L/
 
 ARNE 
 
 >!tetd) of Bortoegtan Country Life 
 
 BY 
 
 BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE NORWEGIAN BY 
 
 AUGUSTA PLESNER AND S. RUGELEY-POWERS 
 
 SEVER, FRANCIS, & CO 
 iSostau <intj Cambrtfop 
 1869
 
 CAMBRIDGE : 
 
 PRESS OK JOHN WILSON AND SON-
 
 t 
 
 * 
 
 r 
 
 TRANSLATORS' PREFACE. 
 
 I "TIE story which is here first presented in an 
 * English form, is one of Herr Bjiirnson's best 
 works. In the original, it has already attained a 
 very wide circulation throughout Northern Europe, 
 and is there generally recognized as one of the 
 truest and most beautiful representations of Norwe- 
 gian life. At the present time, when there is among 
 us a constantly increasing interest in all things per- 
 taining to the Scandinavian nations, this work pos- 
 sesses great claims to attention, not only through its 
 intrinsic merits, but also from the fact that it is one 
 of the very few works which can, in the fullest 
 sense, be termed Norwegian. During the long 
 political union of Norway with Denmark, Nor- 
 wegian literature was so deeply imbued by Danish 
 thought and feeling, that it could not be considered 
 national. After those political changes in 1814, 
 which placed Norway among the free nations, she 
 strove to take an independent position ; and she pro- 
 duced several gifted writers who endeavored to cre- 
 ate a national literature ; but she had for many years 
 
 ',? * A 
 *^ 7
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 no great works unimpressed with the old Danish 
 stamp. Not till 1857, when a young and compara- 
 tively unknown writer published a book called 
 f ' Synnove Solbakken," can the distinct literary 
 life of Norway be considered to have commenced. 
 That young writer was Bjurnstjerne Bjornson. Since 
 the appearance of ''Synnove Solbakken," he has pro- 
 duced the present story, a few other short sketches, 
 and several dramatic works. All these productions 
 are, both in subject and style, thoroughly represent- 
 ative of the grand old nation whence they sprang ; 
 and the}' are, moreover, so full of original poetic 
 beauty and descriptive power, that they have 
 stamped their author as one of the greatest writers 
 in Northern Europe. 
 
 While presenting this work from one who so well 
 deserves to be known and honored by all. we very 
 much wish we could also present a sketch of his 
 histnrv. But, so far as we have been able to ascer- 
 tain, there is verv little material ; for, happily, llerr 
 Bjornson is yet young, and in the midst of his liter- 
 ary career : and therefore only a small part of his 
 life-story can yet be told. We have, however, ob- 
 tained a te\v interesting details, principally from a 
 little sketch in the Danish of llerr Clemens Peter- 
 sen. 
 
 Herr Bjornson is the son of a clergyman: and 
 was born in 1*32. at Kvikne, a lonely parish on the 
 Dovre Field. In his earliest years, he was so far 
 from being marked by any unusual degree of men- 
 tal development, that he was even regarded as
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 " stupid : " he seems to have been at that time merely 
 a strong-limbed, happy, playful little fellow. When- 
 ever he was at home, he .constantly made the quiet 
 parsonage a scene of confusion and uproar through 
 his wild play. "Things," says Herr Petersen, 
 " which had within the memory of man never been 
 moved, were flung down ; chairs and tables spun 
 round ; and all the girls and boys in the place ran 
 about with him in noisy play ; while his mother 
 used to clasp her hands in fright, and declare he 
 must soon be sent off to sea." When, in his twelfth 
 year, he went to school, he appears to have been 
 just as little characterized by any unusual mental 
 development, and just as much by physical activity. 
 He was placed on the lowest form to learn with the 
 little boys. But when he got out-doors into the 
 playground, he was at once among the leaders, and 
 feared nobody : on one occasion he soundly thrashed 
 the strongest boy in the whole school. Although, 
 however, no one else at this time saw any promise 
 of his future greatness, he had himself a presenti- 
 ment of it : deep in the heart of the rough Norwe- 
 gian school-boy, who seemed to think of little but 
 play, was hidden a purpose to become an author, 
 and even the greatest of all authors. 
 
 At the University, Ilerr ]>j<">rnson was as little dis- 
 tinguished by intellectual attainments as at school ; 
 and he never passed the second part of his examina- 
 tion, lie seems, indeed, never to have been a very 
 earnest student of any writings save those " manu- 
 scripts of God '' contained in the great volumes of
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Nature and human society. These, few have stud- 
 ied more earnestly, or translated with greater force 
 and beauty. 
 
 While studying at the University, Herr Bjornson's 
 literary purposes still remained ; and during this 
 time he produced his first drama, "Valburg," though 
 he had then never read one dramatic work through, 
 or been at a theatre more than twice in his life. He 
 sent '' Valburg " to the managers of the theatre at 
 Christiana ; and it was accepted. But as soon as he 
 had been to the theatre a few times, he decided that, 
 in its present state, it was not a fit medium for the 
 expression of his inner life ; and he therefore took 
 his piece back before it had been played. For a 
 while afterwards, he devoted a great part of his 
 time to dramatic criticism. He attacked some of 
 the prevalent errors in theatrical affairs with so 
 much force and boldness that he greatly exasperated 
 the orthodox actors and managers, and thus brought 
 down much annoyance upon himself. His criti- 
 cisms were, however, the means of greatlv improv- 
 ing the Norwegian drama, especially by partly 
 releasing it from the undue Danish influence which 
 prevented it from becoming truly national. 
 
 Herr Bjornson subsequently abandoned his dra- 
 matic criticism, left Christiana, and returned to his 
 lather's home in the country. Here he assiduously 
 devoted himself to literary work, but without very 
 satisfactory tangible results. Next, he went back 
 to Christiana, and employed himself in writing for 
 various periodicals, where he inserted a series of
 
 PREFACE. vii 
 
 short sketches which, although far inferior to his 
 subsequent and more mature productions, bore 
 strong indications of genius, and attracted much 
 attention. But, meanwhile, their noble young au- 
 thor lived a sad and weary life depressed by the 
 fear that his best hopes would never be realized 
 harassed by pecuniary difficulties, and tormented 
 by the most cruel persecution. Next, he went to 
 Upsala, where he still employed himself upon peri- 
 odical literature, and .had an interval of comparative 
 quiet and happiness. Thence, he travelled to Ham- 
 burg, and afterwards to Copenhagen. Here he 
 remained half a year, living a quiet, studious life, 
 and associating with some of the most eminent men 
 in the city. "Those days," said he, "were the best 
 I ever had." Certainly, they were very fruitful 
 ones. In them he produced one complete work, 
 parts of several others, and the first half of " Syn- 
 nove Solbakken," the tale which was destined to 
 place him in the foremost rank of Scandinavian 
 writers. It is a remarkable fact that shortly before 
 he left Copenhagen with all this heap of wealth, he 
 had passed through a crisis of such miserable de- 
 pression that he was just about to abandon literary 
 labor for ever, through a sense of utter iniitness to 
 perform it. 
 
 From Copenhagen, Herr Bjornson returned to 
 Norway, and was for two years manager of the 
 theatre at Bergen, occupying most of the time in 
 the training of actors. Thence he went, with his 
 young wife, again to Christiana, where he for sonic
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 months edited Aftcnbladct, one of the leading Nor- 
 wegian journals. 
 
 Relative to Herr Bjornson's subsequent life and 
 labors, there is but very little available informa- 
 tion. 
 
 Of our own part in the following pages, we have 
 but to say we have earnestly endeavored to deal 
 faithfully and reverently with Herr Bjornson's work, 
 and to render nearly every passage as fully and lit- 
 erally as the construction of the two languages per- 
 mits. The only exceptions are two very short, and 
 comparatively very unimportant passages, which we 
 have ventured to omit, because we believed they 
 would render the book less acceptable to English 
 readers. 
 
 LONDON. June, 1866.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PACK 
 
 I. How THE CLIFF WAS CLAD n 
 
 II. A CLOUDY DAWN 15 
 
 III. SKEING AN OLD LOVE 24 
 
 IV. TIIK UNLAMKNTED DEATH 34 
 
 V. "HE HAD IN HIS MlXD A SoNG " 42 
 
 VI., STRANGE TALES 48 
 
 VII. THE SOLILOQUY IN THE BARN 55 
 
 VIII. THE SHADOWS ON THE WATER 60 
 
 IX. THE NUTTING-PARTY 68 
 
 X. LOOSENING THE WEATHER-\'ANE 83 
 
 XI. ELI'S SICKNESS 95 
 
 XII. A GLIMPSE OF STRING 104 
 
 XIII. MARGIT CONSULTS THE CLERGYMAN 112 
 
 XIV. FINDING A LOST SONG 122 
 
 XV. SOMEHODY'S FUTURE HOME 131 
 
 XVI. THE DOUBLE WEDDING . . 147
 
 A R N E. 
 
 i. 
 
 HOW THE CLIFF WAS CLAD. 
 
 BETWEEN two cliffs lay a deep ravine, with a full 
 stream rolling heavily through it over boulders and 
 rough ground. It was high and steep, and one side was 
 bare, save at the foot, where clustered a thick, fresh 
 wood, so close to the stream that the mist from the water 
 lay upon the foliage in spring and autumn. The trees 
 stood looking upwards and forwards, unable to move 
 either way. 
 
 'What if we were to clothe the Cliff?" said the Juni- 
 per one day to the foreign Oak that stood next him. 
 The Oak looked down to find out who was speaking, 
 and then looked up again without answering a word. 
 The Stream worked so hard that it grew white : the 
 Nortlnvind rushed through the ravine, and shrieked in 
 the fissures ; and the bare Cliff hung heavilv over and 
 felt cold. "What if we were to clothe the Cliff?" said 
 the Juniper to the Fir on the other side. Well, if anv- 
 body is to do it, I suppose we must," replied the Fir. 
 stroking his beard ; "what dost thou think? "he added, 
 looking over to the Birch. " In God's name, let us 
 clothe it," answered the Birch, glancing timidlv towards 
 the Cliff, which hung over her so heavilv that she felt as 
 if she could scarcely breathe. And thus, although they
 
 12 ARXE. 
 
 were but three, they agreed to clothe the Cliff. The 
 Juniper went first. 
 
 "When thev had gone a little way they met the Heather, 
 The Juniper seemed as though he meant to pass her by. 
 "Xay. let us take the Heather with us," said the Fir. 
 So on went the Heather. Soon the Juniper began to 
 slip. "Lav hold on me," said the Heather. The Juni- 
 per did so. and where there was onlv a little crevice the 
 Heather put in one finger, and where she had got in one 
 linger the Juniper put in his whole hand. They crawled 
 and climbed, the Fir heavily behind with the Birch. u It 
 is a work of chanty," said the Birch. 
 
 But the Cliff began to ponder what little things these 
 could be that came clambering up it. And when it had 
 thought over this a few hundred years, it sent down a 
 little Brook to see about it. It was ju:4 spring Rood, 
 and the Brook rushed on till she met the Heather. 
 "Dear, dear Heather, canst thou not let me pass? I 
 am so little." said the Brook. The Heather, being very 
 busv. onh raised herself a little, and worked on. The 
 Brook slipped under her, and ran omvards. "Dear. 
 dear Juniper, canst thou not let me pass? I am so 
 little." said the Brook. The juniper glanced sharply 
 at her; but as the Heather had let her pass, he thought 
 he might do so as well. The Brook slipped under 
 him. and ran on till she came where the Fir stood 
 panting on a crag. " Dear, dear Fir. canst thou not 
 let me pa>-.? I am so little." the Brook said, fondlv 
 ki--ing the Fir on his foot. The Fir felt bashful and 
 let her pass. l!ut the Birch made wav before the 
 I'.rook asked. lie. he, he." laughed the Brook, as 
 she grew larger. "I hi. ha. ha." laughed the Brook 
 again, pushing Heather and Juniper. Fir and Birch, 
 forwards and backwards, up and down on the great
 
 HOW THE CLIFF WAS CI.AI). 13 
 
 crags. The Cliff sat for many hundred years after, 
 pondering whether it did not smile a little that day. 
 
 It was clear the Cliff did not wish to be clad. The 
 Heather felt so vexed that she turned green again, and 
 then she went on. u Never mind; take courage!" said 
 the Heather. 
 
 The Juniper sat up to look at the Heather, and at 
 last he rose to his feet. lie scratched his head a mo- 
 ment, and then he too went on again, and clutched 
 so firmly, that he thought the Cliff could not help 
 feeling it. " If thou wilt not take me, then I will take 
 thee," said he. The Fir bent his toes a little to feel if 
 they were whole, lifted one foot, which he found all 
 right, then the other, which was all right too. and then 
 both feet. lie first examined the path lie had come, 
 then where he had been lying, and at last where he 
 had to go. Then lie strode onwards, just as though 
 he had never fallen. The Birch had been splashed 
 very badly, but now she got up and made herself tidy, 
 And so they went rapidly on, upwards and sidewards. 
 in sunshine and rain. " But what in the world is all 
 this?" said the Cliff, when the summer sun shone, the 
 dew-drops glittered, the birds sang, the wood-mouse 
 squeaked, the hare bounded, and the weasel hid and 
 screamed among the trees. 
 
 Then the day came when the Heather could peep 
 over the Cliff's edge. " Oh. dear me ! " said she. and 
 over she went. "\\hat is it the Heather sues, dear:" 
 said the Juniper, and came forwards till lie. too. could 
 pee]) over. Dear me ! " he cried, and over he went. 
 "What's the matter with the Juniper to-dav:" said the 
 Fir. taking long strides in the hot sun. Soon he. too. 
 by standing on tiptoes could peep over. "Ah ! " every 
 branch and prickle stood on end with astonishment, lie
 
 14 ARNE. 
 
 strode onwards, and over he went. " What is it they all 
 see, and not I?" said the Birch, lifting up her skirts, and 
 tripping after. "Ah!" said she, putting her head over, 
 " there is a whole forest, both of Fir and Heather, and 
 Juniper and Birch, waiting for us on the plain ; " and her 
 leaves trembled in the sunshine till the dew-drops fell. 
 This comes of reaching forwards," said the Juniper.
 
 A CLOUDY DAWN. 15 
 
 II. 
 
 A CLOUD T DAWN. 
 
 ARNE was born upon the mountain plain. 
 His mother's name was Margit, and she was the 
 only child at the farm, Kanipen. In her eighteenth year 
 she once stayed too long at a dancing party. The friends 
 she came with had left, and then she thought the way 
 homewards would be just the same whether she stayed 
 over another dance or not. So it came to pass that she 
 was still sitting there when the fiddler, Nils, the tailor, 
 laid aside his violin and asked another man to play. He 
 then took out the prettiest girl to dance, his feet keeping 
 as exact time as the music to a song, while with his boot- 
 heel he kicked off the hat of the tallest man there. ' ; Ho ! " 
 he said. 
 
 As Margit walked home that night, the moonbeams 
 played upon the snow with such strange beauty, that 
 after she had gone up to her bedchamber she felt she 
 must look out at them once more. .She took oil' her 
 bodice, but remained standing with it in her hand. Then 
 she felt chilly, undressed herself hastily, and crouched 
 far down beneath the fur coverlet. That ni^ht she 
 dreamed of a great red cow which had gone astrav in 
 the corn-fields. She wished to drive it out. but however 
 much she tried, she could not move from the spot: and 
 the cow stood quietly, and went on eating till it grew 
 plump and satisfied, from time to time looking over to 
 her with its lanre. mild eves.
 
 1 6 ARNE. 
 
 The next time there was a dance in the parish, Margit 
 was there. She sat listening to the music, and cared 
 little for the dancing that night ; and she was glad some- 
 body else, too, cared no more for it than she did. But 
 when it grew later the fiddler, Nils, the tailor, rose, and 
 wished to dance. He went straight over and took out 
 Margit. and before she well knew what she was doing 
 she danced with him. 
 
 Soon the weather turned warmer, and there was no 
 more dancing. That spring Margit took so much care 
 of a little sick lamb, that her mother thought her quite 
 foolish. ' It's only a lamb, after all." said the mother. 
 "Yes; but it's sick," answered Margit. 
 
 It was a long time since Margit had been to church ; 
 somebody must stay at home, she used to say, and she 
 would rather let the mother go. One Sunday, however, 
 later in the summer, the weather seemed so fine that the 
 hay might very well be left over that day and night, the 
 mother said, and she thought both of them might go. 
 Margit had nothing to say against it. and she went to 
 dress herself. .But when they had gone far enough to 
 hear the church bells, she suddenly burst into tears. 
 The mother grew deadly pale ; yet they went on to 
 church, heard the sermon and prayers, sang all the 
 hymns, and let the last sound of the bells die away be- 
 fore they left. Hut when they were seated at home again, 
 the mother took Margit' s face between her hands, and 
 said. "Keep back nothing from me, my child!" 
 
 When another winter came Margit did not dance. 
 Hut Nils, the tailor, played and drank more than ever, 
 and always danced with the prettiest girl at every party. 
 People then said, in fact, he might have had any one of 
 the first girls in the parish for his wife if lie chose ; and 
 some even said that Eli Hoen had himself made an oiler
 
 A CLOUDY DAWN. 1 7 
 
 for his daughter, Birgit, who had quite fallen in love 
 with him. 
 
 But just at that time an infant born at Kampen was 
 baptized, and received the name, Arne ; but Nils, the 
 tailor, was said to be its father. 
 
 On the evening of the same day, Nils went to a large 
 wedding-party ; and there he got drunk. He would not 
 play, but danced all the time, and seemed as if he could 
 hardly bear to have any one on the floor save himself. 
 But when he asked Birgit Boen to dance, she refused. 
 He gave a short, forced laugh, turned on his heel and 
 asked the first girl at hand. She was a little dark girl 
 who had been sitting looking at him, but now when he 
 spoke to her, she turned pale and drew back. He looked 
 down, leaned slightly over her, and whispered, " Won't 
 you dance with me, Kari ? " She did not answer. He 
 repeated his question, and then she replied, also in a 
 whisper, " That dance might go further than I wished." 
 He drew back slowly ; but when he reached the middle 
 of the room, he made a quick turn, and danced the hai- 
 ling* alone, while the rest looked on in silence. 
 
 Afterwards, he went away into the barn, lay down, 
 and wept. 
 
 Margit stayed at home with little Arne. When she 
 heard how Nils rushed from dancing-party to dancing- 
 party, she looked at the child and wept, but then she 
 looked at him once more and was happy. The first 
 name she taught him to say was, father; bui this she 
 dared not do when the mother, or the grandmother, as 
 she was now called, was near ; and so it came to pass 
 that the little one called the grandmother, "Father." 
 
 * The /tailing is a Norwegian national dance, of which a de- 
 scription is given on pp. 20, 21. TRANSLATORS. 
 
 3
 
 1 8 ARNE. 
 
 Margit took great pains to break him of this, and thus 
 she caused an early thoughtfulness in him. He was but 
 a little fellow when he learned that Nils, the tailor, was 
 his father ; and just when he came to the age when 
 children most love strange, romantic things, he also 
 learned what sort of man Nils was. But the grand- 
 mother had strictly forbidden the very mention of his 
 name ; her mind was set only upon extending Kampcn 
 and making it their own property, so that Margit and 
 the boy might be independent. Taking advantage of 
 the landowner's poverty, she bought the place, paid off 
 part of the purchase-money every year, and managed 
 her farm like a man ; for she had been a widow fourteen 
 years. Under her care, Kampcn had been extended till 
 it could now feed four cows, sixteen sheep, and a horse 
 of which she was joint owner. 
 
 Meantime, Nils, the tailor, continued to go about work- 
 ing in the parish ; but he had less to do than formerly, 
 partly because he was less attentive to his trade, and 
 partly because he was not so well liked. Then he took 
 to going out oftener to play the fiddle at parties; this 
 gave him more opportunities for drinking, and thus came 
 more fighting and miserable days. 
 
 One winter day, when Arne was about six years old, 
 he was playing on the bed, where he had set up the 
 coverlet for a boat-sail, while he sat steering with a ladle. 
 The grandmother sat in the room spinning, busy with 
 her own thoughts, and every now and then nodding, as 
 though in affirmation of her own conclusions. Then the 
 boy knew she was taking no notice of him ; and so he 
 sang, just as he had learned it, a wild, rough song about 
 Nils, the tailor : 
 
 "Unless 'twas only yesterday, hither first you came, 
 You've surely heard already of Nils, the tailor's fame.
 
 A CLOUDY DAWN. 19 
 
 Unless 'twas but this morning, you came among us first, 
 You've heard how he knocked over tall Johan Knutson Kirst; 
 
 How in his famous barn-fight with Ola Stor-Johann, 
 
 He said, 'Bring down jour porridge when we two fight again.' 
 
 That fighting fellow, Bugge, a famous man was he : 
 His name was known all over fiord and fell and sea. 
 
 'Now, choose the place, you tailor, where I shall knock you 
 
 down ; 
 And then I'll spit upon it, and there I'll lay your crown.' 
 
 'Ah, only come so near, I may catch your scent, my man: 
 Your bragging hurts nobody; don't dream it ever can.' 
 
 The first round was a poor one, and neither man could beat; 
 But both kept in their places, and steady on their feet. 
 
 The second round, poor Bugge was beaten black and blue. 
 'Little Bugge, are you tired? It's going hard with you.' 
 
 The third round, Bugge tumbled, and bleeding there he lay. 
 'Now, Bugge, where's your bragging ?' 'Bad luck to me to- 
 day!'" 
 
 This was all the boy sang ; but there were two verses 
 more which the mother had never taught him. The 
 grandmother knew these last verses only too well ; and 
 she remembered them all the better because the boy did 
 not sing them. She said nothing to him, however, but 
 to the mother, she said, " If you think it well to teach 
 him the first verses, don't forget to teach him the last 
 ones, too." 
 
 Nils, the tailor, was so broken down by his drinking, 
 that he was not like the same man ; and people began to 
 say he would soon be utterlv ruined. 
 
