe.

"Merciful Lord, what have you done?" she cried, springing out of the bed, putting on her skirt and coming nearer.

"He fell down himself," said Arne, at last regaining power to speak.

"Arne, Arne, I don't believe you," said the mother in a stern reproachful voice: "now Jesus help you!" And she threw herself upon the dead man with loud wailing.

But the boy awoke from his stupor, dropped the axe and fell down on his knees: "As true as I hope for mercy from God, I've not done it. I almost thought of doing it; I was so bewildered; but then he fell down himself; and here I've been standing ever since."

The mother looked at him, and believed him. "Then our Lord has been here Himself," she said quietly, sitting down on the floor and gazing before her.

Nils lay quite stiff, with open eyes and mouth, and hands drawn near together, as though he had at the last moment tried to fold them, but had been unable to do so. The first thing the mother now did was to fold them. "Let us look closer at him," she said then, going over to the fireplace, where the fire was almost out. Arne followed her, for he felt afraid of standing alone. She gave him a lighted fir-splinter to hold; then she once more went over to the dead body and stood by one side of it, while the son stood at the other, letting the light fall upon it.

"Yes, he's quite gone," she said; and then, after a little while, she continued, "and gone in an evil hour, I'm afraid."

Arne's hands trembled so much that the burning ashes of the splinter fell upon the father's clothes and set them on fire; but the boy did not perceive it, neither did the mother at first, for she was weeping. But soon she became aware of it through the bad smell, and she cried out in fear. When now the boy looked, it seemed to him as though the father himself was burning, and he dropped the splinter upon him, sinking down in a swoon. Up and down, and round and round, the room moved with him; the table moved, the bed moved; the axe hewed; the father rose and came to him; and then all of them came rolling upon him. Then he felt as if a soft cooling breeze passed over his face; and he cried out and awoke. The first thing he did was to look at the father, to assure himself that he still lay quietly.

And a feeling of inexpressible happiness came over the boy's mind when he saw that the father was dead—really dead; and he rose as though he were entering upon a new life.

The mother had extinguished the burning clothes, and began to lay out the body. She made the bed, and then said to Arne, "Take hold of your father, you're so strong, and help me to lay him nicely." They laid him on the bed, and Margit shut his eyes and mouth, stretched his limbs, and folded his hands once more.

Then they both stood looking at him. It was only a little past midnight, and they had to stay there with him till morning. Arne made a good fire, and the mother sat down by it. While sitting there, she looked back upon the many miserable days she had passed with Nils, and she thanked God for taking him away. "But still I had some happy days with him, too," she said after a while.

Arne took a seat opposite her; and, turning to him, she went on, "And to think that he should have such an end as this! even if he has not lived as he ought, truly he has suffered for it." She wept, looked over to the dead man, and continued, "But now God grant I may be repaid for all I have gone through with him. Arne, you must remember it was for your sake I suffered it all." The boy began to weep too. "Therefore, you must never leave me," she sobbed; "you are now my only comfort."

"I never will leave you; that I promise before God," the boy said, as earnestly as if he had thought of saying it for years. He felt a longing to go over to her; yet he could not.

She grew calmer, and, looking kindly over at the dead man, she said, "After all, there was a great deal of good in him; but the world dealt hardly by him.... But now he's gone to our Lord, and He'll be kinder to him, I'm sure." Then, as if she had been following out this thought within herself, she added, "We must pray for him. If I could, I would sing over him; but you, Arne, have such a fine voice, you must go and sing to your father."

Arne fetched the hymn-book and lighted a fir-splinter; and, holding it in one hand and the book in the other, he went to the head of the bed and sang in a clear voice Kingo's 127th hymn:

V.
"HE HAD IN HIS MIND A SONG."

One day he happened to overhear a conversation between his mother and the late owner of the place: they were at odds about the horse of which they were joint-owners. "I must wait and hear what Arne says," interposed the mother. "That sluggard!" the man exclaimed; "he would like the horse to ramble about in the wood, just as he does himself." Then the mother became silent, though before she had been pleading her cause well.

Arne flushed crimson. That his mother had to bear people's jeers on his account, never before occurred to him, and, "Perhaps she had borne many," he thought. "But why had she not told him of it?" he thought again.

He turned the matter over, and then it came into his mind that the mother scarcely ever talked to him at all. But, then, he scarcely ever talked to her either. But, after all, whom did he talk much to?