 About this time a wedding was celebrated in the neigh- 
 borhood, and two American gentlemen, who were visit- 
 ing near, came to witness it, as they wished to see the
 
 2O ARXE. 
 
 customs of the country. Nils played ; and the two 
 gentlemen each gave a dollar for him, and then asked 
 for the hailing. But no one came forward to dance it ; 
 and several begged Nils himself to come : " After all, he 
 was still the best dancer," they said. He refused ; out 
 their request became still more urgent, and at last all in 
 the room joined in it. This was just what he wanted ; 
 and at once he handed his fiddle to another man. took 
 oft' his jacket and cap. and stepped smilingly into the 
 middle of the room. They all came round to look at 
 him, just as they used to do in his better days, and this 
 gave him back his old strength. They crowded closely 
 together, those farthest back standing on tables and 
 benches. Several of the girls stood higher than all the 
 rest; and the foremost of them a tall girl, with bright 
 auburn hair, blue eyes, deeply set under a high forehead, 
 and thin lips, which often smiled and then drew a little 
 to one side was Birgit Boen : Nils caught her eye as 
 he glanced upwards at the beam. The music struck up ; 
 a deep silence ensued ; and he began. lie squatted on 
 the floor, and hopped sidewards in time with the music ; 
 swung from one side to another, crossed, and uncrossed 
 his legs under him several times ; sprang up again, and 
 stood as though he were going to take a leap ; but then 
 shirked it, and went on hopping sidewards as before. 
 The fiddle was skilfully plaved, and the tune became 
 more and more exciting. Nils gradually threw his head 
 backwarder, and then suddenlv kicked the beam, scatter- 
 ing the dust from the ceiling down upon the people 
 below. Thev laughed and shouted round him, and the 
 girls stood almost breathless. The sound of the violin 
 rose high above the noise, stimulating him by still wilder 
 notes, and he did not resist their influence. He bent 
 forward ; hopped in time with the music ; stood up as
 
 A CLOUDY DAWN. 21 
 
 though he were going to take a leap, but shirked it, 
 swung from one side to the other as before ; and just 
 when he looked as if he had not the least thought of 
 leaping, leaped up and kicked the beam again and again. 
 Next he turned somersaults forwards and backwards, 
 coming upon his feet firmly, and standing up quite 
 straight each time. Then he suddenly left off; and the 
 tune, after running through some wild variations, died 
 away in one long, deep note on the bass. The crowd 
 dispersed, and an animated conversation in loud tones 
 followed the silence. Nils leaned against the wall ; and 
 the American gentlemen, with their interpreter, went 
 over to him, each giving him five dollars. Once more 
 all were silent. 
 
 The Americans said a few words aside to their inter- 
 preter, who then asked Nils whether he would go with 
 them as their servant. "Where?" Nils asked, while 
 the people crowded round as closely as possible. " Out 
 into the world," was the answer. " When?" Nils asked, 
 as he looked round him with a bright face ; his eyes fell 
 on Birgit Boon, and he did not take them off again. " In 
 a week's time when they come back here," answered the 
 interpreter. "Well, perhaps I may then be ready," said 
 Nils, weighing his ten dollars, and trembling so violently, 
 that a man on whose shoulder he was resting one arm, 
 asked him to sit down. 
 
 " Oh, it's nothing," he answered, and he took a few 
 faltering steps across the iloor. then, some firmer ones, 
 turned round, and asked for a springing-dance. 
 
 The girls stood foremost in the circle. lie looked 
 slowly round, and then went straight over to one in a 
 dark colored skirt: it was Birgit Bocn. lie stretched 
 forth his hand, and she gave both hers ; but he drew 
 back with a laugh, took out a girl who stood next, and
 
 22 ARNE. 
 
 danced off gaily. Birgit's face and neck flushed crimson ; 
 and in a moment a tall, mild-looking man, who was 
 standing behind her, took her hand and danced away 
 with her just after Nils. He saw them, and whether 
 purposely or not, pushed against them so violently that 
 they both fell heavily to the floor. Loud cries and laugh- 
 ter were heard all round. Birgit rose, went aside, and 
 cried bitterly. 
 
 Her partner rose more slowly, and went straight over 
 to Nils, who was still dancing : " You must stop a little," 
 he said. Nils did not hear ; so the other man laid hold 
 on his arm. He tore himself away, looked at the man, 
 and said with a smile, " I don't know you." 
 
 " P'r'aps not ; but now I'll let you know who I am," 
 said the man, giving him a blow just over one eye. Nils 
 was quite unprepared for this, and fell heavily on the 
 sharp edge of the fireplace. He tried to rise, but he 
 could not: his spine was broken. 
 
 At Kampen, a change had taken place. Of late the 
 grandmother had become more infirm, and as she felt 
 her strength failing, she took greater pains than ever to 
 save money to pay off the remaining debt upon the farm. 
 " Then you and the boy," she used to say to Margit, 
 "will be comfortably oil". And mind, if ever you bring 
 anybody into the place to ruin it for you, I shall turn in 
 my grave." In harvest-time, she had the great satisfac- 
 tion of going up to the late landowner's house with the 
 last of the money due to him ; and happy she felt when, 
 seated once more in the porch at home, she could at last 
 say, " Now it's done." But in that same hour she was 
 seixcd with her last illness ; she went to bed at once, 
 and rose no more. Margit had her buried in the church- 
 yard, and a nice headstone was set over her, inscribed 
 with her name and age, and a verse from one of Kingo's
 
 A CLOUDY DAWN. 23 
 
 hymns. A fortnight after her burial, her black Sunday 
 gown was made into a suit of clothes for the boy ; and 
 when he was dressed in them he became as grave as 
 even the grandmother herself. He went of his own 
 accord and took up the book with clasps and large print 
 from which she used to read and sing every Sunday ; he 
 opened it, and there he found her spectacles. These he 
 had never been allowed to touch while she was living; 
 now he took them out half fearfully, placed them over 
 his nose, and looked down through them into the book. 
 All became ha/y. "How strange this is," he thought; 
 " it was through them grandmother could read God's 
 word ! " He held them high up against the light to see 
 what was the matter, and the spectacles dropped on 
 the floor, broken in twenty pieces. 
 
 He was much frightened, and when at the same mo- 
 ment the door opened, he felt as if it must be the grand- 
 mother herself who was coming in. But it was the 
 mother, and behind her came six men, who, with much 
 stamping and noise, brought in a litter which they placed 
 in the middle of the room. The door was left open so 
 long after them, that the room grew quite cold. 
 
 On the litter lay a man with a pale face and dark hair. 
 The mother walked to and fro and wept. " Be careful 
 how vou lay him on the bed," she said imploringly, 
 helping them herself. But all the while the men were 
 moving him. something grated beneath their feet. "Ah, 
 that's only grandmother's spectacles," the boy thought j 
 but he said nothing.
 
 24 ARXE. 
 
 III. 
 
 SEEING AN OLD LOVE. 
 
 TT was, as we have said before, just harvest-time. A 
 week after the day when Nils had been carried into 
 Margit Kampen's house, the American gentlemen sent 
 him word to get ready to go with them. He was just 
 then lying writhing under a violent attack of pain ; and, 
 clenching his teeth, he cried, " Let them go to the devil !" 
 Margit remained waiting, as if she had not received any 
 answer ; he noticed this, and after a while he repeated, 
 faintly and slowly. " Let them go." 
 
 As the winter advanced, he recovered so far as to be 
 able to get up, though his health was broken for life. 
 The first day he could get up he took his fiddle and tuned 
 it ; but it excited him so much that he had to go to bed 
 again. lie talked very little, but was gentle and kind, 
 and soon he began to read with Arne, and to take in 
 work. Still he never went out ; and he did not talk to 
 those who came to see him. At first Margit used to tell 
 him the news of the parish, but it made him gloomy, 
 and so she soon left off. 
 
 \\ hen spring came he and Margit often sat longer than 
 usual talking together after supper, when Arne had been 
 sent to bed. Later in the season the banns of marriage 
 were published for them, and then they were quietly 
 married. 
 
 lie worked on the farm, and managed wiselv and 
 steadily ; and Margit said to Arne, " lie is industrious,
 
 SEEING AN OLD LOVE. 25 
 
 as well as pleasant ; now you must be obedient and kind, 
 and do your best for him." 
 
 Margit had even in the midst of her trouble remained 
 tolerably stout. She had rosy cheeks, large eves, sur- 
 rounded by dark circles which made them seem still 
 larger, full lips, and a round face ; and she looked 
 healthy and strong, although she really had not much 
 strength. Now, she looked better than ever; and she 
 always sang at her work, just as she used to do. 
 
 Then one Sunday afternoon, the father and son went 
 out to see how things were getting on in the fields. Arne 
 ran about, shooting with a bow and arrows, which the 
 father had himself made for him. Thus, they went on 
 straight towards the road which led past the church, and 
 down to the place which was called the broad valley. 
 When they came there, Nils sat down on a stone and 
 fell into a reverie, while Arnc went on shooting, and 
 running for his arrows along the road in the direction of 
 the church. " Onlv not too far away," Nils said. Just 
 as Arne was at the height of his plav, he stopped, listen- 
 ing, and called out, " Father, I hear music." Nils, too, 
 listened ; and they heard the sound of violins, sometimes 
 drowned by loud, wild shouts, while above all rose the 
 rattling of wheels, and the trampling of horses' hoofs : 
 it was a bridal train coming home from the church. 
 '' Come here, lad," the father said, in a tone which made 
 Arne feel he must come quicklv. The father had risen 
 hastily, and now stood hidden behind a large tree. Arne 
 followed till the father called out, " Not here, but go 
 yonder ! " Then the boy ran behind an elm-copse. The 
 train of carriages hail already turned the corner of the 
 birch-wood ; the horses, white with foam, galloping at a 
 furious rate, while drunken people shouted and hallooed. 
 The father and Arne counted the carriages one after
 
 26 ARNE. 
 
 another : there were fourteen. In the first, two fiddlers 
 were sitting ; and the wedding tune sounded merrily 
 through the clear air : a lad stood behind driving. In 
 the next carriage sat the bride, with her crown and 
 ornaments glittering in the sunshine. She was tall, and 
 when she smiled her mouth drew a little to one side ; 
 with her sat a mild-looking man, dressed in blue. Then 
 came the rest of the carriages, the men sitting on the 
 women's laps, and little boys behind ; drunken men 
 riding six together in a one-horse carriage ; while in the 
 last sat the purveyor of the feast, with a cask of brandy 
 in his arms. They drove rapidly past Nils and Arne, 
 shouting and singing down the hill ; while behind them 
 the breeze bore upwards, through a cloud of dust, the 
 sound of the violins, the cries, and the rattling of the 
 wheels, at first loud, then fainter and fainter, till at last 
 it died away in the distance. Nils remained standing 
 motionless till he heard a little rustling behind him ; then 
 he turned round : it was Arne stealing forth from his 
 hiding-place. 
 
 "Who was it, father?" lie asked; but then he started 
 back a little, for Nils' face had an evil look. The boy 
 stood silently, waiting for an answer ; but he got none ; 
 and at last, becoming impatient, he ventured to ask, 
 " Arc we going now ?" Nils was still standing motion- 
 less, looking dreamilv in the direction where the bridal 
 train had gone ; then he collected himself, and walked 
 homewards. Arne followed, and once more began to 
 shoot and to run after his arrows. " Don't trample down 
 the meadow," said Nils abruptlv. The boy let the arrow 
 lie and came back ; but soon he forgot the warning, and, 
 while the father once more stood still, he lay down to 
 make somersaults. " Don't trample down the meadow, 
 I say," repeated Nils, seizing his arm and snatching him
 
 SEEING AN OLD I.OVK. 27 
 
 up by it almost violently enough to sprain it. Then the 
 boy went on silently behind him. 
 
 At the door Margit stood waiting for them. She had 
 just come from the cow-house, where it seemed she had 
 been working hard, for her hair was rough, her linen 
 soiled, and her dress untidy ; but she stood in the door- 
 way smiling. " Red-side has calved," she said ; " and 
 never in all my life did I see such a great calf." Away 
 rushed Arnc. 
 
 '- I think you might make yourself a little tidy of 
 a Sunday," said Nils as he went past her into the 
 room. 
 
 " Yes. now the work's done, there'll be time for dress- 
 ing." answered Margit, following him : and she began 
 to dress, singing meanwhile. Margit now sang very 
 well, though sometimes her voice was a little hoarse. 
 
 " Leave oft" that screaming," said Nils, throwing him- 
 self upon the bed. Margit left oft'. Then the boy came 
 bustling in, all out of breath. ' The calf, the calf's got 
 red marks on each side and a spot on the forehead, just 
 like his mother." 
 
 . " Hold vour tongue, boy ! " cried Nils, putting down 
 one of his feet from the bed. and stamping on the floor. 
 "The deuce is in that bustling boy," he growled out, 
 drawing up his foot again. 
 
 u You can see very well father's out of spirits to-day," 
 the mother said to Arne, by way of warning. ' Shouldn't 
 you like some strong coffee with treacle?" she then said, 
 turning to Nils trying to drive away his ill-temper. 
 Coffee with treacle had been a favorite drink with the 
 grandmother and Margit, and Arne liked it too. But 
 Nils never liked it, though he used to take it with the 
 others. '* Shouldn't you like some strong coffee with 
 treacle?" Margit asked again, for he did not answer
 
 28 ARNE. 
 
 the first time. Now, he raised himself on his elbows, 
 and cried in a loud, harsh voice, " Do you think I'll guz- 
 zle that filthy stuff?" 
 
 Margit was thunder-struck ; and she went out, taking 
 the boy with her. 
 
 They had several things to do out-doors, and they did 
 not come in till supper-time ; then Nils had gone. Arnc 
 was sent out into the field to call him, but could not find 
 him anywhere. They waited till the supper was nearly 
 cold ; but Nils had not come even when it was finished. 
 Then Margit grew fidgety, sent Arne to bed, and sat 
 down, waiting. A little past midnight Nils came home. 
 "Where have you been, dear?" she asked. 
 
 " That's no business of yours," he answered, seating 
 himself slowly on the bench. He was drunk. 
 
 From that time he often went out into the parish ; and 
 he was always drunk when he came back. ' I can't bear 
 stopping at home with you," he once said when he came 
 in. She gently tried to plead her cause ; but he stamped 
 on the floor, and bade her be silent. Was he drunk, 
 then it was her fault ; was he wicked, that was her fault, 
 too ; had he become a cripple and an unlucky man for 
 all his life, then, again, she and that cursed boy of hers 
 were the cause of it. " Why were you always dangling 
 after me?" he said, blubbering. "What harm had I 
 done you ? " 
 
 " God help and bless me ! " Margit answered, " was it 
 I that ran after you ? " 
 
 " Yes, that you did," lie cried, raising himself; and, 
 still blubbering, he continued, "Now, at last, it has turned 
 out just as you would have it : I drag along here day 
 after day every day looking on my own grave. But 
 I might have lived in splendor with the first girl in the 
 parish ; I might have travelled as far as the sun ; if you
 
 SEEING AN OLD LOVE. 29 
 
 and that cursed boy of yours hadn't put yourselves in my 
 way." 
 
 Again she tried to defend herself: " It isn't the boy's 
 fault, at any rate." 
 
 " Hold your tongue, or I'll strike you ! " and he did 
 strike her. 
 
 The next day, when he had slept himself sober, he felt 
 ashamed, and would especially be kind to the boy. But 
 he was soon drunk again ; and then he beat Margit. At 
 last he beat her 'almost every time he was drunk ; Arne 
 then cried and fretted, and so he beat him, too ; but often 
 he was so miserable afterwards that he felt obliged to go 
 out again and take some more spirits. At this time, too, 
 he began once more to set his mind on going to dancing- 
 parties. He played at them just as he used to do before 
 his illness ; and he took Arne with him to carry the 
 fiddle-case. At these parties the child saw and heard 
 much which was not good for him ; and the mother often 
 wept because he was taken there : still she dared not say 
 anything to the father about it. But to the child she 
 often imploringly said, with many caresses, " Keep close 
 to God, and don't learn anything wicked." But at the 
 dancing-parties there was very much to amuse him, while 
 at home with the mother there was very little ; and so he 
 turned more and more away from her to the father : she 
 saw it, but was silent. lie learned many songs at these 
 parties, and he used to sing them to the father, who felt 
 amused, and laughed now and then at them. This flat- 
 tered the boy so much that he set himself to learn as 
 many songs as he could ; and soon he found out what it 
 was that the father liked, and that made him laugh. 
 When there was nothing of this kind in the songs, the 
 boy would himself put something in as well as he could ; 
 and thus he early acquired facility in setting words to
 
 JO ARNE. 
 
 music. But lampoons and disgusting stories about peo- 
 ple who had risen to wealth and influence, were the things 
 which the father liked best, and which the boy sang. 
 
 The mother always wished him to go with her in the 
 cow-house to tend the cattle in the evening. He used to 
 find all sorts of excuses to avoid going ; but it was of no 
 use ; she was resolved he should go. There she talked 
 :o him about God and good things, and generally ended 
 by pressing him to her heart, imploring him, with many 
 tears, not to become a bad man. 
 
 She helped him, too, in his reading-lessons. He was 
 extremely quick in learning ; and the father felt proud of 
 him, and told him especially when he was drunk 
 that he had his cleverness. 
 
 At dancing-parties, when the father was drunk, he used 
 often to ask Arne to sing to the people ; and then he 
 would sing song after song, amidst their loud laughter 
 and applause. This pleased him even more than it 
 pleased his father ; and at last he used to sing songs with- 
 out number. Some anxious mothers who heard this, 
 came to Margit and told her about it, because the subjects 
 of the songs were not such as thev ought to have been. 
 Then she called the boy to her side, and forbade him, in 
 the name of God and all that was good, to sing such 
 songs any more. And now it seemed to him that she 
 was always opposed to what gave him pleasure ; and, for 
 the first time in his life, he told the father what she had 
 said ; and when he was again drunk she had to suffer for 
 it severelv : till then lie had not spoken of it. Then 
 Arne saw clearlv how wrong a thing he had clone, and 
 in the depths of his soul he asked God and her to forgive 
 him ; but he could not ask it in words. She continued 
 to show him the same kindness as before, and it pierced 
 his heart.
 
 SEEING AN OLD LOVE. 3! 
 
 Once, however, in spite of all, he again wronged her. 
 He had a talent for mimicking people, especially in their 
 speaking and singing ; and one evening, while he was 
 amusing the father in this way, the mother entered, and, 
 when she was going away, the father took it into his head 
 to ask him to mimic her. At first he refused ; but the 
 father, who lay on the bed laughing till he shook, insisted 
 upon his doing it. " She's gone," the boy thought, " and 
 can't hear me ; " and he mimicked her singing, just as it 
 was when her voice was hoarse and obstructed by tears. 
 The father laughed till the boy grew quite frightened 
 and at once left off. Then the mother came in from the 
 kitchen, looked at Arne long and mournfully, went over 
 to the shelf, took down a milk-dish and carried it away. 
 
 He felt burning hot all over : she had heard it all. lie 
 jumped down from the table where he had been sitting, 
 went out, threw himself on the ground, and wished to 
 hide himself for ever in the earth. He could not rest, 
 and he rose and went farther from the house. Passing 
 bv the barn, he there saw his mother sitting, making a 
 new fine shirt for him. It was her usual habit to sing a 
 hymn while sewing : now, however, she was silent. 
 Then Arne could bear it no longer ; he threw himself on 
 the grass at her feet, looked up in her face, and wept and 
 sobbed bitterly. Margit let fall her work, and took his 
 head between her hands. 
 
 ' Poor Arne ! " she said, putting her face down to his. 
 He did not try to say a word, but wept as he had never 
 wept before. "I knew you were good at heart," she said, 
 stroking his head. 
 
 'Mother, you mustn't refuse what I am now going to 
 ask," were the first words he was able to utter. 
 
 You know I never do refuse you," answered she. 
 
 He tried to stop his tears, and then, with his face still
 
 32 ARNE. 
 
 in her lap, he stammered out, " Do sing a little for me, 
 mother." 
 
 " You know I can't do it," she said, in a low voice. 
 
 " Sing something for me, mother," implored the boy ; 
 " or I shall never have courage to look you in the face 
 again." She went on stroking his hair, but was silent. 
 " Do sing, mother dear," he implored again ; " or I shall 
 go far away, and never come back any more." Though 
 he was now almost fifteen years old, he lay there with his 
 head in his mother's lap, and she began to sing : 
 
 "Merciful Father, take in thy care 
 
 The child as he plays by the shore; 
 Send him Thy Holy Spirit there, 
 
 And leave him alone no more. 
 Slipp'ry's the way, and high is the tide; 
 Still if Thou keepest close by his side 
 He never will, drown, but live for Thee, 
 And then at the last Thy heaven will see. 
 
 Wondering where her child is astray, 
 
 The mother stands at the cottage door, 
 Calls him a hundred times i' the day, 
 
 And fears he will come no more. 
 But then she thinks, whatever betide, 
 The Spirit of God will be his Guide, 
 And Christ the blessed, his little Brother, 
 Will carry him back to his longing mother." 
 
 She sang some more verses. Arne lay still ; a blessed 
 peace came over him, and under its soothing influence lie 
 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 man- 
 ner ; and then at once he began, gently and softly, and
 
 SEEING AN OLD LOVE. 33 
 
 still more softly, until his bliss became rapture, and then 
 suddenly all disappeared. lie awoke, looked about him, 
 listened attentively, but heard nothing save the little riv- 
 ulet which flowed past the barn with a low and constant 
 murmur. The mother was gone ; bvit she had placed the 
 half-made shirt and his jacket under his head.
 
 34 ARXE. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE UNLAMENTED DEATH. 
 
 WHEN now the time of year came for the cattle to 
 be sent into the wood, Arne wished to go to tend 
 them. But the father opposed him : indeed, he had never 
 gone before, though he was now in his fifteenth year. 
 But he pleaded so well, that his wish was at last complied 
 with ; and so during the spring, summer, and autumn, he 
 passed the whole day alone in the wood, and only came 
 home to sleep. 
 
 lie took his books up there, and read, carved letters in 
 the bark of the trees, thought, longed, and sang. Hut 
 when in the evening he came home and found the father 
 often drunk and beating the mother, cursing her and the 
 whole parish, and saying how once he might have gone 
 far awav, then a longing for travelling arose in the lad's 
 mind. There was no comfort for him at home: and his 
 books made his thoughts travel ; nay. it seemed some- 
 times as if the very breeze bore them on its wings far 
 away. 
 
 Then, about midsummer, he met with Christian, the 
 Captain's eldest son, who one day came to the wood with 
 the servant bov. 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
 
 THE UNLAMENTED DEATH. 35 
 
 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. lie 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 lather'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 try- 
 ing 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, lie wept and prayed that God 
 would take care he might MK>U be allowed to go away. 
 
 In the summer he and Christian were confirmed : and 
 soon afterwards the latter carried out his purpose of trav- 
 elling. 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.
 
 36 AKXE. 
 
 Then Arnc was left alone. 
 
 About this time a wish to make songs awoke again in 
 his mind ; and now he no longer patched old songs, hut 
 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 anv more, lie lay sleepless whole nights, feeling 
 that he could not bear to stay at home anv longer, and 
 that lie must go far away, find out Christian, and not 
 sav a word about it to anyone. But when he thought of 
 the mother, and what would become of her, he could 
 scarcclv look her in the face ; and his love made him 
 linger still. 
 
 One evening when it was growing late. Arne sat read- 
 ing: indeed, when he felt more sad than usual he always 
 took refuge in his brinks ; little understanding that they 
 onlv increased his burden. The father had gone to a 
 wedding partv. but was expected home that evening; 
 the mother, wearv and afraid of him, had gone to bed. 
 Then Arne was startled bv the sound of a heavy fall in 
 the passage, and of something hard pushing against the 
 door. Tt was the father, just coming home. 
 
 ' Is it vou. mv clever bov?" 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 
 ait<-r him. and shut the door. ' Well, look at me. vou 
 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 vou shall never drink spirits; thev're the 
 devil, the world, and the flesh. . . . k (iod resisteth the 
 proud, but givelh grace to the humble.' . . . Oh dear! 
 oh dear ! I low far gone I am ! " 
 
 lie sat silent for a while, and then sang in a tearful 
 voice,
 
 THE UXLAMEXTED DEATH. 37 
 
 " Merciful Lord, I come to Thee; 
 Help, if there can be help for me; 
 Though bv the mire of sin defiled, 
 I'm still Thine own dear ransomed child." 
 
 ' ; ' Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldcst come 
 under inv roof; but speak the word only . . . ' lie- 
 threw himself forward, hid his face in his hands, and 
 sobbed violently. Then, after lying thus a long 1 while, 
 he said, word for word out of the Scriptures, just as he 
 had learned it more than twenty years ago, " ' I5ut he 
 answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep 
 of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped 
 him. saving. 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. 
 
 lint scarcely did Nils perceive her before he called out, 
 "Are you looking up, vou ugly vixen! I suppose you 
 would like to see what a state vou have brought me to. 
 \\ell. so I look, just so!" . . . He rose; and she hid 
 herself under the fur coverlet. " Xav, don't hide. I'm 
 sure to find vou." he said, stretching out his right hand 
 and tumbling with his forelingvr 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 ahvadv, 
 there's no depth of ilesh here ! " She writhed beneath
 
 38 ARXE. 
 
 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 cor- 
 ner of the room, and snatching up an axe which stood 
 there. 
 
 " Is it onlv out of perverscness, you don't scream? you 
 had better beware ; for I've taken such a strange fancy 
 into my head. Tickle, tickle ! Xow 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 witli 
 a piercing crv. 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 di/./v and bewildered, and 
 scarcelv knew where lie was. Then the mother began 
 to move to and fro in the bed. and to breathe heavilv, as 
 if oppressed by some great weight King upon her. Arne 
 saw that she needed help; but vet he felt unable to ren- 
 der it. At last she raised herself a little, and saw the 
 father King 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 coining 
 nearer. 
 
 " lie fell down himself." said Arne, at last regaining 
 power to speak.
 
 THE UXLAMENTED DEATH. -}O, 
 
 "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 quictlv. sitting 
 down on the floor and ga/ing before her. 
 
 IS Us lay quite still', 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 lire was almost out. Arne fol- 
 lowed 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 bv one side of it, 
 while the son stood at the other, letting the light fall 
 upon it. 
 
 Yes. lie's quite gone," she said : and then, after a 
 little while, she continued, "and gone in an e\ il 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 lire; but the bov 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. \Yhcn now the bov 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
 
 40 ARXE. 
 
 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 
 bov's mind when he saw that the father was dead really 
 dead : and he rose as though he were entering upon a 
 new life. 
 
 Tl.e 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 lire, 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 sutlercd for it." She wept, looked over to the 
 dead man. and continued. " But now (jod grant I may 
 be repaid \~<>r 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."
 
 THE UNLAMEXTED DEATH. 41 
 
 " 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, u After all, there was a great deal of good 
 in him ; but the world dealt hardly bv 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 prav for 
 him. If 1 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 i2/th hvmn : 
 
 Regard us again in mercy, O God! 
 And turn Thou aside Thv terrible rod, 
 That now in Thv wrath laid on us we see 
 To chasten us sore for sin against Thee."
 
 42 AUNE. 
 
 V. 
 
 "HE HAD IN HIS MIND A SONG." 
 
 \ RNE was now in his twentieth year. Yet he con- 
 -^^- tinned tending the cattle upon the mountains in 
 the summer, while in the winter he remained at home 
 studying. 
 
 About this time the clergyman sent a message, askin^ 
 
 C5^ O ' O 
 
 him to become the parish schoolmaster, and saying his 
 gifts and knowledge might thus be made useful to his 
 neighbors. Arne sent no answer ; but the next day, 
 while he was driving his flock, he made the following 
 verses : 
 
 " O, my pet lamb, lift your head, 
 Though a stony path YOU tread, 
 Over all the lonely fells, 
 Only follow still your bells. 
 
 O. my pet lamb, walk with care; 
 Lest you spoil your wool, beware : 
 Mother now must soon be sewing 
 New lamb-skins, for summer's going. 
 
 O, my pet lamb, try to grow 
 Fat and fine where'er you go : 
 Know you not. my little sweeting, 
 A spring-lamb is dainty eating?'' 
 
 One dav he happened to overhear a conversation be- 
 tween 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," inter-
 
 " HE HAD IN HIS MIND A SONG." 43 
 
 posed 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 eves 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 davs : meanwhile he drove his cattle far about 
 in the wood, and made the following verses : 
 
 " The vale is full of trouble, but here sweet Peace may reign; 
 Within this quiet forest no bailiffs may distrain; 
 None fight, like all in the vale, in the Blessed Church's name; 
 But still if a church were here, perhaps 'twould be just the 
 same. 
 
 Here all are at peace true, the hawk is rather unkind; 
 I fear lie is looking now the plumpest sparrow to find; 
 I fear yon eagle is coming to rob the kid of his breath; 
 But still if he lived very long he might be tired to death.
 
 44 ARNE. 
 
 The woodman fells one tree, and another rots away : 
 The red fox killed the lambkin at sunset yesterday; 
 But the wolf killed the fox; and the wolf, too, had to die, 
 For Arne shot him down to-day before the dew was dry. 
 
 Back I'll go to the valley : the forest is just as bad 
 
 I must take heed, however, or thinking will drive me mad 
 
 I saw a bov in mv dreams, though where I cannot tell 
 
 But I know he had killed his father, and I think it was in hell." 
 
 Then he went home and told the mother she might send 
 for a lad to tend the cattle on the mountains ; and that he 
 \vould himself manage the farm : and so it was arranged. 
 But the mother was constantly hovering about him, warn- 
 ing 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 com- 
 plete 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 ot 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 Opphmds-Knut. who used sometimes to sing, but 
 always the same song. After Arne had heard him sing- 
 ing it for .several months, he thought he would ask him 
 whether he did not know any others. ' No." Knut an- 
 swered. Then after a few more days, when he was 
 again singing his song. Arne asked him, " How came 
 you to learn that one song:'
 
 ' HE HAD IN HIS MIND A SOXG." 45 
 
 'Ah! it happened thus " and then he said no 
 
 more. 
 
 Avne 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 buck 
 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, 
 lie 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. u Well it just came over me," she said after 
 a while ; and in a few moments she added, " but 
 reallv. I'm very happv ; " and then she began weeping 
 again. 
 
 Arne hurried out. awav to the ravine : and while he 
 sat there looking into it. he. too, began weeping. " If I 
 onlv knew what I am crving for," he said. 
 
 Then he heard Opplands-Knut singing in the fields 
 above him : 
 
 Inherit! Sletton of Willow-pool 
 
 Had no co>tlv trinkets to wear; 
 But a cap she had that was far more fair, 
 Although 't\va.s onlv of wool.
 
 46 ARXE. 
 
 It had no trimming, and now was old; 
 
 But her mother, who long had gone, 
 
 Had given it her, and so it shone 
 To Ingerid more than gold. 
 
 For twenty years she laid it aside, 
 That it might not be worn away : 
 "My cap I'll wear on that blissful day 
 
 When I shall become a bride.' 
 
 For thirty years she laid it aside 
 Lest the colors might fade away : 
 'My cap I'll wear when to God I pray, 
 
 A happy and grateful bride.' 
 
 For fortv years she laid it aside. 
 
 Still holding her mother as dear: 
 
 'My little cap. I certain! v fear 
 I never shall be a bride.' 
 
 She went to look for the cap one day 
 
 In the chest where it long had lain; 
 
 But, ah ! her looking was all in vain : 
 The cap had mouldered away." 
 
 Arne listened, and the words seemed to him like music 
 playing far away over the mountains. lie went up to 
 Knut and asked him, "Have you a mother?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 u Have vou a father?" 
 
 'Ah. IKJ ; no father." 
 
 "Is it long since they died?" 
 
 "Ah. ves : it's long since." 
 
 ' You haven't many, I dare say, who love you?" 
 
 ' Ah. no ; not manv." 
 
 " Have you any here at all?" 
 
 ' No ; not here.'' 
 
 " But away in your own place?" .
 
 "HE HAD IN HIS MIND A SOXG." 47 
 
 " 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?" 
 lie stopped suddenly. " Almighty God, what would 
 then become of me?" 
 
 Then he felt as if some dreadful accident was happen- 
 ing 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.
 
 ARNE. 
 
 VI. 
 
 STRANGE TALES. 
 
 A FEW days after, the mother and son agreed on 
 going together to the wedding of some relations in 
 one of the neighboring places. The mother had not 
 been to a party ever since she \vas a girl ; and both she 
 and Arne knew but very little of the people living around, 
 save their names. 
 
 Arne felt uncomfortable at this party, however, for he 
 fancied everybody was staring at him : and once, as he 
 was passing through the passage, he believed he heard 
 something said about him, the mere thought of which 
 made every drop of blood rush into his face. 
 
 He kept going about looking after the man who had 
 said it, and at last he took a seat next him. 
 
 When they were at dinner, the man said, " Well, now, 
 I shall tell vou a story which proves nothing can be 
 buried so deeplv that it won't one day be brought to 
 light ; " and Arne fancied he looked at him all the time 
 he was saying this. He was an ugly-looking man. with 
 scanty red hair, hanging about a wide, round forehead, 
 small, deep-set eyes, a little snub-nose, and a large mouth, 
 with pule out-turned lips, which showed both his gums 
 when lie laughed. His hands were resting on the table ; 
 they were large and coarse, but the wrists were slender. 
 lie had a fierce look; and he spoke quicklv, but with 
 difficulty. The people called him " Bragger ; " and Arne 
 knew that in bygone days, Nils, the tailor, had treated 
 him badly. 
 
 "Yes," continued the man, " there is indeed, a great
 
 STRANGE TALES. 49 
 
 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. lie 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 win- 
 dows ; 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 yoars passed away without his 
 being seen again. 
 
 " Then, in about ten years or so, a call for him was 
 published on the church-hill,* for a great fortune had 
 
 * In Norway, certain public announcements are made before 
 the church door on Sundays after service. TRANSLATORS. 
 
 4
 
 5O ARNE. 
 
 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 dtal 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 diggfhg 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 magis- 
 trate was just strolling about round there, and they 
 fetched him to the place ; and then all the bones belong- 
 ing 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
 
 STRANGE TALES. 51 
 
 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 Doc- 
 tor 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 out- 
 side. 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 magis- 
 trate 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 iifty dollars of mine!' 
 roared Big Lazy-bones : and the shrieking and crashing 
 came again. Then the magistrate burst open the door ;
 
 5 2 ARNE. 
 
 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," con- 
 tinued 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, belong- 
 ing 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
 
 STRANGE TALES. 53 
 
 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 stoiy," 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 weep- 
 ing. ' Whom are you most afraid of? ' asked the troll, 
 'yourself or others?' Now, the boy was weeping be- 
 cause 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 lie 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 sutler for. 
 And the people in the place wept because of the mis- 
 chief done by the lad ; but he did not weep himself, for 
 he could not. Then all the people met together and
 
 54 ARNE. 
 
 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 any- 
 thing 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 arc 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.
 
 THE SOLILOqUY IN THE BARN. 55 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE SOLILOQUT IN THE BARN. 
 
 ON the evening of the day after this, Arne was lying 
 in a barn belonging to the same house. For the 
 first time in his life he had become drunk, and he had 
 been lying there for the last twenty-four hours. Now he 
 sat up, resting upon his elbows, and talked with himself: 
 "... Everything I look at turns to cowardice. It 
 was cowardice that hindered me from running away 
 while a boy ; cowardice that made me listen to father 
 more than to mother ; cowardice also made me sing the 
 wicked songs to him. I began tending the cattle through 
 cowardice, to read well, that, too, was through cow- 
 ardice : I wished to get away from myself. When, 
 though a grown up lad, yet I didn't help mother against 
 father cowardice; that I didn't that night ugh! 
 cowardice ! I might perhaps have waited till she was 
 killed! . . . I couldn't bear to stay at home afterwards 
 cowardice ; still I didn't go away cowardice ; I did 
 nothing, I tended cattle . . . cowardice. 'Tis true I 
 promised mother to stay at home ; still I should have 
 been cowardly enough to break my promise if I hadn't 
 been afraid of mixing among people. For Fir. afraid of 
 people, mainly because I think they sec how bad I am ; 
 and because I'm afraid of them, I speak ill of them a 
 curse upon my cowardice ! I make songs through cow- 
 ardice. I'm afraid of thinking bravely about my own 
 affairs, and so I turn aside and think about other people's ; 
 and making verses is just that.
 
 5' ARNE. 
 
 " 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 coward- 
 ice ; 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 cow- 
 ardly 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
 
 THE SOLILOQUY IN THE BARN. 57 
 
 tears. For the last twenty-four hours she had been rush- 
 ing 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 ! "
 
 58 ARNE. 
 
 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, lay- 
 ing 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 
 f will tell me anything;" and once more she began weep- 
 ing. 
 
 " 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 whis- 
 pered. 
 
 ..." 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 some- 
 thing 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."
 
 THE SOLILOQUY IN THE BARN. 59 
 
 " 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?"
 
 60 ARNE. 
 
 VIII. 
 THE SHADOWS ON THE WATER. 
 
 I 
 
 "T was such a cheerful, sunny day, 
 
 No rest indoors could I find ; 
 So I strolled to the wood, and down I lay, 
 
 And rocked what came in my mind : 
 But there the emmets crawled on the ground, 
 And wasps and gnats were stinging around. 
 
 ' Won't you go out-doors this fine day, dear ? ' said 
 mother, as she sat in the porch, spinning. 
 
 It was such a cheerful, sunny day, 
 
 No rest indoors could I find; 
 So I went in the birk, and down I lay, 
 
 And sang what came in my mind : 
 But snakes crept out to bask in the sun 
 Snakes five feet long, so, away I run. 
 
 ' In such beautiful weather one may go barefoot,' said 
 mother, taking off her stockings. 
 
 It was such a cheerful, sunny day, 
 
 Indoors I could not abide ; 
 So I went in a boat, and down I lay, 
 
 And floated away with the tide : 
 But the sun-beams burned till my nose was sore; 
 So I turned my boat again to the shore. 
 
 ' This is, indeed, good weather to dry the hay,' said 
 mother, putting her rake into a swath. 
 
 It was such a cheerful, sunny day, 
 
 In the house I could not be; 
 And so from the heat I climbed away 
 
 In the boughs of a shady tree: 
 But caterpillars dropped on my face, 
 So down I jumped and ran from the place.
 
 THE SHADOWS ON THE WATER. 6l 
 
 'Well, if the cow doesn't get on to-day, she never will 
 get on,' said mother, glancing up towards the slope. 
 
 It was such a cheerful, sunny day, 
 
 Indoors I could not remain : 
 And so for quiet I rowed away 
 
 To the. waterfall amain : 
 
 But there I drowned while bright was the sky : 
 If you made this, it cannot be I. 
 
 ' Only three more such sunny days, and we shall get 
 in all the hay,' said mother, as she went to make my 
 bed." 
 
 Arne when a child had not cared much for fairy-tales ; 
 but now he began to love them, and they led him to the 
 sagas and old ballads. He also read sermons and other 
 religious books ; and he was gentle and kind to all 
 around him. But in his mind arose a strange deep long- 
 ing : he made no more songs ; but walked often alone, 
 not knowing what was within him. 
 
 Many of the places around, which formerly he had not 
 even noticed, now appeared to him wondrously beautiful. 
 At the time he and his schoolfellows had to go to the 
 Clergyman to be prepared for confirmation, they used to 
 play near a lake lying just below the parsonage, and 
 called the Swart-water because it lay deep and dark 
 between the mountains. He now often thought of this 
 place ; and one evening he went thither. 
 
 He sat down behind a grove close to the parsonage, 
 which was built on a steep hill-side, rising high above 
 till it became a mountain. High mountains rose like- 
 wise on the opposite shore, so that broad deep shadows 
 fell upon both sides of the lake, but in the middle ran a 
 stripe of bright silvery water. It was a calm evening 
 near sunset, and not a sound was heard save the tinkling 
 of the cattle-bells from the opposite shore. Arne at first
 
 62 AKXE. 
 
 did not look straight before him. b. t downwards along 
 the lake, where the sun was sprinkling burning red ere 
 it sank to rest. There, at the end, the mountains gave 
 way, and between them lay a long low valley, against 
 which the lake beat; but they seemed to run gradually 
 lowards each other, and to hold the valley in a great 
 swing. Houses lay thickly scattered all along, the smoke 
 rose and curled away, the fields lay green and reeking, 
 and boats laden with hay were anchored by the shore. 
 Aine saw many people going to and fro, but he heard no 
 noise. Thence his eye went along the shore towards 
 God's dark wood upon the mountain-sides. Through it, 
 man had made his way, and its course was indicated by 
 a winding stripe of dust. This, Arne's eye followed to 
 opposite where he was sitting : there, the wood ended, 
 the mountains opened, and houses lay scattered all over 
 the valley. They were nearer and looked larger than 
 those in the other valley ; and they, were red-painted, 
 and their large windows glowed in the sunbeams. The 
 fields and meadows stood in strong light, and the smallest 
 child playing in them was clearly seen ; glittering white 
 sands lay dry upon the shore, and some dogs and puppies 
 were running there. But suddenly all became sunless 
 and gloomy : the houses looked dark red, the meadows 
 dull green, the sand greyish white, and the children little 
 clumps: a cloud of mist had risen over the mountains, 
 taking away the sunlight. Arnc looked down into the 
 water, and there he found all once more : the fields lay 
 rocking, the wood silently drew near, the houses stood 
 looking down, the doors were open, and children went 
 out and in. Fairy-tales and childish things came rush- 
 ing into his mind, as little fishes come to a bait, swim 
 away, come once more and play round, and again swim 
 away.
 
 THE SHADOWS ON THE WATER. 63 
 
 " Let's sit clown here till your mother comes ; I suppose 
 the Clergyman's lady will have finished sometime or 
 other." Arne was startled : some one had been sitting 
 a little way behind him. 
 
 "If I might but stay this one night more," said an im- 
 ploring voice, half smothered by tears : it seemed to be 
 that of a girl not quite grown up. 
 
 " Now don't cry any more ; it's wrong to cry because 
 you're going home to your mother," was slowly said by 
 a gentle voice, which was evidently that of a man. 
 
 " It's not that, I am crying for." 
 
 " Why, then, are you crying? " 
 
 " Because I shall not live any longer with Mathilde." 
 
 This was the name of the Clergyman's only daughter, 4 
 and Arne remembered that a peasant -girl had been 
 brought up with her. 
 
 " Still, that couldn't go on for ever." 
 
 " Well, but only one day more father, dear ! " and the 
 girl began sobbing. 
 
 " No, it's better we take you home now ; perhaps, in- 
 deed, it's already too late." 
 
 "Too late! Why too late? did ever anybody hear 
 such a thing?" 
 
 " You were born a peasant, and a peasant vou shall be ; 
 we can't afford to keep a ladv." 
 
 " But I might remain a peasant all the same if I stayed 
 there." 
 
 4 Of tho.t you can't judge." 
 
 " I've always worn mv peasant's dress." 
 
 " Clothes have nothing to do with it." 
 
 " I've spun, and woven, and done cooking." 
 
 "Neither is tliat the tiling." 
 
 " I can speak just as you and mother speak." 
 
 " It's not that either."
 
 64 ARNE. 
 
 " Well, then, I really don't know what it is," the girl 
 said, laughing. 
 
 " Time will show ; but I'm afraid you've already got 
 too many thoughts." 
 
 " Thoughts, thoughts ! so you always say ; I have no 
 thoughts ; " and she wept. 
 
 " Ah, you're a wind-mill, that you are." 
 
 " The Clergyman never said that." 
 
 " No ; but now /say it." 
 
 "Wind-mill? who ever heard such a thing? I won't 
 be a wind-mill." 
 