Often on Sundays, when he was sitting quietly at home, he would have liked to read the sermon to his mother, whose eyes were weak, for she had wept too much in her time. Still, he did not read it. Often, too, on weekdays, when she was sitting down, and he thought the time might hang heavy, he would have liked to offer to read some of his own books to her: still, he did not.

"Well, never mind," thought he: "I'll soon leave off tending the cattle on the mountains; and then I'll be more with mother." He let this resolve ripen within him for several days: meanwhile he drove his cattle far about in the wood, and made the following verses:

Then he went home and told the mother she might send for a lad to tend the cattle on the mountains; and that he would himself manage the farm: and so it was arranged. But the mother was constantly hovering about him, warning him not to work too hard. Then, too, she used to get him such nice meals that he often felt quite ashamed to take them; yet he said nothing.

He had in his mind a song having for its burden, "Over the mountains high;" but he never could complete it, principally because he always tried to bring the burden in every alternate line; so afterwards he gave this up.

But several of his songs became known, and were much liked; and many people, especially those who had known him from his childhood, were fond of talking to him. But he was shy to all whom he did not know, and he thought ill of them, mainly because he fancied they thought ill of him.

In the next field to his own worked a middle-aged man named Opplands-Knut, who used sometimes to sing, but always the same song. After Arne had heard him singing it for several months, he thought he would ask him whether he did not know any others. "No," Knut answered. Then after a few more days, when he was again singing his song, Arne asked him, "How came you to learn that one song?"

"Ah! it happened thus——" and then he said no more.

Arne went away from him straight indoors; and there he found his mother weeping; a thing he had not seen her do ever since the father's death. He turned back again, just as though he did not notice it; but he felt the mother was looking sorrowfully after him, and he was obliged to stop.

"What are you crying for, mother?" he asked. She did not answer, and all was silent in the room. Then his words came back to him again, and he felt they had not been spoken so kindly as they ought; and once more, in a gentler tone, he asked, "What are you crying for, mother?"

"Ah, I hardly know," she said, weeping still more. He stood silent a while; but at last mustered courage to say, "Still, there must be some reason why you are crying."

Again there was silence; but although the mother had not said one word of blame, he felt he was very guilty towards her. "Well it just came over me," she said after a while; and in a few moments she added, "but really, I'm very happy;" and then she began weeping again.

Arne hurried out, away to the ravine; and while he sat there looking into it, he, too, began weeping. "If I only knew what I am crying for," he said.

Then he heard Opplands-Knut singing in the fields above him:

Arne listened, and the words seemed to him like music playing far away over the mountains. He went up to Knut and asked him, "Have you a mother?"

"No."

"Have you a father?"

"Ah, no; no father."

"Is it long since they died?"

"Ah, yes; it's long since."

"You haven't many, I dare say, who love you?"

"Ah, no; not many."

"Have you any here at all?"

"No; not here."

"But away in your own place?"

"Ah, no; not there either."

"Haven't you any at all then who love you?"

"Ah, no; I haven't any."

But Arne walked away with his heart so full of love to his mother that it seemed as if it would burst; and all around him grew bright. He felt he must go in again, if only for the sake of looking at her. As he walked on the thought struck him, "What if I were to lose her?" He stopped suddenly. "Almighty God, what would then become of me?"

Then he felt as if some dreadful accident was happening at home, and he hurried onwards, cold drops bursting from his brow, and his feet hardly touching the ground. He threw open the outer door, and came at once into an atmosphere of peace. Then he gently opened the door of the inner room. The mother had gone to bed, and lay sleeping as calmly as a child, with the moonbeams shining full on her face.

VI.
STRANGE TALES.

"Yes," continued the man, "there is indeed, a great deal of sin in the world; and it sits nearer to us than we think.... But never mind; I'll tell you now of a foul deed. Those of you who are old will remember Alf—Alf, the pedlar. 'I'll call again,' Alf used to say: and he has left that saying behind him. When he had struck a bargain—and what a fellow for trade he was!—he would take up his bundle, and say, 'I'll call again.' A devil of a fellow, proud fellow, brave fellow, was he, Alf, the pedlar!

"Well he and Big Lazy-bones, Big Lazy-bones—well, you know Big Lazy-bones?—big he was, and lazy he was, too. He took a fancy to a coal-black horse that Alf, the pedlar, used to drive, and had trained to hop like a summer frog. And almost before Big Lazy-bones knew what he was about, he paid fifty dollars for this horse! Then Big Lazy-bones, tall as he was, got into a carriage, meaning to drive about like a king with his fifty-dollar-horse; but, though he whipped and swore like a devil, the horse kept running against all the doors and windows; for it was stone-blind!