 " What will you be then ? " 
 
 "What will I be? who ever heard of such a thing? 
 nothing, I will be." 
 
 " Well, be nothing, then." 
 
 Now the girl laughed ; but after a while she said 
 gravely, " It's wrong of you to say I'm nothing." 
 
 " Dear me, when you said so yourself! " 
 
 " Nay ; I won't be nothing." 
 
 "Well, then, be everything." 
 
 Again she laughed ; but after a while she said in a sad 
 tone, " The Clergyman never used to make a fool of me 
 in this way." 
 
 " No ; but he did make a fool of you." 
 
 "The Clergyman? well, you've never been so kind to 
 me as he was." 
 
 " No ; and if I had I should have spoiled you." 
 
 " Well, sour milk can never become sweet." 
 
 " It may when it is boiled to whey." 
 
 She laughed aloud. " Here comes your mother." 
 Then the girl again became grave. 
 
 " Such a long-winded woman as that Clergyman's 
 lady, I never met with in all my live-long days," in- 
 terposed a sharp quick voice. " Now, make haste,
 
 THE SHADOWS ON THE WATER. 65 
 
 Baard ; get up and push off the boat, or we sha'n't get 
 home to-night. The lady wished me to take care that 
 Eli's feet were kept dry. Dear me, she must attend to 
 that herself! Then she said Eli must take a walk every 
 morning for the sake of her health ! Did ever anybody 
 hear such stuff"! Well, get up, Baard, and push off' the 
 boat ; I have to make the dough this evening." 
 
 " The chest hasn't come yet," he said, without rising. 
 
 " But the chest isn't to come ; it's to be left there till 
 next Sunday. Well, Eli, get up ; take your bundle, and 
 come on. Now, get up, Baard." 
 
 Away she went, followed by the girl. 
 
 " Come on, come on ! " Arne then heard the same 
 voice say from the shore below. 
 
 " Have you looked after the plug in the boat?" Baard 
 asked, still without rising. 
 
 " Yes, it's put in ; " and then Arne heard her drive it 
 in with a scoop. 
 
 " But do get up, Baard ; I suppose we're not going to 
 stay here all night ? Get up, Baard ! " 
 
 " I'm waiting for the chest." 
 
 " But bless you, dear, haven't I told you it's to be left 
 there till next Sunday? " 
 
 " Here it comes," Baard said, as the rattling of a cart 
 was heard. 
 
 " Why, I said it was to be left till next Sunday." 
 , " I said we were to take it witli us." 
 
 Away went the wife to the cart, and carried the bundle 
 and other small things down into the boat. Then Baard 
 rose, went up, and took down the chest himself. 
 
 But a girl with streaming hair, and a straw bonnet 
 came running after the cart : it was the Clergyman's 
 daughter. ' Eli, Eli ! " she cried while still at a distance. 
 
 " Mathilde, Mathilcle," was answered ; and the two 
 5
 
 66 ARNE. 
 
 girls ran towards each other. They met on the hill, 
 embraced each other and wept. Then Mathilde took 
 out something which she had set down on the grass : it 
 was a bird in a cage. 
 
 " You shall have Narrifas," she said ; " mamma wishes 
 you to have it too ; you shall have Narrifas . . . you 
 really shall and then you'll think of me and very 
 often row over to me ; " and again they wept much. 
 
 " Eli, come, Eli ! don't keep standing there ! " Arne 
 heard the mother say from the shore below. 
 
 " But I'll go with you," said Mathilde. 
 
 " Oh. do, do ! " and, with their arms round each other's 
 neck, they ran down to the landing-place. 
 
 In a few minutes Arne saw the boat on the water, Eli 
 standing high in the stern, holding the bird-cage, and 
 waving her hand ; while Mathilde sat alone on the stones 
 of the landing-place weeping. 
 
 She remained sitting there watching the boat as long 
 as it was on the water ; and so did Arne. The distance 
 across the lake to the red houses was but short ; the boat 
 soon passed into the dark shadows, and he saw it come 
 ashore. Then he saw in the water the reflections of the 
 three who had just landed, and in it he followed them on 
 their way to the red houses till they reached the finest of 
 them ; there he saw them go in ; the mother first, next, 
 the father, and last, the daughter. But soon the daughter 
 came out again, and seated herself before the storehouse ; 
 perhaps to look across to the parsonage, over which the 
 sun was laying its last rays. But Mathilde had already 
 gone, and it was only Arne who was sitting there looking 
 at Eli in the water. " I wonder whether she sees me," 
 he thought. . . . 
 
 He rose and went away. The sun had set, but the 
 summer night was light and the sky clear blue. The
 
 THE SHADOWS ON THE WATER. 67 
 
 mist from the lake and the valleys rose, and lay along 
 the mountain-sides, but their peaks were left clear, and 
 stood looking over to each other. He went higher : the 
 water lay black and deep below ; the distant valley 
 shortened and drew nearer the lake ; the mountains 
 came nearer the eye and gathered in clumps ; the sky 
 itself was lower ; and all things became friendly and 
 familiar.
 
 68 ARNE. 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE NUTTING-PARTr. 
 
 " 1 ~\AIR Venevill bounded on lithesome feet 
 _L Her lover to meet. 
 
 He sang till it sounded afar away, 
 'Good-day, good-day,' 
 
 While blithesome birds were singing on every blooming spray. 
 On Midsummer-day 
 There is dancing and play; 
 But now I know not whether she weayes her wreath or nay. 
 
 " She wove him a wreath of corn-flowers blue : 
 
 'Mine eyes so true.' 
 He took it. but soon away it was flung: 
 
 ' Farewell ! ' he sung ; 
 
 And still with merry singing across the fields he sprung. 
 On Midsummer-day, &c. 
 
 " She wove him a chain : ' Oh keep it with care ; 
 
 'Tis made of my hair.' 
 She yielded him then, in an hour of bliss, 
 
 Her pure first kiss; 
 
 But he blushed as deeply as she the while her lips met his 
 On Midsummer-day, &c. 
 
 " She wove him a wreath with a lily-band : 
 
 'Mv true right hand.' 
 She wove him another with roses aglow: 
 
 'My left hand now.' 
 
 He took them gently from her, but blushes dyed his brow. 
 On Midsummer-day, &c.
 
 THE NUTTING PARTY. 69 
 
 " She wove him a wreath of all flowers round : 
 
 'All I have found.' 
 She wept, but she gathered and wove on still : 
 
 'Take all you will.' 
 
 Without a word he took it, and fled across the hill. 
 On Midsummer-day, &c. 
 
 " She wove on bewildered and out of breath : 
 
 'My bridal wreath.' 
 She wove till her fingers aweary had grown : 
 
 'Now put it on : ' 
 
 But when she turned to see him, she found that he had gone. 
 On Midsummer-day, &c. 
 
 " She wove on in haste, as for life or death, 
 
 Her bridal wreath; 
 But the Midsummer sun no longer shone, 
 
 And the flowers were gone; 
 
 But though she had no flowers, wild fancy still wove on. 
 On Midsummer-day 
 There is dancing and play; 
 But now I know not whether she weaves her wreath or nay." 
 
 Arne had of late been happier, both when at home and 
 when out among people. In the winter, when he had 
 not work enough on his own place, he went out in the 
 parish and did carpentry ; but every Saturday night lie 
 came home to the mother ; and went with her to church 
 on Sunday, or read the sermon to her ; and then returned 
 in the evening to his place of work. But soon, through 
 going more among people, his wish to travel awoke 
 within him again ; and just after his merriest moods, he 
 would often lie trying to finish his song, wi Over the moun- 
 tains high," and altering it for about the twentieth time. 
 He often thought of Christian, who seemed to have so
 
 70 ARNE. 
 
 utterly forgotten him, and who, in spite of his promise, 
 had not sent him even a single letter. Once, the remem- 
 brance of Christian came upon him so powerfully that he 
 thoughtlessly spoke of him to the mother ; she gave no 
 answer, but turned away and went out. 
 
 There was living in the parish a jolly man named Ejnar 
 Aasen. When he was twenty years old he broke his leg, 
 and from that time he had walked with the support of a 
 stick ; but wherever he appeared limping along on that 
 stick, there was always merriment going on. The man 
 was rich, and he used the greater part of his wealth in 
 doing good ; but he did it all so quietly that few people 
 knew anything about it. There was a large nut-wood 
 on his property ; and on one of the brightest mornings in 
 harvest-time, he always had a nutting-party of merry girls 
 at his house, where he had abundance of good cheer for 
 them all day. and a dance in the evening. He was the 
 godfather of most of the girls ; for he was the godfather 
 of half of the parish. All the children called him God- 
 father, and from them everybody else had learned to call 
 him so. too. 
 
 He and Arne knew each other well ; and he liked Arne 
 for the sake of his songs. Now he invited him to the 
 nutting-party ; but Arne declined : he was not used to 
 girls' company, he said. " Then you had better get used 
 to it," answered Godfather. 
 
 So Arne came to the party, and was nearly the only 
 young man among the many girls. vSuch fun as was 
 there, Arne had never seen before in all his life ; and one 
 thing which especially astonished him was. that the girls 
 laughed for nothing at all : if three laughed, then five 
 would laugh just because those three laughed. Alto- 
 gether, they behaved as if they had lived with each other 
 all their lives ; and yet there were several of them who
 
 THE NUTTING-PARTY. Jl 
 
 had never met before that very day. When they caught 
 the bough which they jumped after, they laughed, and 
 when they did not catch it they laughed also ; when they 
 did not find any nuts, they laughed because they found 
 none ; and when they did find some, they also laughed. 
 They fought for the nutting-hook : those who got it 
 laughed, and those who did not get it laughed also. 
 Godfather limped after them, trying to beat them with 
 his stick, and making all the mischief he was good for ; 
 those he hit, laughed because he hit them, and those he 
 missed, laughed because he missed them. But the whole 
 lot laughed at Arne because he was so grave ; and when 
 at last he could not help laughing, they all laughed again 
 because he laughed. 
 
 Then the whole party seated themselves on a large hill ; 
 the girls in a circle, and Godfatlfer in the middle. The 
 sun was scorching hot, but they did not care the least for 
 it, but sat cracking nuts, giving Godfather the kernels, 
 and throwing the shells and husks at each other. God- 
 father 'sh 'shed at them, and, as far as he could reach, 
 beat them with his stick ; for he wanted to make them be 
 quiet and tell tales. But to stop their noise seemed just 
 about as easy as to stop a carriage running down a hill. 
 Godfather began to tell a tale, however. At first many 
 of them would not listen ; they knew his stories already ; 
 but soon they all listened attentively ; and before thev 
 thought of it, they set off tale-telling themselves at full 
 gallop. Though they had just been so noisy, their tales, 
 to Arne's great surprise, were very earnest : they ran 
 principally upon love. 
 
 " You, Aasa, know a good tale, I remember from last 
 year," said Godfather, turning to a plump girl with a 
 round, good-natured face, who sat plaiting the hair of a 
 younger sister, whose head lay in her lap.
 
 72 ARNE. 
 
 " But perhaps several know it already," answered 
 Aasa. 
 
 " Never mind, tell it," they begged. 
 
 " Very well, I'll tell it without anv more persuading," 
 she answered ; and then, plaiting her sister's hair all the 
 while, she told and sang : 
 
 " There was once a grown-up lad who tended cattle. 
 and who often drove them upwards near a broad stream. 
 On one side was a high steep cliff', jutting out so far over 
 the stream that when he was upon it he could talk to any 
 one on the opposite side ; and all day he could see a girl 
 over there tending cattle, but he couldn't go to her. 
 
 ' Now, tell me thy name, thou girl that art sitting 
 Up there with thy sheep, so busily knitting,' 
 
 he asked over and over for many days, till one day at last 
 there came an answer : 
 
 ' Mv name floats about like a duck in wet weather; 
 Come over, thou boy in the cap of brown leather.' 
 
 " This left the lad no wiser than he was before ; and he 
 thought he wouldn't mind her any further. This, how- 
 ever, was much more easily thought than done, for drive 
 his cattle whichever way he would, it always, somehow 
 or other, led to that same high steep cliff. Then the lad 
 grew frightened ; and he called over to her 
 
 ' Well, who is vour father, and where are you biding? 
 On the road to the church I have ne'er seen you riding.' 
 
 ' The lad asked this because he half believed she was 
 a huldre.* 
 
 * " Over the whole of Norway, the tradition is current of a 
 supernatural being that dwells in the forests and mountains, 
 called Huldre or Hulla. She appears like a beautiful woman, 
 and is usually clad in a blue petticoat and a white snood; but
 
 THE NUTTING-PARTY. 73 
 
 ' My house is burned down, and my father is drowned, 
 And the road to the church-hill I never have found.' 
 
 " This again left the lad no wiser than he was before. 
 In the daytime he kept hovering about the cliff; and at 
 night he dreamed she danced with him, and lashed him 
 with a big cow's tail whenever he tried to catch her. 
 
 unfortunately has a long tail, which she anxiously tries to con- 
 ceal when she is among people. She is fond of cattle, particu- 
 larly brindled, of which she possesses a beautiful and thriving 
 stock. They are without horns. She \vas once at a merry- 
 making, where every one was desirous of dancing with the 
 hand>ome, strange damsel; 'but in the midst of the mirth, a 
 young man, who had just begun a dance with her, happened to 
 cast his eye on her tail. Immediately guessing whom he had 
 got for a partner, he was not a little terrified ; but, collecting 
 himself, and unwilling to betray her, he merely said to her when 
 the dance was over, ' P'air maid, you will lose your garter.' She 
 instantly vanished, but afterwards rewarded the silent and con- 
 siderate youth with beautiful presents and a good breed of cattle. 
 The idea entertained of this being is not everywhere the same. 
 but varies considerably in different parts of Norway. In some 
 places she is described as a handsome female when seen in front. 
 but is hollow behind, or else blue; while in others she is known 
 by the name of Skogmerte. and is said to be blue, but clad in a 
 green petticoat, and probably corresponds to the Swedish Skogs- 
 nyfoor. Her song a sound often heard among the mountains 
 is said to be hollow and mournful, differing therein from the 
 music of the subterranean beings, which is described bv ear- 
 witnesses as cheerful and fascinating. But she is not every- 
 where regarded as a solitary wood nvmph. Huldremen and 
 Iluldrefolk are also spoken of, who live together in the moun- 
 tains, and are almost identical with the subterranean people. In 
 Hardanger the Iluldre people are always clad in green, but their 
 cattle are blue, and may be taken when a grown-up person ca-ts 
 J<is belt over them. They give abundance of milk. The Hul- 
 dres take possession of the forsaken pasture-spots in the moun- 
 tains, and invite people into their mounds, where delightful 
 music is to be heard." Thorpe's Northern Mythology.
 
 74 ARNE. 
 
 Soon he could neither sleep nor work ; and altogether 
 the lad got in a very poor way. Then once more he 
 called from the cliff 
 
 ' If thou art a huldre, then pray do not spell me ; 
 If thou art a maiden, then hasten to tell me.' 
 
 " But there came no answer ; and so he was sure she 
 was a huldre. He gave up tending cattle ; but it was all 
 the same ; wherever he went, and whatever he did, he 
 was all the while thinking of the beautiful huldre who 
 blew on the horn. Soon he could bear it no longer ; and 
 one moonlight evening when all were asleep, he stole 
 away into the forest, which stood there all dark at the 
 bottom, but with its tree-tops bright in the moonbeams. 
 He sat down on the cliff, and called 
 
 ' Run forward, my huldre; my love has o'ercome me; 
 My life is a burden ; no longer hide from me.' 
 
 " The lad looked and looked ; but she didn't appear. 
 Then he heard something moving behind him ; he turned 
 round and saw a big black bear, which came forward, 
 squatted on the ground and looked at him. But he ran 
 away from the cliff" and through the forest as fast as his 
 legs could carry him : if the bear followed him, he didn't 
 know, for he didn't turn round till he lay safely in bud. 
 
 " ' It was one of her herd,' the lad thought ; ' it isn't 
 worth while to go there any more ;' and he didn't go. 
 
 ' Then, one day, while he was chopping wood, a girl 
 came across the yard who was the living picture of the 
 huldre : but when she drew nearer, he saw it wasn't she. 
 Over this lie pondered much. Then he saw the girl 
 coming back, and again while she was at a distance she 
 seemed to be the huldre, and he ran to meet her ; but as 
 soon as he came near, he saw it wasn't she.
 
 THE NUTTING-PARTY. 75 
 
 "After this, wherever the lad was at church at 
 dances, or any other parties the girl was, too ; and still 
 when at a distance she seemed to be the huldre, and 
 when near she was somebody else. Then he asked her 
 whether she was the huldre or not, but she only laughed 
 at him. ' One may as well leap into it as creep into it,' 
 the lad thought ; and so he married the girl. 
 
 "But the lad had hardly done this before he ceased to 
 like the girl : when he was away from her he longed for 
 her ; but when he was with her he yearned for some one 
 he did not see. So the lad behaved very badly to his 
 wife ; but she suffered in silence. 
 
 " Then one day when he was out looking for his 
 horses, he came again to the cliff; and he sat down and 
 called out 
 
 ' Like fairy moonlight, to me thou seemest; 
 Like Midsummer-fires, from afar thou gleamest.' 
 
 " He felt that it did him good to sit there ; and after- 
 wards he went whenever things were wrong at home. 
 His wife wept when he was gone. 
 
 " But one day when he was sitting there, he saw the 
 huldre sitting all alive on the other side blowing her horn. 
 He called over 
 
 'Ah, dear, art thou come! all around thee is shining! 
 Ah, blow now again ! I am sitting here pining.' 
 
 " Then she answered 
 
 'Away from thy mind the dreams I am blowing; 
 Thy rye is all rotting for want of mowing.' 
 
 " But then the lad felt frightened and went home again. 
 Ere long, however, he grew so tired of his wife that he 
 was obliged to go to the forest again, and he sat down on 
 the cliff'. Then was suns: over to him
 
 76 ARNE. 
 
 'I dreamed them wast here; ho, hasten to bind me! 
 No; not over there, but behind you will find me.' 
 
 " The lad jumped up and looked around him, and 
 caught a glimpse of a green petticoat just slipping away 
 between the shrubs. He followed, and it came to a hunt- 
 ing all through the forest. So swift-footed as that huldre, 
 no human creature could be : he flung steel over her 
 again and again, but still she ran on just as well as ever. 
 But soon the lad saw, by her pace, that she was begin- 
 ning to grow tired, though he saw, too, by her shape, 
 that she could be no other than the huldre. ' Now,' he 
 thought, ' you'll be mine easily ; ' and he caught hold on 
 her so suddenly and roughly that they both fell, and rolled 
 down the hills a long way before they could stop them- 
 selves. Then the huldre laughed till it seemed to the lad 
 the mountains sang again. He took her upon his knee ; 
 and so beautiful she was, that never in all his life he had 
 seen any one like her : exactly like her, he thought his 
 wife should have been. ' Ah, who are you who are so 
 beautiful ? ' he asked, stroking her cheek. She blushed 
 rosy red. ' I'm your wife,' she answered." 
 
 The girls laughed much, at that tale, and ridiculed the 
 lad. But Godfather asked Arne if he had listened well 
 to it. 
 
 "Well, now I'll tell you something," said a little girl 
 with a little round face, and a very little nose : 
 
 " Once there was a little lad who wished very much 
 to woo a little girl. They were both grown up ; but 
 yet they were very little. And the lad couldn't in any 
 way muster coinage to ask her to have him. He kept 
 close to her when they came home from church ; but, 
 somehow or other, their chat was always about the 
 weather. lie went over to her at the dancing-parties, 
 and nearly danced her to death ; but still he couldn't
 
 THE NUTTING PARTY. 77 
 
 bring himself to say what he wanted. ' You must learn 
 to write,' he said to himself; 'then you'll manage mat- 
 ters.' And the lad set to writing ; but he thought it could 
 never be done well enough ; and so he wrote a whole 
 year round before he dared do his letter. Now, the thing 
 was to get it given to her without anybody seeing. He 
 waited till one day when they were standing all by them- 
 selves behind the church. ' I've got a letter for yo^,' 
 said the lad. ' But I can't read writing,' the girl an- 
 swered. 
 
 " And there the lad stood. 
 
 " Then he went to service at the girl's father's house ; 
 and he used to keep hovering round her all day long. 
 Once he had nearly brought himself to speak ; in fact, 
 he had already opened his mouth ; but then a big fly flew 
 in it. ' Well, I hope, at any rate, nobody else will come 
 to take her away,' the lad thought ; but nobody came to 
 take her, because she was so very little. 
 
 " By-and-by, however, some one did come, and he, 
 too, was little. The lad could see very well what he 
 wanted ; and when he and the girl went up-stairs to- 
 gether, the lad placed himself at the key-hole. Then he 
 who was inside made his offer. ' Bad luck to me, I, cod- 
 fish, who didn't make haste ! ' the lad thought. lie who 
 
 was inside kissed the girl just on her lips . 'No 
 
 doubt that tasted nice,' the lad th&ught. But he who was 
 inside took the girl on his lap. ' Oh, dear me ! what a 
 world this is ! ' the lad said, and began crving. Then the 
 girl heard him and went to the door. 'What do you 
 want, you nastv bov?' said she, 'why can't you leave 
 me alone?' 'I? I onlv wanted to ask you to have me 
 for your bridesman.' ' No : that, my brother's going to 
 be,' the girl answered, banging the door to. 
 
 "And there the lad stood.-'
 
 78 ARNE. 
 
 The girls laughed very much at this tale, and after- 
 wards pelted each other with husks. 
 
 Then Godfather wished Eli Bden to tell something. 
 
 "What, then, must it be?" 
 