"Afterwards, whenever Alf and Big Lazy-bones came across each other, they used to quarrel and fight about this horse like two dogs. Big Lazy-bones said he would have his money back; but he could not get a farthing of it: and Alf drubbed him till the bristles flew. 'I'll call again,' said Alf. A devil of a fellow, proud fellow, brave fellow that Alf—Alf, the pedlar!

"Well, after that some years passed away without his being seen again.

"Then, in about ten years or so, a call for him was published on the church-hill,[2] for a great fortune had been left him. Big Lazy-bones stood listening. 'Ah,' said he, 'I well knew it must be money, and not men, that called out for Alf, the pedlar.'

"Now, there was a good deal of talk one way and another about Alf; and at last it seemed to be pretty clearly made out that he had been seen for the last time on this side of the ledge, and not on the other. Well, you remember the road over the ledge—the old road?

"Of late, Big Lazy-bones had got quite a great man, and he owned both houses and land. Then, too, he had taken to being religious; and that, everybody knew, he didn't take to for nothing—nobody does. People began to whisper about these things.

"Just at this time the road over the ledge had to be altered. Folks in bygone days had a great fancy for going straight onwards; and so the old road ran straight over the ledge; but now-a-days we like to have things smooth and easy; and so the new road was made to run down along the river. While they were making it, there was digging and mining enough to bring down the whole mountain about their ears; and the magistrates and all the officers who have to do with that sort of thing were there. One day while the men were digging deep in the stony ground, one of them took up something which he thought was a stone; but it turned out to be the bones of a man's hand instead; and a wonderfully strong hand it seemed to be, for the man who got it fell flat down directly. That man was Big Lazy-bones. The magistrate was just strolling about round there, and they fetched him to the place; and then all the bones belonging to a whole man were dug out. The Doctor, too, was fetched; and he put them all together so cleverly that nothing was wanting but the flesh. And then it struck some of the people that the skeleton was just about the same size and make as Alf, the pedlar. 'I'll call again,' Alf used to say.

"And then it struck somebody else, that it was a very queer thing a dead hand should have made a great fellow like Big Lazy-bones fall flat down like that: and the magistrate accused him straight of having had more to do with that dead hand than he ought—of course, when nobody else was by. But then Big Lazy-bones foreswore it with such fearful oaths that the magistrate turned quite giddy. 'Well,' said the magistrate, 'if you didn't do it, I dare say you're a fellow, now, who would not mind sleeping with the skeleton to-night?'—'No; I shouldn't mind a bit,—not I,' said Big Lazy-bones. So the Doctor tied the joints of the skeleton together, and laid it in one of the beds in the barracks; and put another bed close by it for Big Lazy-bones. The magistrate wrapped himself in his cloak, and lay down close to the door outside. When night came on, and Big Lazy-bones had to go in to his bedfellow, the door shut behind him as though of itself, and he stood in the dark. But then Big Lazy-bones set off singing psalms, for he had a mighty voice. 'Why are you singing psalms?' the magistrate asked from outside the wall. 'May be the bells were never tolled for him,' answered Big Lazy-bones. Then he began praying out loud, as earnestly as ever he could. 'Why are you praying?' asked the magistrate from outside the wall. 'No doubt, he has been a great sinner,' answered Big Lazy-bones. Then a time after, all got so still that the magistrate might have gone to sleep. But then came a shrieking that made the very barracks shake: 'I'll call again!'—Then came a hellish noise and crash: 'Out with that fifty dollars of mine!' roared Big Lazy-bones: and the shrieking and crashing came again. Then the magistrate burst open the door; the people rushed in with poles and firebrands; and there lay Big Lazy-bones on the floor, with the skeleton on the top of him."

There was a deep silence all round the table. At last a man who was lighting his clay-pipe said, "Didn't he go mad from that very time?"

"Yes, he did."

Arne fancied everybody was looking at him, and he dared not raise his eyes. "I say, as I said before," continued the man who had told the tale, "nothing can be buried so deeply that it won't one day be brought to light."

"Well, now I'll tell you about a son who beat his own father," said a fair stout man with a round face. Arne no longer knew where he was sitting.