 " Well, she might tell what she had told him on the 
 hill, the last time he came to see her parents, when she 
 gave him the new garters. Eli laughed very much ; and 
 it was some time before she would tell it : however, she 
 did at last, 
 
 " A lad and a girl were once walking together on a 
 road. ' Ah, look at that thrush that follows us ! ' the girl 
 said. ' It follows me] said the lad. ' It's just as likely 
 to be me] the girl answered. ' That, we'll soon find out,' 
 said the lad ; ' you go that way, while I go this, and we'll 
 meet up yonder.' They did so. ' Well, didn't it follow 
 me ? ' the lad asked, when they met. ' No ; it followed 
 me,' answered the girl. ' Then, there must be two.' 
 They went together again for some distance, but then 
 there was only one thrush ; and the lad thought it flew 
 on his side, but the girl thought it flew on hers. ' Devil 
 a bit, I care for that thrush,' said the lad. ' Nor do I,' 
 answered the girl. 
 
 " But no sooner had they said this, than the thrush 
 flew away. ' It was on your side, it was,' said the lad. 
 ' Thank you,' answered the girl ; ' but I clearly saw it 
 
 was on your side. But see ! there it comes again ! ' 
 
 ' Indeed, it's on my side,' the lad exclaimed. Then the 
 girl got angry: 'Ah, well, I wish I may never stir if I 
 go with you any longer ! ' and she went away. 
 
 " Then the thrush, too, left the lad ; and he felt so dull 
 that he called out to the girl, ' Is the thrush with yon ? ' 
 'No; isn't it with you?' 'Ah, no; you must come 
 here again, and then perhaps it will follow you.' 
 
 " The girl came ; and she and the lad walked on to-
 
 THE NUTTING-PARTY. 79 
 
 gather, hand in hand. ' Quitt, quitt, quitt, quitt ! ' sounded 
 on the girl's side ; ' quitt, quitt, quitt, quitt ! ' sounded on 
 the lad's side ; ' quitt, quitt, quitt, quitt ! ' sounded on 
 every side ; and when they looked there were a hundred 
 thousand million thrushes all round them. ' Ah, how 
 nice this is!' said the girl, looking up at the lad. 'Ah, 
 God bless you ! ' said he, and kissed her." 
 
 All the girls thought this was such a nice tale. 
 
 Then Godfather said they must tell what they had 
 dreamed last night, and he would decide who had 
 dreamed the nicest things. 
 
 " Tell what they had dreamed ! No ; impossible ! " 
 
 And then there was no end of tittering and whispering. 
 But soon one after another began to think she had such a 
 nice dream last night ; and then others thought it could 
 not possibly be so nice as what they had dreamed ; and 
 at last they all got a great mind for telling their dreams. 
 Yet they must not be told aloud, but to one only, and 
 that one must by no means be Godfather. Arne had all 
 this time been sitting quietly a little lower down the hill, 
 and so the girls thought they dared tell their dreams to 
 him. 
 
 Then Arne seated himself under a hazel-bush ; and 
 Aasa, the girl who had told the first tale, came over to 
 him. She hesitated a while, but then began, 
 
 " I dreamed I was standing by a large lake. Then I 
 saw one walking on the water, and it was one whose 
 name 1 will not say. lie stepped into a large water-lilv. 
 and sat there singing. But I launched out upon one of 
 the large leaves of the lily which lay floating on the 
 water ; for on it I would row over to him. But no 
 sooner had I come upon the leaf than it began to sink 
 with me, and I became much frightened, and I wept. 
 Then he came rowing along in the water-lily, and lifted
 
 80 ARNE. 
 
 me up to him ; and we rowed all over the whole lake. 
 Wasn't that a nice dream?" 
 
 Next came the little girl who had told the tale about 
 the little lad, 
 
 " I dreamed I had caught a little bird, and I was so 
 pleased with it, and I thought I wouldn't let it loose till I 
 came home in our room. But there I dared not let it 
 loose, for I was afraid father and mother might tell me to 
 let it go again. So I took it up-stairs ; but I could not 
 let it loose there, either, for the cat was lurking about. 
 Then I didn't know what in the world to do ; yet I took 
 it into the barn. Dear me, there were so many cracks, I 
 was afraid it might go away ! Well, then I went down 
 again into the yard ; and there, it seemed to me some one 
 was standing whose name I will not say. He stood 
 playing with a big, big dog. ' I would rather play with 
 that bird of yours,' he said, and drew very near to me. 
 But then it seemed to me I began running away ; and 
 both he and the big dog ran after me all round the yard ; 
 but then mother opened the front door, pulled me hastily 
 in, and banged the door after me. The lad, however, 
 stood laughing outside, with his face against the window- 
 pane. ' Look, here's the bird,' he said ; and, only think, 
 he had my bh'd out there ! Wasn't that a beautiful 
 dream?" 
 
 Then came the girl who had told about the thrushes 
 Eli, they called her. She was laughing so much that she 
 could not speak for some time ; but at last she began, 
 
 ' I had been looking forward with very much pleasure 
 to our nutting in the wood to-day; and so last night I 
 dreamed I was sitting here on the hill. The sun shone 
 brightly ; and I had my lap full of nuts. But there came 
 a little squirrel among them, and it sat on its hind-legs 
 and ate them all up. Wasn't that a funny dream ? "
 
 THE NUTTING-PARTY. 8 1 
 
 Afterwards some more dreams were told him ; and 
 then the girls would have him say which was the nicest. 
 Of course, he must have plenty of time for consideration ; 
 and meanwhile Godfather and the whole flock went 
 down to the house, leaving Arne to follow. They skipped 
 down the hill, and when they came to the plain went all 
 in a row singing towards the house. 
 
 Arne sat alone on the hill, listening to the singing. 
 Strong sunlight fell on the group of girls, and their white 
 bodices shone bright, as they went dancing over the 
 meadows, every now and then clasping each other round 
 the waist ; while Godfather limped behind, threatening 
 them with a stick because thcv trod down his hay. Arne 
 thought no more of the dreams, and soon he no longer 
 looked after the girls. His thoughts went floating far 
 away beyond the valley, like the tine air-threads, while 
 he remained behind on the hill, spinning ; and before he 
 was aware of it he had woven a close web of sadness. 
 More than ever, he longed to go away. 
 
 ' Why stay any longer? " he said to himself; " surely, 
 I've been lingering long enough now!" He promised 
 himself that he would speak to the mother about it as 
 soon as he reached home, however it might turn out. 
 
 With greater force than ever, his thoughts turned to 
 his song, " Over the mountains high : " and never before 
 had the words come so swiftly, or linked themselves into 
 rhyme so easily ; they seemed almost like girls .sitting in 
 a circle on the brow of a hill. He hail a piece of paper 
 with him, and placing it upon his knee, he wrote down 
 the verses as they came. When he had finished the song, 
 he rose like one freed from a burden. He felt unwilling 
 to see anv one, and went homewards by the way through 
 the wood, though he knew he should then have to walk 
 during the night. The first time he stopped to rest on 
 
 6
 
 82 ARXE. 
 
 the way, he put his hand to his pocket to take out the 
 song, intending to sing it aloud to himself through the 
 wood ; but he found he had left it behind at the place 
 where it was composed. 
 
 One of the girls went on the hill to look for him ; she 
 did not find him, but she found his song.
 
 LOOSENING THE WKA 1 11KK-VANE. 83 
 
 X. 
 
 LOOSENING THE WEATHER-VANE. 
 
 TO speak to the mother about going away, was more 
 easily thought of than done. He spoke again 
 about Christian, and those letters which had never come ; 
 but then the mother went away, and for days afterwards 
 he thought her eyes looked red and swollen. lie noticed, 
 too. that she then got nicer food for him than usual ; and 
 this gave him another sign of her state of mind with 
 regard to him. 
 
 One dav he went to cut fagots in a wood which bor- 
 dered upon another belonging to the parsonage, and 
 through which the road ran. Just where he was going 
 to cut his fagots, people used to come in autumn to 
 gather whortleberries. Ik- had laid aside his axe to 
 take off his jacket, and was just going to begin work, 
 when two girls came walking along with a basket to 
 gather berries, lie used generally to hide himself rather 
 than meet girls, and he did so now. 
 
 " Ah ! only see what a lot of berries '. Eli, Eli ! " 
 
 " Yes, dear. 1 see ! " 
 
 Well. but. then, don't go an}" farther; here are many 
 bnskettuls." 
 
 " 1 thought T heard a rustling among the trees ! " 
 
 ' Oh. nonsense ! " 
 
 The girls rushed towards each other, clasped each other 
 round the waist, and for a little while stood still, scarcely 
 drawing breath. "It's nothing. 1 dare sav ; come, let's 
 go on picking."
 
 84 ARNE. 
 
 "Well, so we will." 
 
 And they went on. 
 
 " It was nice you came to the parsonage to-day, Eli. 
 Haven't you anything to tell me?" 
 
 " Yes ; I've been to see Godfather." 
 
 "Well, you've told me that; but haven't you anything 
 to tell me about him you know who ? " 
 
 " Yes, indeed I have ! " 
 
 " Oh ! Eli, have you ! make haste and tell me ! " 
 
 " He has been there again." 
 
 " Nonsense? " 
 
 " Indeed, he has : father and mother pretended to know 
 nothing of it ; but I went up-stairs and hid myself." 
 
 "Well, what then? did lie come after you?" 
 
 "Yes; I believe father told him where I was; he's 
 always so tiresome now." 
 
 "And so he came there? vSit down, sit down ; here, 
 near me. Well, and then he came?" 
 
 " Yes ; but he didn't say much, for he was so bash- 
 ful." 
 
 " Tell me what he said, every word ; pray, every 
 word ! " 
 
 "'Are you afraid of me?' he said. 'Why should 
 I be afraid?' I answered. 'You know what I want 
 to say to you,' he said, sitting down beside me on the 
 chest." 
 
 " Beside you ! " 
 
 " And he took me round my waist." 
 
 " Round your waist ; nonsense ! " 
 
 " I wished very much to get loose again ; but he 
 
 wouldn't let me. 'Dear Eli,' he said " She 
 
 laughed, and the other one laughed, too. 
 
 "Well? well?" 
 
 " ' Will you be my wife ? ' Ha, ha, ha ! "
 
 LOOSENING THE WEATHER-VANE. 85 
 
 "Ha, ha, ha!" 
 
 And then both laughed together, " I la, ha, ha, ha ! " 
 
 At last the laughing came to an end, and they were 
 both quiet for a while. Then the one who had first 
 spoken asked in a low voice, "Wasn't it strange he took 
 you round your waist?" 
 
 Either the other girl did not answer that question, or 
 she answered in so low a voice that it could not be heard ; 
 perhaps she only answered by a smile. 
 
 u Didn't your father or your mother say anything after- 
 wards?" asked the first girl, after a pause. 
 
 l Father came up and looked at me ; but I turned away 
 from him because he laughed at me." 
 
 ' And your mother? " 
 
 ' No. she didn't say anything; but she wasn't so strict 
 as usual." 
 
 4> Well, you've done with him, I think?" 
 
 " Of course ! " 
 
 Then there was again silence awhile. 
 
 ' Was it thus he took you round your waist?" 
 
 u Xo ; thus." 
 
 "Well, then; it was thus . . ." 
 
 "Eli?" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 ' Do you think there will ever be anybody come in that 
 way to me ? " 
 
 ' ( )f course, there will ! " 
 
 'Nonsense! Ah. Eli? If he took me ro'ind the 
 waist?" She hid her face. 
 
 Then thev laughed again ; and there was much whisper- 
 ing and tittering. 
 
 Soon the girls went awav : they had not seen either 
 Arne or the axe and jacket, and lie was glad of it. 
 
 A few days after, he gave Opplands-Knut a little farm
 
 86 ARNE. 
 
 on Kampen. "You shall not be lonely any longer," 
 Arne said. 
 
 That winter Arne went to the parsonage for some time 
 to do carpentry ; and both the girls were often there to- 
 gether. When Arne saw them, he often wondered who 
 it might be that now came to woo Eli Boen. 
 
 One day he had to drive for the clergyman's daughter 
 and Eli ; he could not understand a word they said, 
 though he had very quick ears. Sometimes Mathilde 
 spoke to him ; and then Eli always laughed and hid her 
 face. Mathilde asked him if it was true that he could 
 make verses. " No," he said quickly ; then they both 
 laughed ; and chattered and laughed again. He felt 
 vexed ; and afterwards when he met them seemed not to 
 take any notice of them. 
 
 Once he was sitting in the servants' hall while a dance 
 was going on, and Mathilde and Eli both came to see it. 
 They stood together in a corner, disputing about some- 
 thing ; Eli would not do it, but Mathilde would, and she 
 at last gained her point. Then they both came over to 
 Arne, courtesied, and asked him if he could dance, lie 
 said he could not ; and then both turned aside and ran 
 away, laughing. In fact, thcv were always laughing, 
 Arne thought ; and he became brave. But soon after, he 
 got the clergyman's foster-son, a boy of about twelve, to 
 teach him to dance, when no one was by. 
 
 Eli had a little brother of the same age as the clergy- 
 man's foster-son. These two boys were playfellows ; 
 and Arne made sledges, snow-shoes and snares for them ; 
 and often talked to them about their sisters, especially 
 about Eli. One day Eli's brother brought Arne a mes- 
 sage that he ought to make his hair a little smoother. 
 "Who said that?" 
 
 " Eli did ; but she told me not to say it was she."
 
 LOOSENING THE WEATHER-VANE. 87 
 
 A few days after, Arne sent word that Eli ought to 
 laugh a little less. The boy brought back word that 
 Arne ought by all means to laugh a little more. 
 
 Eli's brother once asked Arne to give him something 
 that he had written. He complied, without thinking any 
 more about the matter. But in a few days after, the boy, 
 thinking to please Arne, told him that Eli and Mathilde 
 liked his writing very much. 
 
 ' Where, then, have they seen any of it? " 
 
 " Well, it was for them, I asked for some of it the 
 other day." 
 
 Then Arne asked the -boys to bring him something 
 their sisters had written. They did so ; and he corrected 
 the errors in the writing with his carpenter's pencil, and 
 asked the boys to lay it in some place where their sisters 
 might easily find it. Soon after, he found the paper in 
 his jacket pocket; and at the foot was written, ' ; Cor- 
 rected by a conceited fellow." 
 
 The next day, Arne completed his work at the parson- 
 age, and returned home. So gentle as he was that win- 
 ter, the mother had never seen him, since that sad time 
 just after the father's death. lie read the sermon to her, 
 accompanied her to church, and was in every way very 
 kind. But she knew only too well that one great reason 
 for his increased kindness was, that he meant to go away 
 when spring came. Then one day a message came from 
 Boen, asking him to go there to do carpentrv. 
 
 Arne started, and, apparently without thinking of what 
 he said, replied that he would come. But no sooner had 
 the messenger left than the mother said, "You may well 
 be astonished! From Boen?" 
 
 Well, is there anvthiug strange in that? " Arne asked, 
 without looking at her. 
 
 "From Boen ! " the mother exclaimed once more.
 
 88 ARNE. 
 
 " And, why not from Boen, as well as any other place ? " 
 he answered, looking up a little. 
 
 "From Boen and Birgit Boen! Baard, who made 
 your father a cripple, and all only for Birgit's sake ! " 
 
 "What do you say?" exclaimed Arne ; "was that 
 Baard Boen ? " 
 
 Mother and son stood looking at each other. The 
 whole of the father's life seemed unrolled before them, 
 and at that moment they saw the black thread which had 
 always run through it. Then they began talking about 
 those grand days of his, when old Eli Boen had himself 
 offered him his daughter Birgit, and he had refused her : 
 they passed on through his life till the day when his spine . 
 had been broken ; and they both agreed that Baard's fault 
 was the less. Still, it was he who had made the father a 
 cripple ; he, it was. 
 
 "Have I not even yet done with father?" Arne 
 thought ; and determined at the same moment that he 
 would go to Boen. 
 
 As he went walking, with his saw on his shoulder, over 
 the ice towards Boen, it seemed to him a beautiful place. 
 The dwelling-house always seemed as if it was fresh 
 painted; and perhaps because he felt a little cold it 
 just then looked to him very sheltered and comfortable. 
 He did not, however, go straight in. but went round by 
 the cattle-house, where a flock of thick-haired goats 
 stood in the snow, gnawing the bark off some fir twigs. 
 A shepherd's dog ran backwards and forwards on the 
 barn steps, barking as if the devil was coming to the 
 house ; but when Arne went to him, he wagged his tail 
 and allowed himself to be patted. The kitchen door at 
 the upper end of the house was often opened, and Arne 
 looked over there every time ; but he saw no one except 
 the milkmaid, carrying some pails, or the cook, throwing
 
 LOOSENING THE WEATHER-VAN K. 89 
 
 something to the goats. In the barn the threshers were 
 hard at work ; and to the left, in front of the woodshed, 
 a lad stood chopping fagots, with many piles of them 
 behind him. 
 
 Arne laid away his saw and went into the kitchen : 
 the floor was strewed with white sand and chopped 
 juniper leaves ; copper kettles shone on the walls ; 
 china and earthenware stood in rows upon the shelves ; 
 and the servants were preparing the dinner. Arne 
 asked for Baard. " Step into the sitting-room," said 
 one of the servants, pointing to an inner door with a 
 brass knob, lie went in-: the room was brightly painted 
 the ceiling, with clusters of roses ; the cupboards, with 
 red, and the names of the owners in black letters ; the 
 bedstead, also with red, bordered with blue stripes. 
 Beside the stove, a broad-shouldered, mild-looking man, 
 with long light hair, sat hooping some tubs ; and at "the 
 large table, a slender, tall woman, in a close-fitting dress 
 and linen cap, sat sorting some corn into two heaps : no 
 one else was in the room. 
 
 " Good day, and a blessing on the work," said Arne, 
 taking otV his cap. Both looked up ; and the man smiled 
 and asked who it was. " I am he who has come to do 
 carpentry." 
 
 The man smiled still more, and said, while he leaned 
 forward again to his work, Oh, all right. Arne Kampen." 
 
 "Arne Kampen?" exclaimed the wife, staring down 
 at the floor. The man looked up quickly, and said, smil- 
 ing once more, A son of Nils, the tailor ; " anil then he 
 began working again. 
 
 Soon the wife rose, went to the shelf, turned from it to 
 the cupboard, once more turned away, and, while rum- 
 maging for something in the table drawer, she asked. 
 without looking up, "Is he going to work here?" 1
 
 90 ARNE. 
 
 " Yes, that he is," the husband answered, also without 
 looking up. 
 
 " Nobody has asked you to sit down, it seems," he 
 added, turning to Arne, who then took a seat. The wife 
 went out, and the husband continued working : and so 
 Arne asked whether he, too, might begin. " We'll have 
 dinner first." 
 
 The wife did not return ; but next time the door opened, 
 it was Eli who entered. At first, she appeared not to see 
 Arne, but when he rose to meet her she turned half round 
 and gave him her hand ; yet she did not look at him. 
 They exchanged a few words, while the father worked on. 
 Eli was slender and upright, her hands were small, with 
 round wrists, her hair was braided, and she wore a dress 
 with a close-fitting bodice. She laid the table for dinner : 
 the laborers dined in the next room ; but Arne, with the 
 family. 
 
 " Isn't your mother coming?" asked the husband. 
 
 " No ; she's up-stairs, weighing wool." 
 
 " Have you asked her to comer " 
 
 " Yes : but she savs she won't have anything." 
 
 There was silence for a while. 
 
 " But it's cold up-stairs." 
 
 u She wouldn't let me make a fire." 
 
 After dinner, Arne began to work ; and in the evening 
 he again sat with the family. The wife and Eli sewed, 
 while the husband employed himself in some trifling 
 work, and Arne helped him. They worked on in silence 
 above an hour; for Eli, who seemed to be the one who 
 u^iKilly did the talking, now said nothing. Arne thought 
 with dismay how often it was just so in his own home ; 
 and vet he had never felt it till now. At last, Eli seemed 
 to think she had been silent quite long enough, and, after 
 drawing a deep breath, she burst out laughing. Then
 
 LOOSENING THE WEATHER- VANE. C)I 
 
 the father laughed ; and Avne felt it was ridiculous and 
 began, too. Afterwards they talked about several things, 
 soon the conversation was principally between Arne and 
 Eli, the father now and then putting in a word edgewise. 
 But once after Arne had been speaking at some length, 
 he looked up, and his eyes met those of the mother, Bir- 
 git, who had laid down her work, and sat gazing at him. 
 Then she went on with her work again ; but the next 
 word he spoke made her look up once more. 
 
 Bedtime drew near, and they all went to their own 
 rooms. Arne thought he would take notice of the dream 
 he had the first night in -a fresh place ; but he could see 
 no meaning in it. During the whole day he had talked 
 very little with the husband ; yet now in the night he 
 dreamed of no one in the house but him. The last thing 
 was, that Baard was sitting playing at cards with Nils, 
 the tailor. The latter looked very pale and angry ; but 
 Baard was smiling, and he took all the tricks. 
 
 Arne stayed at Boen several days ; and a great deal was 
 done, but very little said. Not onlv the people in the 
 parlor, but also the servants, the housemen, everybody 
 about the place, even the women, were silent. In the 
 yard was an old dog which barked whenever a stranger 
 came near; but if any of the people belonging to the 
 place heard him, they always said " Hush ! " anil then he 
 went away, growling, and lav down. At Arne's own 
 home was a large weather-vane, and here was one still 
 larger which he particularly noticed because it did not 
 turn. It shook whenever the wind was high, as though 
 it wished to turn ; and Arne stood looking at it so long 
 that he felt at last he must climb up to unloose it. It was 
 not fro/en fast, as he thought : but a stick was tixed 
 against it to prevent it from turning. He took the stick out 
 and threw it down ; Baard was just passing below, and it 
 struck him.
 
 92 ARXE. 
 
 "What are you doing?" said he, looking up. 
 
 " I'm loosening the vane." 
 
 " Leave it alone ; it makes a wailing noise when it 
 turns." 
 
 " Well, I think even that's better than silence," said 
 Arne, seating himself astride on the ridge of the roof. 
 Baard looked up at Arne, and Arne down at Baard. 
 Then Baard smiled and said, " He who must wail when 
 he speaks had better be silent." 
 
 Words sometimes haunt us long after they were uttered, 
 especially when they were last words. So Baard's words 
 followed Arne as he came down from the roof in the cold, 
 and they were still with him when he went into the sit- 
 ting-room in the evening. It was twilight ; and Eli stood 
 at the window, looking away over the ice which lay 
 bright in the moonlight. Arne went to the other win- 
 dow, and looked out also. Indoors it was warm and 
 quiet ; outdoors it was cold, and a sharp wind swept 
 through the vale, bending the branches of the trees, and 
 making their shadows creep trembling on the snow. A 
 light shone over from the parsonage, then vanished, then 
 appeared again, taking various shapes and colors, as a 
 distant light always seems to do when one looks at it long 
 and intently. Opposite, the mountain stood dark, with 
 deep shadow at its foot, where a thousand fairy tales 
 hovered ; but with its snowy upper plains bright in the 
 moonlight. The stars were shining, and northern lights 
 were flickering in one quarter of the sky, but they did not 
 spread. A little way from the window, down towards 
 the water, stood some trees, whose shadows kept stealing 
 over to each other ; but the tall ash stood alone, writing 
 on the snow. 
 
 All was silent, save now and then, when a long wailing 
 sound was heard. " What's that? " asked Arne.
 
 LOOSENING THE WEATHER-VANE. 93 
 
 " It's the weather-vane," said Eli ; and after a little 
 while she added in a lower tone, as if to herself, " it must 
 have come unfastened." 
 
 But Arne had been like one who wished to speak and 
 could not. Now he said, " Do you remember that tale 
 about the thrushes ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " It was you who told it, indeed. It was a nice tale." 
 
 " I often think there's something- that sings when all is 
 still," she said, in a voice so soft and low that he felt as if 
 he heard it now for the first time. 
 
 " It is the good within' our own souls," he said. 
 
 She looked at him as if she thought that answer meant 
 too much ; and they both stood silent a few moments. 
 Then she asked, while she wrote with her finger on the 
 window-pane, " Have you made any songs latelv?" 
 
 lie blushed : but she did not see it, and so she asked 
 once more, " How do you manage to make songs?" 
 
 " Should you like to know?" 
 
 "Well, yes; I should." 
 
 " I store up the thoughts that other people let slip." 
 
 She was silent for a long while ; perhaps thinking she 
 might have had some thoughts fit for songs, but had let 
 them slip. 
 
 " How strange it is," she said, at last, as though to her- 
 self, and beginning to write again on the window-pane. 
 
 " I made a song the first time I had seen you." 
 
 "Where was that? " 
 
 " Behind the parsonage, that evening you went away 
 from there ; I saw you in the water." 
 
 She laughed, and was quiet for a while. 
 
 "Let me hear that song." 
 
 Arne had never done such a thing before, but he 
 repeated the song now :
 
 94 ARNE. 
 
 " Fair Venevill bounded on lithesome feet 
 Her lover to meet," &c.* 
 
 Eli listened attentively, and stood silent long after he 
 had finished. At last she exclaimed, " Ah, what a pity 
 for her ! " 
 
 ' I feel as if I had not made that song myself," he said ; 
 and then stood like her, thinking over it. 
 
 "But that won't be my fate, I hope," she said, after a 
 pause. 
 
 " Xo ; I was thinking rather of myself." 
 
 " Will it be your fate, then?" 
 
 " I don't know ; I felt so then." 
 
 " How strange." She wrote on the panes again. 
 
 The next day, when Arne came into the room to din- 
 ner, he went over to the window. Outdoors it was dull 
 and foggy, but indoors, warm and comfortable ; and on 
 the window-pane was written with a finger, " Arnc, Arne, 
 Arne," and nothing but " Arne," over and over again: 
 it was at that window, Eli stood the evening before. 
 
 * As on page 68.
 
 ELI'S SICKNESS. 95 
 
 XL 
 
 ELFS SICKNESS. 
 
 NEXT day, Arnc came into the room and said he had 
 heard in the yard that the clergyman's daughter, 
 Mathilde, had just gone to the town ; as she thought, for 
 a few davs. but as her parents intended, for a year or two. 
 Eli had heard nothing of this before, and now she fell 
 down fainting. Arne had never seen any one faint, and 
 he was much frightened. lie ran for the maids ; they 
 ran for the parents, who came hurrying in ; and there 
 was a disturbance all over the house, and the dog barked 
 on the barn steps. Soon after, when Arne came in 
 again, the mother was kneeling at the bedside, while the 
 father supported Eli's drooping head. The maids were 
 running about one for water, another for hartshorn 
 which was in the cupboard, while a third unfastened her 
 jacket. 
 
 k ' God help you ! " the mother said ; I see it was 
 wrong in us not to tell her; it was you. Baard. who 
 would have it so; God help you!" Baard did not an- 
 swer. "I wished to tell her. indeed; but nothing's to be- 
 as I wish ; God help you ! Vou're always so harsh with 
 her, Baard ; you don't understand her; you don't know 
 what it is to love anvbodv. you don't." Baard did not 
 answer. "She isn't like some others who can bear sor- 
 row ; it quite puts her down, poor slight thing, as she i>. 
 Wake up. mv child, and we'll be kind to vuu ! wake up, 
 Eli, mv own darlintr. and don't grieve us so."
 
 96 ARNE. 
 
 "You always either talk too much or too little," Baard 
 said, at last, looking over to Arne, as though he did not 
 wish him to hear such things, but to leave the room. As, 
 however, the maid-servants stayed, Arne thought he, too, 
 might stay ; but he went over to the window. Soon the 
 sick girl revived so far as to be able to look round and 
 recognize those about her ; but then also memory re- 
 turned, and she called wildly for Mathilde, went into 
 hysterics, and sobbed till it was painful to be in the room. 
 The mother tried to soothe her, and the father sat down 
 where she could see him ; but she pushed them both 
 from her. 
 
 " Go away ! " she cried ; " I don't like you ; go 
 away ! " 
 
 " Oh, Eli, how can you say you don't like your own 
 parents ? " exclaimed the mother. 
 
 " Xo ! you're unkind to me. and you take away every 
 pleasure from me ! " 
 
 " Eli, Eli ! don't say such hard things," said the mother, 
 imploringly. 
 
 "Yes, mother," she exclaimed; "now I must say it! 
 Yes, mother ; you wish to marry me to that bad man ; 
 and I won't have him ! You shut me up here, where 
 I'm never happy save when I'm going out ! And you 
 take awav Mathilde from me ; the only one in the world 
 I love and long for ! Oh, God, what will become of me, 
 now Mathilde is gone ! " 
 
 ' But you haven't been much with her lately," Baard 
 said. 
 
 " What did that matter, so long as I could look over to 
 her from that window," the poor girl answered, weeping 
 in a childlike way that Arne had never before seen in 
 any one. 
 
 " Why, you couldn't see her there," said Baard.
 
 ELI'S SICKNESS. 97 
 
 " Still, I saw the house," she answered ; and the 
 mother added passionately, " You don't understand such 
 things, you don't." Then Baard said nothing more. 
 
 " Now, I can never again go to the window," said Eli. 
 " When I rose in the morning, I went there ; in the even- 
 ing I sat there in the moonlight : I went there when I 
 could go to no one else. Mathilde ! Mathilde?" She 
 writhed in the bed, and went again into hysterics. Baard 
 sat down on a stool a little way from the bed, and con- 
 tinued looking at her. 
 
 But Eli did not recover so soon as they expected. 
 Towards evening they saw she would have a serious 
 illness, which had probably been coming upon her for 
 some time ; and Arne was called to assist in carrying her 
 up-stairs to her room. She lay quiet and unconscious, 
 looking very pale. The mother sat by the side of her 
 bed, the father stood at the foot, looking at her : after- 
 wards he went to his work. So did Arne ; but that 
 night before he went to sleep, he prayed for her ; prayed 
 that she who was so young and fair might be happy in 
 this world, and that no one might bar away joy from 
 her. 
 
 The next day when Arne came in, he found the father 
 and mother sitting talking together : the mother had been 
 weeping. Arne asked how Eli was; both expected the 
 other to give an answer, and so for some time none was 
 given, but at last the father said, " Well, she's very bad 
 to-day." 
 
 Afterwards Arne heard that she had been raving all 
 
 O 
 
 night, or, as the father said, " talking foolery." She had 
 a violent fever, knew no one, and would not eat. and 
 the parents were deliberating whether they should send 
 for a doctor. When afterwards they both went to the 
 sick-room, leaving Arne behind, he felt as if life and 
 
 7
 
 98 ARNE. 
 
 death were struggling together up there, but he was kept 
 outside. 
 
 In a few days, however, Eli became a little better. 
 But once when the father was tending her, she took it 
 into her head to have Narrifas, the bird which Mathilde 
 had given her, set beside the bed. Then Baard told her 
 that as was really the case in the confusion the bird 
 had been forgotten, and was starved. The mother was 
 just coming in as Baard was saying this, and while yet 
 standing in the doorway, she cried out, " Oh, dear me, 
 what a monster you are, Baard, to tell it to that poor 
 little thing ! See, she's fainting again ; God forgive 
 you ! " When Eli revived she again asked for the bird ; 
 said its death was a bad omen for Mathilde ; and wished 
 to go to her : then she fainted again. Baard stood look- 
 ing on till she grew so much worse that he wanted to 
 help, too, in tending her ; but the mother pushed him 
 away, and said she would do all herself. Then Baard 
 gave a long sad look at both of them, put his cap straight 
 with both hands, turned aside and went out. 
 
 Soon after, the Clergyman and his wife came ; for the 
 fever heightened, and grew so violent that they did not 
 know whether it would turn to life or death. The 
 Clergyman as well as his wife spoke to Baard about Eli, 
 and hinted that he was too harsh with her ; but when 
 they heard what he had told her about the bird, the 
 Clergyman plainly told him it was very rough, and said 
 he would have her taken to his own house as soon as she 
 was well enough to be moved. The Clergyman's wife 
 would scarcely look at Baard ; she wept, and went to sit 
 with the sick one ; then sent for the doctor, and came 
 several times a day to carry out his directions. Baard 
 went wandering restlessly about from one place to an- 
 other in the yard, going oftenest to those places where
 
 ELI S SICKNESS. 99 
 
 he could be alone. There he would stand still by the 
 hour together ; then, put his cap straight and work again 
 a little. 
 
 The mother did not speak to him, and they scarcely 
 looked at each other. He used to go and see Eli several 
 times in the day ; he took off his shoes before he went 
 up-stairs, left his cap outside, and opened the door 
 cautiously. When he came in, Birgit would turn her 
 head, but take no notice of him, and then sit just as 
 before, stooping forwards, with her head on her hands, 
 looking at Eli, who lay still and pale, unconscious of all 
 that was passing around her. Baard would stand awhile 
 at the foot of the bed and look at them both, but say 
 nothing : once when Eli moved as though she were 
 waking, he stole away directly as quietly as he had 
 come. 
 
 Arne often thought words had been exchanged between 
 man and wife and parents and child which had been long 
 gathering, and would be long remembered. He longed 
 to go away, though he wished to know before he went 
 what would be the end of Eli's illness ; but then he 
 thought he might always hear about her even after he 
 had left ; and so he went to Baard telling him he wished 
 to go home : the work which he came to do was com- 
 pleted. Baard was sitting outdoors on a chopping-block, 
 scratching in the snow with a stick : Arne recognized 
 the stick : it was the one which had fastened the weather- 
 vane. 
 
 " Well, perhaps it isn't worth your while to stay here 
 now ; yet I feel as if I don't like you to go away, .either," 
 said Baard, without looking up. He said no more ; 
 neither did Arne ; but after a while he walked away to 
 do some work, taking for granted that he was to remain 
 at Boen.
 
 IOO ARNE. 
 
 Some time after, when he was called to dinner, he 
 saw Baard still sitting on the block. He went over to 
 him, and asked how Eli was. 
 
 " I think she's very bad to-day," Baard said. 
 
 " I see the mother's weeping." 
 
 Arne felt as if somebody asked him to sit down, and 
 he seated himself opposite Baard on the end of a felled 
 
 tree. 
 
 f 
 
 " I've often thought of your father lately," Baard said 
 so unexpectedly that Arne did not know how to answer. 
 
 " You know, I suppose, what was between us? " 
 
 " Yes, I know." 
 
 " Well, you know, as may be expected, only one half 
 of the story, and think I'm greatly to blame." 
 
 " You have, I dare say, settled that affair with your 
 God, as surely as my father has done so," Arne said, 
 after a pause. 
 
 "Well, some people might think so," Baard answered. 
 " When I found this stick, I felt it was so strange that 
 you should come here and unloose the weather-vane. As 
 well now as later, I thought." He had taken oft' his cap, 
 and sat silently looking at it. 
 
 ' ; I was about fourteen years old when I became ac- 
 quainted with your father, and he was of the same age. 
 He was very wild, and he couldn't bear any one to be 
 above him in anything. So he always had a grudge 
 against me because I stood first, and he, second, when 
 we were confirmed. He often offered to fight me, but 
 we never came to it ; most likely because neither of us 
 felt sury who would beat. And a strange thing it is, 
 that although he fought every day, no accident came 
 from it ; while the first time I did, it turned out as badly 
 as could be ; but, it's true, I had been wanting to fight 
 long enough.
 
 ELI'S SICKNESS. 101 
 
 " Nils fluttered about all the girls, and they, about him. 
 There was only one I would have, and her he took away 
 from me at every dance, at every wedding, and at every 
 party ; it was she who is now my wife. . . . Often, as I 
 sat there, I felt a great mind to try my strength upon him 
 for this thing ; but I was afraid I should lose, and I knew 
 if I did, I should lose her, too. Then, when everybody 
 had gone, I would lift the weights he had lifted, and kick 
 the beam he had kicked ; but the next time he took the 
 girl from me, I was afraid to meddle witli him, although 
 once, when he was flirting with her just in my face, I 
 went up to a tall fellow who stood by and threw him 
 against the beam, as if in fun. And Nils grew pale, too, 
 when he saw it. 
 
 " Even if he had been kind to her ; but he was false to 
 her again and again. I almost believe, too, she loved 
 him all the more every time. Then the last thing hap- 
 pened. I thought now it must either break or bear. 
 The Lord, too, would not have him going about any 
 longer ; and so he fell a little more heavily than I meant 
 him to do. I never saw him afterwards." 
 
 They sat silent for a while ; then Baard went on : 
 
 " I once more made my offer. She said neither yes 
 nor no ; but I thought she would like me better after- 
 wards. So we were married. The wedding was kept 
 down in the valley, at the house of one of her aunts, 
 whose property she inherited. We had plenty when 
 we started, and it has now increased. Our estates lay 
 side by side, and when we married tliev were thrown 
 into one, as I always, from a bov, thought they might he. 
 But many other things didn't turn out as I expected." 
 He was silent for several minutes ; and Arne thought he 
 wept ; but he did not. 
 
 " In the beginning of our married life, she was quiet
 
 IO2 ARNE. 
 
 and very sad. I had nothing to say to comfort her, and 
 so I was silent. Afterwards, she began sometimes to 
 take to these fidgeting ways which you have, I dare say, 
 noticed in her ; yet it was a change, and so I said noth- 
 ing then, either. But one really happy day, I haven't 
 known ever since I was married, and that's now twenty 
 years. . . ." 
 
 He broke the stick in two pieces ; and then sat for a 
 while looking at them. 
 
 " When Eli grew bigger, I thought she would be 
 happier among strangers than at home. It was seldom 
 I wished to carry out my own will in anything, and 
 whenever I did, it generally turned out badly ; so it was 
 in this case. The mother longed after her child, though 
 only the lake lay between them ; and afterwards I saw, 
 too, that Eli's training at the parsonage was in some ways 
 not the right thing for her ; but then it was too late : now 
 I think she likes neither father nor mother." 
 
 He had taken off his cap again ; and now his long hair 
 hung down over his eyes ; he stroked it back with both 
 hands, and put on his cap as if he were going away ; but 
 when, as he was about to rise, he turned towards the 
 house, he checked himself and added, while looking up 
 at the bed-room window, 
 
 " I thought it better that she and Mathilde shouldn't 
 see each other to say good-bye : that, too, was wrong. I 
 told her the wee bird was dead ; for it was my fault, and 
 so I thought it better to confess ; but that again was 
 wrong. And so it is with everything : I've always meant 
 to do for the best, but it has always turned out for the 
 worst ; and now things have come to such a pass that 
 both wife and daughter speak ill of me, and I'm going 
 here lonely." 
 
 A servant-girl called out to them that the dinner was
 
 ELI'S SICKNESS. 103 
 
 becoming cold. Baard rose. " I hear the horses neigh- 
 ing ; I think somebody has forgotten them," he said, and 
 went away to the stable to give them some hay. 
 
 Arne rose, too ; he felt as if he hardly knew whether 
 Baard had been speaking or not.
 
 ICXJ. ARNE. 
 
 XII. 
 A GLIMPSE OF SPRING. 
 
 I rLI felt very weak after the illness. The mother 
 -*- / watched by her night and day, and never came 
 down-stairs ; the father came up as usual, with his boots 
 off, and leaving his cap outside the door. Arne still 
 remained at the house. He and the father used to sit 
 together in the evening; and Arne began to like him 
 much, for Baard was a well-informed, deep-thinking 
 man, though he seemed afraid of saying what he knew. 
 In his own way, he, too, enjoyed Arne's company, for 
 Arne helped his thoughts and told him of things which 
 were new to him. 
 
 Eli soon began to sit up part of the day, and as she 
 recovered, she often took little fancies into her head. 
 Thus, one evening when Arne was sitting in the room 
 below, singing songs in a clear, loud voice, the mother 
 came down with a message from Eli, asking him if he 
 would go up -stairs and sing to her, that she might also 
 hear the words. It seemed as if he had been singing to 
 Eli all the time, for when the mother spoke he turned 
 red, and rose as if he would deny having done so, though 
 no one charged him with it. He soon collected himself, 
 however, and replied evasively, that he could sing so very 
 little. The mother said it did not seem so when he was 
 alone. 
 
 Arne yielded and went. He had not seen Eli since the 
 day he helped to carry her up-stairs ; he thought she
 
 A GLIMPSE OF SPRING. 1 05 
 
 must he much altered, and he felt half afraid to see her. 
 But when he gently opened the door and went in, he 
 found the room quite dark, and he could see no one. He 
 stopped at the door-way. 
 
 " Who is it?" Eli asked in a clear, low voice. 
 
 " It's Arne Kampen," he said in a gentle, guarded tone, 
 so that his words might fall softly. 
 
 " It was very kind of you to come." 
 
 "How are you, Eli?" 
 
 "Thanks, I'm much better now." 
 
 " Won't you sit down, Arne ? " she added after a while, 
 and Arne felt his way to a chair at the foot of the bed. 
 " It did me good to hear you singing ; won't you sing a 
 little to me up here ? " 
 
 " If I only knew anything you would like." 
 
 She was silent a while : then she said, " Sing a hymn." 
 And he sang one : it was the confirmation hymn. When 
 he had finished he heard her weeping, and so he was 
 afraid to sing again ; but in a little while she said, " Sing 
 one more." And he sang another : it was the one which 
 is generally sung while the catechumens are standing in 
 the aisle. 
 
 " How many things I've thought over while I've been 
 lying here," Eli said. He did not know what to answer ; 
 and he heard her weeping again in the dark. A clock 
 that was ticking on the wall warned for striking, and 
 then struck. Eli breathed deeply several times, as if she 
 would lighten her breast, and then she said, i; One knows 
 so little ; I knew neither father nor mother. I haven't 
 been kind to them ; and now it seems so sad to hear that 
 hymn." 
 
 When we talk in the darkness, we speak more faith- 
 fully than when we see each other's face ; and we also 
 say more.
 
 IO6 ARNE. 
 
 " It does one good to hear you talk so," Arne replied, 
 just remembering what she had said when she was taken 
 ill. 
 
 She understood what he meant. " If now this had not 
 happened to me," she went on, " God only knows how 
 long I might have gone before I found mother." 
 
 " She has talked matters over with you lately, then ? " 
 
 " Yes, every day ; she has done hardly anything else." 
 
 " Then, I'm sure you've heard many things." 
 
 " You may well say so." 
 
 " I think she spoke of my father ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " She remembers him still ? " 
 
 " She remembers him." 
 
 " He wasn't kind to her." 
 
 " Poor mother ! " 
 
 " Yet he was worst to himself." 
 
 They were silent ; and Arne had thoughts which he 
 could not utter. Eli was the first to link their words 
 again. 
 
 " You are said to be like your father." 
 
 " People say so," he replied evasively. 
 
 She did not notice the tone of his voice, and so, after a 
 while she returned to the subject. " Could he, too, make 
 songs ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 *' Sing a song to me . . . one that you've made your- 
 self." 
 
 " I have none," he said ; for it was not his custom to 
 confess he had himself composed the songs he sang. 
 
 " I'm sure you have ; and I'm sure, too, you'll sing one 
 of them when I ask you." 
 
 What he had never done for any one else, he now did 
 for her, as he sang the following song,
 
 A GLIMPSE OF SPRING. 107 
 
 " The Tree's early leaf-buds were bursting their brown : 
 ' Shall I take them away?' said the Frost, sweeping down. 
 ' No ; leave them alone 
 Till the blossoms have grown,' 
 Prayed the tree, while he trembled from rootlet to crown. 
 
 " The Tree bore his blossoms, and all the birds sung : 
 ' Shall I take them away?' said the Wind, as he swung. 
 ' No ; leave them alone 
 Till the berries have grown,' 
 Said the Tree, while his leaflets quivering hung. 
 
 "The Tree bore his fruit in the Midsummer glow: 
 Said the girl, 'May I gather thy berries or no?' 
 ' Yes ; all thou canst see ; 
 Take them ; all are for thee,' 
 Said the Tree, while he bent down his laden boughs low." 
 
 That song nearly took her breath away. He, too, 
 remained silent after it, as though he had sung more 
 than he could say. 
 