"This son was a great fellow, almost a giant, belonging to a tall family in Hardanger; and he was always at odds with somebody or other. He and his father were always quarrelling about the yearly allowance; and so he had no peace either at home or out.

"This made him grow more and more wicked; and the father persecuted him. 'I won't be put down by anybody,' the son said. 'Yes, you'll be put down by me so long as I live,' the father answered. 'If you don't hold your tongue,' said the son, rising, 'I'll strike you.'—'Well, do if you dare; and never in this world will you have luck again,' answered the father, rising also.—'Do you mean to say that?' said the son; and he rushed upon him and knocked him down. But the father didn't try to help himself: he folded his arms and let the son do just as he liked with him. Then he knocked him about, rolled him over and over, and dragged him towards the door by his white hair. 'I'll have peace in my own house, at any rate,' said he. But when they had come to the door, the father raised himself a little and cried out, 'Not beyond the door, for so far I dragged my own father.' The son didn't heed it, but dragged the old man's head over the threshold. 'Not beyond the door, I say!' And the old man rose, knocked down the son and beat him as one would beat a child."

"Ah, that's a sad story," several said. Then Arne fancied he heard some one saying, "It's a wicked thing to strike one's father;" and he rose, turning deadly pale.

"Now I'll tell you something," he said; but he hardly knew what he was going to say: words seemed flying around him like large snowflakes. "I'll catch them at random," he said and began:—

"A troll once met a lad walking along the road weeping. 'Whom are you most afraid of?' asked the troll, 'yourself or others?' Now, the boy was weeping because he had dreamed last night he had killed his wicked father; and so he answered, 'I'm most afraid of myself.'—'Then fear yourself no longer, and never weep again; for henceforward you shall only have strife with others.' And the troll went his way. But the first whom the lad met jeered at him; and so the lad jeered at him again. The second he met beat him; and so he beat him again. The third he met tried to kill him; and so the lad killed him. Then all the people spoke ill of the lad; and so he spoke ill again of all the people. They shut the doors against him, and kept all their things away from him; so he stole what he wanted; and he even took his night's rest by stealth. As now they wouldn't let him come to do anything good, he only did what was bad; and all that was bad in other people, they let him suffer for. And the people in the place wept because of the mischief done by the lad; but he did not weep himself, for he could not. Then all the people met together and said, 'Let's go and drown him, for with him we drown all the evil that is in the place.' So they drowned him forthwith; but afterwards they thought the well where he was drowned gave forth a mighty odor.

"The lad himself didn't at all know he had done anything wrong; and so after his death he came drifting in to our Lord. There, sitting on a bench, he saw his father, whom he had not killed, after all; and opposite the father, on another bench, sat the one whom he had jeered at, the one he had beaten, the one he had killed, and all those whom he had stolen from, and those whom he had otherwise wronged.

"'Whom are you afraid of,' our Lord asked, 'of your father, or of those on the long bench?' The lad pointed to the long bench.

"'Sit down then by your father,' said our Lord; and the lad went to sit down. But then the father fell down from the bench with a large axe-cut in his neck. In his seat, came one in the likeness of the lad himself, but with a thin and ghastly pale face; another with a drunkard's face, matted hair, and drooping limbs; and one more with an insane face, torn clothes, and frightful laughter.

"'So it might have happened to you,' said our Lord.

"'Do you think so?' said the boy, catching hold of the Lord's coat.

"Then both the benches fell down from heaven; but the boy remained standing near the Lord rejoicing.

"'Remember this when you awake,' said our Lord; and the boy awoke.

"The boy who dreamed so is I; those who tempted him by thinking him bad are you. I am no longer afraid of myself, but I am afraid of you. Do not force me to evil; for it is uncertain if I get hold of the Lord's coat."

He ran out: the men looked at each other.

VII.
THE SOLILOQUY IN THE BARN.

"I've cause enough to weep till the hills turned to lakes, but instead of that I say to myself, 'Hush, hush,' and begin rocking. And even my songs are cowardly; for if they were bold they would be better. I'm afraid of strong thoughts; afraid of anything that's strong; and if ever I rise into it, it's in a passion, and passion is cowardice. I'm more clever and know more than I seem; I'm better than my words, but my cowardice makes me afraid of showing myself in my true colors. Shame upon me! I drank that spirits through cowardice; I wanted to deaden my pain—shame upon me! I felt miserable all the while I was drinking it, yet I drank; drank my father's heart's-blood, and still I drank! In fact there's no end to my cowardice; and the most cowardly thing is, that I can sit and tell myself all this!