 Darkness has a strong influence over those who are 
 sitting in it and dare not speak : they are never so near 
 each other as then. If she only turned on the pillow, or 
 moved her hand on the blanket, or breathed a little more 
 heavily, he heard it. 
 
 " Arne, couldn't you teach me to make songs?" 
 
 " Did you never try ? " 
 
 " Yes, I have, these last few days ; but I can't manage 
 it." 
 
 "What, then, did you wish to have in them?" 
 
 " Something about my mother, who loved your father 
 so dearly." 
 
 " That's a sad subject." 
 
 "Yes, indeed it is ; and I have wept over it." 
 
 " You shouldn't search for subjects ; they come of 
 themselves."
 
 IOS ARNE. 
 
 " How do they come ? " 
 
 "Just as other dear things come unexpectedly." 
 
 They were both silent. " I wonder, Arne, you're long- 
 ing to go away ; you who have such a world of beauty 
 within yourself." 
 
 "Do you know I am longing?" 
 
 " She did not answer, but lay still a few moments as if 
 in thought. 
 
 " Arne, you mustn't go away," she said ; and the words 
 came warm to his heart. 
 
 " Well, sometimes I have less mind to go." 
 
 "Your mother must love you much, I'm sure. I must 
 see your mother." 
 
 " Go over to Kampen, when you're well again." 
 
 And all at once, he fancied her sitting in the bright 
 room at Kampen, looking out on the mountains ; his 
 chest began to heave, and the blood rushed to his face. 
 
 " It's warm in here," he said, rising. 
 
 She heard him rise. "Are you going, Arne?" He 
 sat down again. 
 
 " You must come over to see us oftener ; mother's so 
 fond of you." 
 
 " I should like to come myself, too ; . . . but still I 
 must have some errand." 
 
 Eli lay silent for a while, as if she was turning over 
 something in her mind. " I believe," she said, " mother 
 has something to ask you about." . . . 
 
 They both felt the room was becoming very hot ; he 
 wiped his brow, and he heard her rise in the bed. No 
 sound could be heard either in the room or down-stairs, 
 save the ticking of the clock on the wall. There was no 
 moon, and the darkness was deep ; when he looked 
 through the green window, it seemed to him as if he was 
 looking into a wood ; when he looked towards Eli he
 
 A GLIMPSE OF SPRING. 109 
 
 could see nothing, but his thoughts went over to her, and 
 then his heart throbbed till he could himself hear its beat- 
 ing. Before his eyes flickered bright sparks ; in his ears 
 came a rushing sound ; still faster throbbed his heart : 
 he felt he must rise or say something. But then she 
 exclaimed, 
 
 " How I wish it were summer ! " 
 
 "That it were summer?" And he heard again the 
 sound of the cattle-bells, the horn from the mountains, 
 and the singing from the valleys ; and saw the fresh 
 green foliage, the Swart-water glittering in the sunbeams, 
 the houses rocking in it, and Eli coming out and sitting 
 on the shore, just as she did that evening. " If it were 
 summer," she said, " and I were sitting on the hill, I 
 think I could sing a song," 
 
 He smiled gladly, and asked, " What would it be 
 about ? " 
 
 "About something bright; about well, I hardly 
 know what myself." . . . 
 
 " Tell me, Eli ! " He rose in glad excitement ; but, on 
 second thoughts, sat down again. 
 
 " No ; not for all the world ! " she said, laughing. 
 
 " I sang to you when you asked me." 
 
 " Yes, I know you did ; but I can't tell you this ; no ! 
 no!" 
 
 " Eli, do you think I would laugh at the little verse you 
 have made ? " 
 
 " No, I don't think you would, Arne ; but it isn't any- 
 thing I've made myself." 
 
 " Oh, it's by somebody else then?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Then, you can surely say it to me." 
 
 " No, no, I can't ; don't ask me again, Arne ! " 
 
 The last words were almost inaudible ; it seemed as if 
 she had hidden her head under the bedclothes.
 
 HO ARNE. 
 
 . " Eli, now you're not kind to me as I was to you," he 
 said, rising. 
 
 " But, Arne, there's a difference . . . you don't under- 
 stand me . . . but it was ... I don't know . . . another 
 time . . . don't be offended with me, Arne ! don't go 
 away from me ! " She began to weep. 
 
 " Eli, whafs the matter?" It came over him like sun- 
 shine. " Are you ill ? " Though he asked, he did not 
 believe she was. She still wept ; he felt he must draw 
 nearer or go quite away. " Eli." He listened. " Eli." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 She checked her weeping. But he did not know what 
 to say more, and was silent. 
 
 "What do you want?" she whispered, half turning 
 towards him. 
 
 "Ifs something " 
 
 His voice trembled, and he stopped. 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " You mustn't refuse ... I would ask you . . ." 
 
 "Is it the song?" 
 
 " No . . . Eli, I wish so much . . ." He heard her 
 breathing fast and deeply ..." I wish so much . . . 
 to hold one of your hands." 
 
 She did not answer ; he listened intently drew nearer, 
 and clasped a warm little hand which lay on the coverlet. 
 
 Then steps were heard coming up-stairs ; they came 
 nearer and nearer ; the door was opened ; and Arne 
 unclasped his hand. It was the mother, who came in 
 with a light. " I think you're sitting too long in the 
 dark," she said, putting the candlestick on the table. 
 But neither Eli nor Arne could bear the light ; she turned 
 her face to the pillow, and he shaded his eyes with his 
 hand. " Well, it pains a little at first, but it soon passes 
 off," said the mother.
 
 A GLIMPSE OF SPRING. Ill 
 
 Arne looked on the floor for something which he had 
 not dropped, and then went down-stairs. 
 
 The next day, he heard that Eli intended to come down 
 in the afternoon. He put his tools together, and said 
 good-bye. When she came down he had gone.
 
 112 ARNE. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 MAR GIT CONSULTS THE CLERGYMAN. 
 
 UP between the mountains, the spring comes late. 
 The post, who in winter passes along the high- 
 road thrice a week, in April passes only once ; and the 
 Highlanders know then that outside, the snow is shovelled 
 away, the ice broken, the steamers are running, and the 
 plough is struck into the earth. Here, the snow still lies 
 six feet deep ; the cattle low in their stalls ; the birds 
 arrive, but feel cold and hide themselves. Occasionally 
 some traveller arrives, saying he has left his carriage 
 down in the valley ; he brings flowers, which he ex- 
 amines ; he picked them by the wayside. The people 
 watch the advance of the season, talk over their matters, 
 and look up at the sun and round about, to see how much 
 he is able to do each day. They scatter ashes on the 
 snow, and think of those who are now picking flowers. 
 
 It was at this time of year, old Margit Kampen went 
 one day to the parsonage, and asked whether she might 
 speak to "father." She was invited into the study, where 
 the clergyman, a slender, fair-haired, gentle-looking 
 man, with large eyes and spectacles, received her kind- 
 ly, recognized her, and asked her to sit down. 
 
 " Is there something the matter with Arne again? " he 
 inquired, as if Arne had often been a subject of conver- 
 sation between them. 
 
 " Oh, dear, yes ! I haven't anything wrong to say 
 about him ; but yet it's so sad," said Margit, looking 
 deeply grieved. 
 
 " Has that longing come back again ! "
 
 MARG1T CONSULTS THE CLKIIGYMAX. 113 
 
 "Worse than ever. I can hardly think he'll even stay 
 with me till spring comes up here." 
 
 " But he has promised never to go away from you." 
 
 ' That's true ; but, dear me ! lie must now be his own 
 master ; and if his mind's set upon going away, go, he 
 must. But whatever will become of me then?" 
 
 ' Well, after all. I don't think he will leave you." 
 
 'Well, perhaps not; but still, if he isn't happv at 
 home? am I then to have it upon mv conscience that 1 
 stand in his way ? Sometimes I feel as if I ought even to 
 ask him to leave." 
 
 'How do you know 'he is longing now, more than 
 ever? " 
 
 l ' Oh, by many things. Since the middle of the 
 winter, he hasn't worked out in the parish a single 
 dav ; but he has been to the town three times, and has 
 stayed a long while each time. He scarcelv ever talks 
 now while he is at work, but he often used to do. He'll 
 sit for hours alone at the little up-stairs window, looking 
 towards the ravine, and away over the mountains : he'll 
 sit there all Sundav afternoon, and often when it's moon- 
 light he sits there till late in the night." 
 
 " Does he never read to vou ? " 
 
 \ es. ol course, he reads and sings to me everv Sun- 
 day : but he seems rather in a hurrv, save now and then 
 when lie gives almost too much of the thing." 
 
 "Does he never talk over matters with vou then?" 
 
 '\Vell, ves : but it's so seldom that 1 sit ;'iid weep 
 alone between whiles. Then 1 dare sav he notices it, for 
 he begins talking, but it's oiilv about trifles : never about 
 anvthing serious." 
 
 The Clergyman walked up and down the room : then 
 he stopped and asked. But whv. then, don't you talk to 
 him about his matters?" 
 
 S
 
 114 ARXE. 
 
 For a long while she gave no answer ; she sighed 
 several times, looked downwards and sideways, doubled 
 up her handkerchief, and at last said, ' ; I've come here to 
 speak to you, father, about something that's a great 
 burden on my mind." 
 
 '' Speak freely ; it will relieve you." 
 
 "Yes, I know it will; for I've borne it alone now 
 these many years, and it grows heavier each year." 
 
 u Well, what is it, my good Margit?" 
 
 There was a pause, and then she said, u I've greatly 
 sinned against my son." 
 
 She began weeping. The Clergyman came close to 
 her ; ' Confess it." he said ; " and we will pray together 
 that it may be forgiven." 
 
 Margit sobbed and wiped her eyes, but began weeping 
 again when she tried to speak. The Clergyman tried to 
 comfort her. saving she could not have done anything 
 verv sinful, she doubtless was too hard upon herself, and 
 so on. But Margit continued weeping, and could not 
 begin her confession till the Clergyman seated himself 
 by her side, and spoke still more encouragingly to her. 
 Then after a while she began. " The bov was ill-used 
 when a child : and so he got this mind for travelling. 
 Then he met with Christian he who has grown so rich 
 over there where they dig gold. Christian gave him so 
 many books that he got quite a scholar: they used to 
 sit together in the long evenings; and when Christian 
 went away Arne wanted to go after him. But just at 
 that time, the father died, and the lad promised never to 
 leave me. But I was like a hen that's got a duck's egg 
 to brood; when mv duckling had burst his shell, he 
 would go out on the wide water, and I was left on the 
 bank, calling after him. If he didn't go away himself, 
 yet his heart went awav in his songs, and every morning 
 I expected to find his bed empty.
 
 MARGIT CONSULTS THE CLERGYMAN'. 11^ 
 
 "Then a letter from foreign parts came for him, and I 
 felt sure it must be from Christian. God forgive me, but 
 I kept it back ! I thought there would be no more, but 
 another came ; and, as I had kept the first, I thought I 
 must keep the second, too. But, dear me ! it seemed as 
 if tliev would burn a hole through the box where I had 
 put them ; and my thoughts were there from as soon as I 
 opened my eyes in the morning till late at night when I 
 shut them. And then. did you ever hear of anything 
 worse! a third letter came. I held it in my hand a 
 quarter of an hour: I kept it in my bosom three days, 
 weighing in my mind whether I should give it to him or 
 put it with the others : but then I thought perhaps it 
 would lure him away from me, and so I couldn't help 
 putting it with the others. Hut now I felt miserable 
 everv dav. not only about the letters in the box. but also 
 for fear another might come. I was afraid of everybody 
 who came to the house ; when we were sitting together 
 inside. 1 trembled whenever I heard the door go. for fear 
 it might be somebody with a letter, and then he might 
 get it. When he was away in {lie parish. I went about at 
 home thinking he might perhaps get a letter while there, 
 and then it would tell him about those that had already 
 come. When 1 saw him coming home. I used to look at 
 his face while lie was yet a long way oil", and. oh. dear! 
 how happy I felt when he smiled : for then I knew he 
 had got no letter, lie had grown so handsome; like his 
 father, only fairer, and more gentle-looking. And. then. 
 he had such a voice : when he sat at the door in the 
 evening-sun, singing towards the mountain ridge, and 
 listening to the echo. I felt that live without him. T never 
 could. If I only saw him, or knew he was somewhere 
 near, and he seemed pretty happy, and would only give 
 me a word now and then. I wanted nothing more on 
 earth, and I wouldn't have shed one tear less.
 
 Il6 ARXE. 
 
 " But just when he seemed to be getting on better with 
 people, and felt happier among them, there came a mes- 
 sage from the post-office that a fourth letter had come ; 
 and in it were two hundred dollars ! I thought I should 
 have fell flat down where I stood: what could I do? 
 The letter. I might get rid of, 'twas true : but the money? 
 For two or three nights I couldn't sleep for it : a little 
 while I left it up-stairs, then, in the cellar behind a barrel, 
 and once I was so overdone that I laid it in the window 
 so that he might find it. But when I heard him coming, 
 I took it back again. At last, however. I found a way : 
 I gave him the money and told him it had been put out 
 at interest in my mother's lifetime. He laid it out upon 
 the land, just as I thought he would ; and so it wasn't 
 wasted. But that same harvest-time, when he was sit- 
 ting at home one evening, he began talking about Chris- 
 tian, and wondering why he had so clean forgotten him. 
 
 " Xow again the wound opened, and the monev burned 
 me so that I was obliged to go out of the room. I had 
 sinned, and yet my sin had answered no end. Since 
 then. I have hardly dared to look into his eves, blessed as 
 they are. 
 
 " The mother who has sinned against her own child is 
 the most miserable of all mothers ; . . . and yet I did it 
 only out of love. . . . And so, I dare say, I shall be pun- 
 ished accordingly by the loss of what I love most. For 
 since the middle of the winter, he has again taken to 
 singing the tune that he used to sing when he was long- 
 ing to go away ; he has sung it ever since he was a lad. 
 and whenever I hear it I grow pale. Then I feel 1 could 
 give up all for him ; and only see this." .She took from 
 her bosom a piece of paper, unfolded it and gave it to 
 the Clergyman, "lie now and then writes something 
 here; I think it's some words to that tune. ... I brought
 
 MAKGIT CONSULTS THE CLERGYMAN'. 1 17 
 
 it with me ; for I can't myself read such small writing 
 
 * 
 
 . . . will you look and see if there isn't something writ- 
 ten about his going away. . . ." 
 
 There was only one whole verse on the paper. For 
 the second verse, there were only a few half-finished lines, 
 as if the song was one he had forgotten, and was now 
 coming into his memory again, line by line. The first 
 verse ran thus, 
 
 " What shall I see if I ever go 
 
 Over the mountains high? 
 Now I can see but the peaks of snow, 
 Crowning the cliffs where the pine trees grow, 
 Waiting and longing to rise 
 Nearer the beckoning skies." 
 
 " Is there anything about his going away?" asked Mar- 
 git. 
 
 "Yes, it is about that," replied the Clergyman, putting 
 the paper down. 
 
 " Wasn't I sure of it ! Ah me ! I knew the tune ! " 
 She sat with folded hands, looking intently and anxiously 
 into the Clergyman's face, while tear after tear fell down 
 her cheeks. 
 
 The Clergyman knew no more what to do in the mat- 
 ter than she did. "Well, I think the lad must be left 
 alone in this case," he said. Life can't be made differ- 
 ent for his sake ; but what he will find in it must depend 
 upon himself; now. it seems, he wishes to go away in 
 search of life's good." 
 
 kt But isn't that just what the old crone did? " 
 
 " The did c'"one ? " 
 
 ' Yes : she who went away to fetch the sunshine, in- 
 stead of making windows in the Avail to let it in." 
 
 The Clergyman was much astonished at Margit's 
 words, and so he had been before, when she came speak
 
 IlS ARNE. 
 
 to him on this subject ; but, indeed, she had thought of 
 hardly anything else for eight years. 
 
 'Do you think he'll go away? what am I to do? and 
 the money? and the letters?" All these questions 
 crowded upon her at once. 
 
 ' Well, as to the letters, that wasn't quite right. Keep- 
 ing back what belonged to your son, can't be justified. 
 But it was still worse to make a fellow Christian appear 
 in a bad light when he didn't deserve it ; and especially 
 as he was one whom Arne was so fond of, and who loved 
 him so dearlv in return. But we will pray God to for- 
 give you ; we will both pray." 
 
 Margit still sat with her hands folded, and her head 
 bent down. 
 
 " How I should pray him to forgive me, if I only knew 
 he would stay ! " she said : surely, she was confounding 
 our Lord with Arne. The Clergyman, however, ap- 
 peared as if he did not notice it. 
 
 "Do you intend to confess it to him directly?" he 
 asked. 
 
 vShe looked down, and said in a low voice, " I should 
 much like to wait a little if I dared." 
 
 The Clergyman turned aside with a smile, and asked, 
 u Don't you believe your sin becomes greater, the longer 
 you delay confessing it?" 
 
 She pulled her handkerchief about with both hands, 
 folded it into a very small square, and tried to fold it into 
 a Mill smaller one, but could not. 
 
 "If 1 confess about the letters, I'm afraid he'll go 
 awav." 
 
 'Then, you dare not rely upon our Lord?" 
 
 " Oil, yes, 1 do. indeed," she said hurriedly ; and then 
 she added in a low voice, ''but still, if he were to go 
 awav from me ? "
 
 MAHG1T CONSULTS THE CLERGVMAX. I I O, 
 
 " Then, I see you arc more afraid of his going away 
 than of continuing to sin?" 
 
 Margit had unfolded her handkerchief again ; and now 
 she put it to her eves, for she hegan weeping. The Cler- 
 gyman remained for a while looking at her silently ; then 
 he went on, "Why, then, did you tell me all this, if it 
 was not to lead to anything?" lie waited long, but she 
 did not answer. " Perhaps you thought your sin would 
 become less when you had confessed it?" 
 
 " Yes. I did," she said, almost in a whisper, while her 
 head bent still lower upon her breast. 
 
 The Clergyman smiled and rose. "Well, well, my 
 good Margit, take courage ; I hope all will yet turn out 
 for the best." 
 
 " Do you think so?" she asked, looking up ; and a sad 
 smile passed over her tear-marked face. 
 
 "Yes, I do ; I believe God will no longer try you. 
 You will have joy in your old age, I am sure." 
 
 " If I might only keep the joy I have ! " she said ; and 
 the Clergyman thought she seemed unable to fancy any 
 greater happiness than living in that constant anxiety. 
 lie smiled and filled his pipe. 
 
 " If we hail but a little girl. now. who could take hold 
 on him, then I'm sure he would stay." 
 
 " You may be sure I've thought of that." she said, 
 shaking her head. 
 
 " Well, there's Kli liiien ; she might be one who would 
 please him." 
 
 You may be sure I've thought of that." She rocked 
 the upper part of her hodv backwards and forwards. 
 
 " If we could contrive that they might oftener see each 
 other here at the parsonage? " 
 
 " You may be sure I've thought of that ! " She 
 clapped her hands and looked at the Clergyman with a
 
 I2O ARNE. 
 
 smile all over her face. He stopped while he was light- 
 ing his pipe. 
 
 " Perhaps this, after all, was what brought you here 
 to-day ? " 
 
 She looked down, put two fingers into the folded 
 handkerchief, and pulled out one corner of it. 
 
 " Ah, well, God help me, perhaps it was this I wanted." 
 
 The Clergyman walked up and down, and smiled. 
 " Perhaps, too, you came for the same thing the last time 
 you were here ? " 
 
 She pulled out the corner of the handkerchief still 
 farther, and hesitated awhile. "Well, as you ask me, 
 perhaps I did yes." 
 
 The Clergyman went on smoking. " Then. too. it was 
 to carry this point that you confessed at last the thing you 
 had on your conscience." 
 
 She spread out the handkerchief to fold it up smoothly 
 again. " Xo ; ah. no ; that weighed so heavily upon me, 
 I felt I must tell it to you. father." 
 
 "Well, well, my dear Margit. we will talk no more 
 about it." 
 
 Then, while he was walking up and down, he suddenly 
 added. "Do you think you would of yourself have come 
 out to me witli this wish of yours?" 
 
 "Well, I had already come (Hit with so much, that 1 
 dare say this, too. would have come out at last." 
 
 The Clergyman laughed, but he did not tell her what 
 he thought. After a while he stood still. "Well, we 
 will manage this matter for you, Margit," he said. 
 
 "(od bless you for it!" .She rose to go, for she un- 
 derstood he had now said all he wished to say. 
 
 And we will look after them a little." 
 
 " I don't know how to thank you enough," she said, 
 takiiiLT his hand and cotirtesvinif.
 
 MARGIT CONSULTS THE CLERGYMAN'. 121 
 
 " God be with you ! " he replied. 
 
 She wiped her eyes with the handkerchief, went tow- 
 ards the door, courtesied again, and said, " Good bye," 
 while she slowly opened and shut it. But so lightly as 
 she went towards Kampen that day, she had not gone for 
 many, many years. When she had come far enough to 
 see the thick smoke curling up cheerfully from the chim- 
 ney, she blessed the house, the whole place, the Clergy- 
 man and Arne, and remembered they were going to 
 have her favorite dish, smoked ham, for dinner.
 
 122 AKXE. 
 
 XIV. 
 FINDING A LOST SONG. 
 
 KAMPEN was a beautiful place. It was situated in 
 the middle of a plain, bordered on the one side by 
 a ravine, and on the other, by the high-road ; just beyond 
 the road was a thick wood, with a mountain ridge rising 
 behind it, while high above all stood blue mountains 
 crowned with snow. On the other side of the ravine 
 also was a wide range of mountains, running round the 
 Swart-water on the side where Boen was situated : it 
 grew higher as it ran towards Kampen, but then turned 
 suddenly sidewards, forming the broad valley called the 
 Lower-tract, which began here, for Kampen was the last 
 place in the Upper-tract. 
 