"... Kill myself? Oh, no! I am a vast deal too cowardly for that. Then, too, I believe a little in God ... yes, I believe in God. I would fain go to Him; but cowardice keeps me from going: it would be such a great change that a coward shrinks from it. But if I were to put forth what power I have? Almighty God, if I tried? Thou wouldst cure me in such a way as my milky spirit can bear; wouldst lead me gently; for I have no bones in me, nor even gristle—nothing but jelly. If I tried ... with good, gentle books,—I'm afraid of the strong ones—; with pleasant tales, stories, all that is mild, and then a sermon every Sunday, and a prayer every evening. If I tried to clear a field within me for religion; and worked in good earnest, for one cannot sow in laziness. If I tried; dear mild God of my childhood, if I tried!"

But then the barn-door was opened, and the mother came rushing across the floor. Her face was deadly pale, though the perspiration dropped from it like great tears. For the last twenty-four hours she had been rushing hither and thither, seeking her son, calling his name, and scarcely pausing even to listen, until now when he answered from the barn. Then she gave a loud cry, jumped upon the hay-mow more lightly than a boy, and threw herself upon Arne's breast....

... "Arne, Arne are you here? At last I've found you; I've been looking for you ever since yesterday; I've been looking for you all night long! Poor, poor Arne! I saw they worried you, and I wanted to come to speak to you and comfort you, but really I'm always afraid!" ... "Arne, I saw you drinking spirits! Almighty God, may I never see it again! Arne, I saw you drinking spirits." It was some minutes before she was able to speak again. "Christ have mercy upon you, my boy, I saw you drinking spirits! ... You were gone all at once, drunk and crushed by grief as you were! I ran all over the place; I went far into the fields; but I couldn't find you: I looked in every copse; I questioned everybody; I came here, too; but you didn't answer.... Arne, Arne, I went along the river; but it seemed nowhere to be deep enough...." She pressed herself closer to him.

"Then it came into my mind all at once that you might have gone home; and I'm sure I was only a quarter of an hour going there. I opened the outer-door and looked in every room; and then, for the first time, I remembered that the house had been locked up, and I myself had the key; and that you could not have come in, after all. Arne, last night I looked all along both sides of the road: I dared not go to the edge of the ravine.... I don't know how it was I came here again; nobody told me; it must have been the Lord himself who put it into my mind that you might be here!"

She paused and lay for a while with her head upon his breast.

He tried to comfort her.

"Arne, you'll never drink spirits again, I'm sure?"

"No; you may be sure I never will."

"I believe they were very hard upon you? they were, weren't they?"

"No; it was I who was cowardly," he answered, laying a great stress upon the word.

"I can't understand how they could behave badly to you. But, tell me, what did they do? you never will tell me anything;" and once more she began weeping.

"But you never tell me anything, either," he said in a low gentle voice.

"Yet you're the most in fault, Arne: I've been so long used to be silent through your father; you ought to have led me on a little.—Good Lord! we've only each other; and we've suffered so much together."

"Well, we must try to manage better," Arne whispered.

... "Next Sunday I'll read the sermon to you."

"God bless you for it." ...

"Arne!"

"Well!"

"There's something I must tell you."

"Well, mother, tell me it."

"I've greatly sinned against you; I've done something very wrong."

"You, mother?"

"Indeed, I have; but I couldn't help doing it. Arne, you must forgive me."

"But I'm sure you've never done anything wrong to me."

"Indeed, I have: and my very love to you made me do it. But you must forgive me; will you?"

"Yes, I will."

"And then another time I'll tell you all about it ... but you must forgive me!"

"Yes, mother, yes."

"And don't you see the reason why I couldn't talk much to you was, that I had this on my mind? I've sinned against you."

"Pray don't talk so, mother!"

"Well, I'm glad I've said what I have."

"And, mother, we'll talk more together, we two."

"Yes, that we will; and then you'll read the sermon to me?"

"I will."

"Poor Arne; God bless you!"

"I think we both had better go home now."

"Yes, we'll both go home."

"You're looking all round, mother?"

"Yes; your father once lay weeping in this barn."

"Father?" asked Arne, growing deadly pale.

"Poor Nils! It was the day you were christened."

"You're looking all round, Arne?"