 The front door of the dwelling-house opened towards 
 the road, which was about two thousand paces off, and a 
 path with leafy birch-trees on both sides led thither. In 
 front of the house was a little garden, which Arne managed 
 according to the rules given in his books. The cattle- 
 houses and barns were nearly all new-built, and stood to 
 the left hand, forming a square. The house was two 
 stories high, and was painted red, with white window- 
 frames and doors; the roof was of turf with main' small 
 plants growing upon it, and on the ridge was a vane- 
 spindle, where turned an iron cock with a high raised 
 tail. 
 
 Spring had come to the mountain-tracts. It was Sun- 
 day morning; the weather was mild and calm, but the
 
 FINDING A LOST SONG. 123 
 
 air was somewhat heavy, and the mist lay low on the 
 forest, though Murgit said it would rise later in the day. 
 Arne had read the sermon, and sung the hymns to his 
 mother, and he felt better for them himself. Now he 
 stood readv dressed to go to the parsonage. When he 
 opened the door the fresh smell of the leaves met him ; 
 the garden lay dewy and bright in the morning breeze, 
 but from the ravine sounded the roaring of the waterfall, 
 now in lower, then again in louder booms, till all around 
 seemed to tremble. 
 
 Arne walked upwards. .As he went farther from the 
 fall, its booming became less awful, and soon it lay over 
 the landscape like the deep tones of an organ. 
 
 ' God be with him wherever he goes ! " the mother 
 said, opening the window and looking after him till he 
 disappeared behind the shrubs. The mist had gradually 
 risen, the sun shone bright, the fields and garden became 
 full of fresh life, and the things Arne had sown and 
 tended grew and sent up odor and gladness to his 
 mother. " Spring is beautiful to those who have had a 
 long winter," she said, looking away over the fields, as 
 if in thought. 
 
 Arne had no positive errand at the parsonage, but he 
 thought he might go there to ask about the newspapers 
 which he shared with the Clergvman. Recentlv he had 
 read the names of several Norwegians who had been 
 successful in gold digging in America, and among them 
 was Christian. His relations had long since left the 
 place, but Arne had latch' heard a rumor that thev ex- 
 pected him to come home soon. About this. also. Arne 
 thought he might hear at the parsonage : and if Christian 
 had alreadv returned, he would go down and see him 
 between spring and hav-harvest. These thoughts- 
 cupied his mind till he came far enough to see th 
 
 I >C-
 
 124 AUXE. 
 
 Swart-water and Boen on the other side. There, too, 
 the mist had risen, but it lay lingering on the mountain- 
 sides, while their peaks rose clear above, and the sun- 
 beams played on the plain ; on the right hand, the 
 shadow of the wood darkened the water, but before 
 the houses the lake had strewed its white sand on the 
 ilat shore. All at once, Arne fancied himself in the red- 
 painted house with the white doors and windows, which 
 he had taken as a model for his own. He did not think of 
 those first gloomy days he had passed there, but only 
 of that summer they both saw he and Eli up beside 
 her sick-bed. lie had not been there since ; nor would 
 he have gone for the whole world. If his thoughts but 
 touched on that time, he turned crimson ; yet he thought 
 of it many times a day ; and if anything could have driven 
 him awav from the parish, it was this. 
 
 He strode onwards, as if to flee from his thoughts ; but 
 the farther lie went, the nearer he came to Boen. and 
 the more he looked at it. The mist had disappeared, the 
 sky shone bright between the frame of mountains, the 
 birds floated in the sunn}- air. calling to each other, and 
 the fields laughed with millions of llowers ; here no 
 thundering waterfall bowed the gladness to submissive 
 awe, but full of life it gambolled and sang without check 
 or pause. 
 
 Arne walked till lie became glowing hot; then he 
 threw himself down on the grass beneath the shadow of 
 a hill and looked towards Boen, but he soon turned away 
 again to avoid seeing it. Then he heard a song above 
 him, so wonderfully clear as he had never heard a song 
 before. It came floating over the meadows, mingled 
 with the chattering of the birds, and he had scarcely 
 recognized the tune ere lie recognized the words also : 
 the tune was the one he loved better than any ; the words
 
 FINDING A LOST SONG. 12^ 
 
 were those he had borne in his mind ever since lie was a 
 bov, and had forgotten that same day they were brought 
 forth. lie sprang up as if he would catch them, but 
 then stopped and listened while verse after verse came 
 streaming down to him : 
 
 'What shall I see if I ever go 
 Over the mountains high? 
 Now, I can see but the peaks of snow, 
 Crowning the cliffs where the pine-trees grow, 
 Waiting and longing to rise 
 Nearer the beckoning skies. 
 
 "Th' eagle is rising afar away, 
 
 Over the mountains high, 
 Rowing along in the radiant day 
 With mighty strokes to his distant prey, 
 
 Where he will, swooping downwards. 
 
 Where he will, sailing onwards. 
 
 'Apple-tree, longest thou not to go 
 
 Over the mountains high ? 
 Gladly thou growest in summer's glow, 
 Pntientlv waitest through winter's snow: 
 
 Though birds on thv branches swing, 
 
 Thou knowest not what thev sing. 
 
 " lie who has twentv vears longed to flee 
 
 Over the mountains high 
 He who bevoiul them, never will see, 
 .Smaller, and smaller, each veur mu^t be: 
 
 He hears what the birds suv 
 
 While on thv boughs thev plav. 
 
 "Birds, with vour chattering, why did ye come 
 
 Over the mountains high? 
 Bevond, in a sunnier land ye could roam. 
 And nearer to heaven could build vour home; 
 
 Whv have ve come to bring 
 
 Longing, without vour wing?
 
 126 ARXE. 
 
 " Shall I, then, never, never flee 
 
 Over the mountains high? 
 Rocky \varls, will ye always be 
 Prisons until ye are tombs for me? 
 
 Until I lie at your feet 
 
 Wrapped in my winding-sheet? 
 
 " Awav ! I will away, afar away, 
 
 Over the mountains high! 
 Here, I am sinking lower each day, 
 Though my Spirit has chosen the loftiest way: 
 
 Let her in freedom fly ; 
 
 Not, beat on the walls and die! 
 
 " Once, I know, I shall journey far 
 
 Over the mountains high. 
 Lord, is thy door already ajar? 
 Dear is the home where tliv saved ones are; 
 
 But bar it awhile from me, 
 
 And help me to long tor Thee." 
 
 Arnc stood listening till the 1 sound of the last verse, the 
 last words died awav : then he heard the birds sing and 
 play again, hut he dared not move. Vet he must find 
 out who had heen singing, and he lifted his toot and 
 walked on, so careful Iv that he did not hear the grass 
 rustle. A little butterfly settled on a flower at his feet, 
 flew up and settled a little way before him. flew up and 
 settled again, and so on all over the hill. Hut soon he 
 came to a thick bush and stopped ; for a bird flew out 
 of it with a frightened "quilt, quitt!" and rushed away 
 over the sloping hill-side. Then she \vlio yvas sitting 
 there looked up ; Arne stooped low down, his heart 
 throbbed till he heard its beats, he held his breath, 
 and was afraid to stir a leaf; for it yvas Eli whom he 
 saw. 
 
 After a long while he ventured to look up again; he
 
 FINDING A LOST SONG. 127 
 
 wished to draw nearer, but lie thought the bird perhaps 
 had its nest under the bush, and he was afraid he might 
 tread on it. Then lie peeped between the leaves as they 
 blew aside and closed again. The sun shone full upon 
 her. She wore a close-titling black dress with long- 
 white sleeves, and a straw hat like those worn by bovs. 
 In her lap a book was lying with a heap of wild flowers 
 upon it : her right hand was listlessly playing with them 
 as if she were in thought, and her left supported her 
 head. She was looking away towards the place where 
 the bird had flown, and she seemed as if she had been 
 weeping. 
 
 Anything more beautiful, Arne had never seen or 
 dreamed of in all his life ; the sun. too. had spread its 
 gold over her and the place : and the song still hovered 
 round her. so that Arne thought, breathed nav. even his 
 heart beat, in time with it. It seemed so strange that the 
 song which bore all his longing, lie had forgotten, but she 
 had found. 
 
 A tawny wasp flew round her in circles many times, 
 till at last she saw it and frightened it away with a 
 flower-stalk, which she put up as often as it came before 
 her. Then she took up the book and opened it. but she 
 soon closed it again, sat as before, and began to hum 
 another song, lie could hear it was The Tree's early 
 leaf-buds," though she often made mistakes, as it" she did 
 not quite remember either the words or the tune. The 
 verse she knew best was the last one. and so she often 
 repeated it ; but she sang it thus : 
 
 ''The Tree bore his berries, so mellow ami reel : 
 'May I Leather thv berries?' a sweet maiden said. 
 
 ' Yes ; all thou canst see ; 
 
 Take them; all are tor thec.' 
 Said the Tree trala hi la, trala, lala said."
 
 128 AKNE. 
 
 Then she suddenly sprung up, scattering all the flowers 
 around her, and sang till the tune trembled through the 
 air, and might have been heard at Boen. Arne had 
 thought of coming forwards when she began singing ; 
 he was just about to do so when she jumped up ; then he 
 felt he initst come, but she went away. Should he call ? 
 No, yes ! Xo ! There she skipped over the hillocks 
 singing ; here her hat fell off, there she took it up again ; 
 here she picked a flower, there she stood deep in the 
 highest grass. 
 
 ' Shall I call? She's looking up here ! " 
 He stooped down. It was a long while ere he ven- 
 tured to peep out again ; at first he only raised his head ; 
 he could not see her : he rose to his knees ; still he could 
 not see her : he stood upright ; no she was gone. lie 
 thought himself a miserable fellow ; anil some of the 
 tales he had heard at the nutting-party came into his 
 mind. 
 
 Xow he would not go to the parsonage. He would 
 not have the newspapers ; would not know anything 
 about Christian. He would not go home; he would go 
 nowhere ; he would do nothing. 
 
 ' Oil, God, I am so unhappy ! " he said. 
 lie sprang up again and sang "The Tree's early leaf- 
 buds" till the mountains resounded. 
 
 Then he sat down where she had been sitting, and 
 took up the flowers she had picked, but he Hung them 
 a\vav again down the hill on every side. Then he wept. 
 It was long since he had done so : this struck him, and 
 made him weep still more. He would go far awav. that 
 he would ; no, lie would not go away ! He thought he was 
 very unhappy ; but when he asked himself why, he could 
 hardlv tell. lie looked round. It was a lovely day ; and 
 the Sabbath rest lav over all. The lake was without a
 
 FINDING A LOST SONG. I2f) 
 
 ripple ; from the houses the curling smoke had begun to 
 rise ; the partridges one after another had ceased calling, 
 and though the little birds continued their twittering, they 
 went towards the shade of the wood ; the dcwdrops were 
 gone, and the grass looked grave ; not a breath of wind 
 stirred the drooping leaves ; and the sun was near the 
 meridian. Almost before he knew, he found himself 
 seated putting together a little song ; a sweet tune offered 
 itself for it: and while his heart was strangelv full of 
 gentle feelings, the tune went and came till words linked 
 themselves to it and begged to be sung, if only for once, 
 lie sang them gentlv, sitting where Eli had sat: 
 
 " lie went in the forest the whole clay long, 
 The whole day long; 
 
 For there he had heard such a wondrous song, 
 A wondrous song. 
 
 ' lie fashioned a flute from a willow sprav, 
 A willow spray, 
 
 To see if within it the sweet tune lay, 
 The sweet tune lay. 
 
 ' It whispered and told him its name at last, 
 Its name at last ; 
 
 But then, while he listened. a\vav it parsed, 
 Away ft {Kissed. 
 
 "But oft when he slumbered, a^ain it stole, 
 Attain it stole. 
 
 With touches of love upon his -soul, 
 Upon his soul. 
 
 "Then he tried to catch it. and keep it fast, 
 And keep it fast ; 
 
 But he woke, and awav i' the night it parsed, 
 I' the night it passed. 
 
 9
 
 130 ARNE. 
 
 " 'My Lord, let me pass in the night. I pray, 
 In the night. I pray; 
 For the tune has taken my heart away, 
 My heart away.' 
 
 " Then answered the Lord. ' It is thy friend, 
 It is thy friend. 
 
 Though not for an hour shall thy longing end, 
 Thy longing end : 
 
 " ' And all the others are nothing to thee, 
 Nothing to thee, 
 
 To this that thou seekest and never shalt see, 
 Never shalt see.'"
 
 S FLTl UK ilUilli. 
 
 XV. 
 SOMEBODIES FUTURE HOME. 
 
 OOD bye," said Margit at the Clergyman's door. 
 
 It was a Sunday evening in advancing summer- 
 time ; the Clergyman had returned from church, and 
 Margit had been sitting with him till now, when it was 
 seven o'clock. " Good bye, Margit," said the Clergyman. 
 She hurried down the door-steps and into the yard ; for 
 she had seen Eli Boon playing there with her brother and 
 the Clergyman's son. 
 
 " Good evening," said Margit, stopping ; " and God 
 bless you all." 
 
 " Good evening," answered Eli. She blushed crimson 
 and wanted to leave off the game ; the boys begged her 
 to keep on, but she persuaded them to let her go for that 
 evening. 
 
 " I almost think I know you," said Margit. 
 
 "Very likely." 
 
 "Isn't it Eli Boen?" 
 
 Yes, it was. 
 
 " Dear me ! you're Eli Boen ; yes, now I see you're 
 like your mother." 
 
 Eli's auburn hair had come unfastened, and hung down 
 over her neck and shoulders ; she was hot and as red as 
 a cherry, her bosom fluttered up and down, and she could 
 scarcely speak, but laughed because she was so out of 
 breath. 
 
 " Well, young folks should be merry,'' said Margit, feel-
 
 132 
 
 ARXE. 
 
 ing happy as she looked at her. "P'r'aps you don't know 
 me ? " 
 
 If Margit had not been her senior, Eli would probably 
 have asked her name, but now she only said she did not 
 remember having seen her before. 
 
 '" Xo ; I dare sav not: old folks don't go out much. 
 But my son, p'r'aps you know a little Arne Kampen ; 
 I'm his mother," said Margit, with a stolen glance at Eli, 
 who suddenly looked grave and breathed slowly. " I'm 
 pretty sure he worked at Boen once." 
 
 Yes. Eli thought he did. 
 
 " It's a fine evening ; we turned our hay this morning, 
 and got it in before I came away ; it's good weather 
 indeed for everything." 
 
 There will be a good hay-harvest this year," Eli 
 suggested. 
 
 " Yes. you may well say that ; everything's getting on 
 well at Boen. I suppose?" 
 
 ' We have got in all our hav." 
 
 ;> Oh, yes, I dare sav you have ; your folks work well, 
 and they have plenty of help. Are you going home to- 
 night? " 
 
 Xo, she was not. 
 
 " Couldn't you go a little way with me? I so seldom 
 have anybodv to talk to ; and it will be all the same to 
 vou. I suppose ? " 
 
 Eli excused herself, saying she had not her jacket on. 
 
 "Well, it's a shame to ask such a tiling the first time 
 of seeing anybody ; but one must put up with old folks' 
 wavs." 
 
 Eli said she would go ; she would only fetch her jacket 
 first. 
 
 It was a close-fitting jacket, which when fastened 
 looked like a dre^s with a bodice ; but now she fastened
 
 SOMEBODY S FUTURE HOME. 133 
 
 only two of the lower hooks, because she was so hot. 
 Her line linen bodice had a little turned-down collar, 
 and was fastened with a silver stud in the shape of a bird 
 with spread wings. Just such a one, Nils, the tailor, 
 wore the first time Margit danced with him. 
 
 " A pretty stud," she said, looking at it. 
 
 " Moth CM' gave it me." 
 
 "Ah, I thought so," Margit said, helping her with the 
 jacket. 
 
 Thev walked onwards over the fields. The hay was 
 Iving in heaps ; and Margit took up a handful, smelled 
 it, and thought it was very good. She asked about the 
 cattle at the parsonage, and this led her to ask also about 
 the live stock at Boen. and then she told how much they 
 had at Kampen. " The farm has improved very much 
 these last few years, and it can still be made twice as 
 large, lie keeps twelve milch-cows now, and he could 
 keep several more, but he reads so many books and 
 manages according to them, and so he will have the cows 
 fed in such a first-rate wav." 
 
 Eli, as might be expected, said nothing to all this ; and 
 Margit then asked her age. She was above twenty. 
 
 ''Have you helped in the house-work? Not much. I 
 dare sav you look so spruce." 
 
 Yes. she had helped a good deal, especially of late. 
 
 "Well, it's best to use one's self to do a little of every- 
 thing; when one gets a large house of one's own. there's 
 a great deal to be done. But. of course, when (.Me finds 
 good help already in the house before her, why. it doesn't 
 matter so much." 
 
 Now Eli thought she must go back ; for they had gne 
 a long way beyond the grounds of the parsonage. 
 
 "It still wants some hours to sunset: it would be kind 
 if you would chat a little longer with me.'' And Eli 
 went on.
 
 134 ARNE. 
 
 Then Margit began to talk about Arne. " I don't 
 know if you know much of him. He could teach you 
 something about everything, he could ; dear me, what a 
 deal he has read ! " 
 
 Eli owned she knew he had read a great deal. 
 
 " Yes ; and that's only the least thing that can be said 
 of him ; but the way he has behaved to his mother all 
 his clays, that's something more, that is. If the old say- 
 ing is true, that he who's good to his mother is good to 
 his wife, the one Arne chooses won't have much to com- 
 plain of." 
 
 Eli asked why they had painted the house before them 
 with grey paint. 
 
 " Ah, I suppose they had no other ; I only wish Arne 
 may sometime be rewarded for all his kindness to his 
 mother. When he has a wife, she ought to be kind- 
 hearted as well as a good scholar. What are you look- 
 ing for, child ?" 
 
 " I only dropped a little twig I had." 
 
 " Dear me ! I think of a many things, you may be sure, 
 while I sit alone in yonder wood. If ever he takes home 
 a wife who brings blessings to house and man, then I 
 know many a poor soul will be glad that dav." 
 
 They were both silent, and walked on without looking 
 at each other ; but soon Eli stopped. 
 
 " What's the matter?" 
 
 u One of my shoe-strings has come down." 
 
 Margit waited a long while till at last the string was 
 tied. 
 
 lie has such queer wavs," she began again ; " he got 
 cowed while he was a child, and so he has got into the 
 way of thinking over everything bv himself, and those 
 sort of folks haven't courage to come forward." 
 
 Now Eli must indeed go back, but Margit said that
 
 SOMEBODY S FUTURIi HOME. 135 
 
 Kampen was only half a mile off; indeed, not so far, and 
 that Eli must see it, as too she was so near. But Eli 
 thought it would be late that day. 
 
 " There'll he sure to he somebody to bring you home." 
 
 "No, no," Eli answered quickly, and would go back. 
 
 " Arnc's not at home, it's true," said Margit ; " but 
 there's sure to be somebody else about ; " and Eli had 
 now less objection to it. 
 
 " If only I shall not be too late," she said. 
 
 " Yes, if we stand here much longer talking about it, 
 it may be too late, I dare say." And they went on. 
 " Being brought up at the Clergyman's, you've read a 
 great deal, I dare say ? " 
 
 Yes, she had. 
 
 * It'll be of good use when you have a husband who 
 kno\vs less." 
 
 No ; that, Eli thought she would never have. 
 
 " Well, no ; p'r'aps, after all, it isn't the best thing ; 
 but still folks about here haven't much learning." 
 
 Eli asked if it was Kampen, she could sec straight 
 before her. 
 
 " No ; that's Gransetren, the next place to the wood ; 
 when we come farther up you'll see Kampen. It's a 
 pleasant place to live at, is Kampen, vou mav be sure : it 
 seems a little out of the way, it's true ; but that doesn't 
 matter much, after all." 
 
 Eli asked what made the smoke that rose from the 
 wood. 
 
 It comes from a houseman's cottage, belonging to 
 Kampen: a man named Opplands-Knut lives there, lie 
 went about lonelv till Arne gave him that piece of 
 land to clear. Poor Arne ! he knows what it is to be 
 lonelv." 
 
 Soon they came far enough to see Kampen.
 
 136 ARNE. 
 
 "Is that Kampen?" asked Eli, standing still and 
 pointing. 
 
 " Yes, it is," said the mother ; and she, too. stood still. 
 The sun shone full in their faces, and they shaded their 
 eyes as they looked down over the plain. In the middle 
 of it stood the red-painted house with its white window- 
 frames ; rich green cornfields lay between the pale new- 
 mown meadows, where some of the hay was already set 
 in stacks; near the cow-house, all was life and stir; the 
 cows, sheep and goats were coming home ; their bells 
 tinkled, the dogs barked, and the milkmaids called ; while 
 high above all. rose the grand tune of the waterfall from 
 the ravine. The farther Eli went, the more this filled her 
 ears, till at last it seemed quite awful to her ; it whizzed 
 and roared through her head, her heart throbbed vio- 
 lently, and she became bewildered and dizzv, and then 
 felt so subdued that she unconsciously began to walk with 
 such small timid steps that Margit begged her to come 
 on a little faster. She started. * I never heard anything 
 like that fall," she said ; " I'm quite frightened." 
 
 " You'll soon get used to it ; and at last you'll even 
 miss it." 
 
 " Do you think so? " 
 
 " Well, you'll see." And Margit smiled. 
 
 " Come, now, we'll first look at the cattle," she said, 
 turning downwards from the road, into the path. "Those 
 trees on each side. Nils planted ; he wanted to have 
 everything nice, did Nils ; and so does Arne ; look, 
 there's the garden he has laid out." 
 
 " Oil, how prettv ! " exclaimed Eli. going quickly 
 towards the garden fence. 
 
 "We'll look at that by-and-by," said Margit; "now 
 we must go over to look at the creatures before they're 
 locked in " But Eli did not hear, for all her mind was
 
 SOMEBODY S FUTURE HOME. 
 
 '37 
 
 turned to the garden. She stood looking at it till Margit 
 called her once more ; as she came along, she gave a fur- 
 tive glance through the windows ; but she could see no 
 one inside. 
 
 They both went upon the barn steps and looked down 
 at the cows, as they passed lowing into the cattle-house. 
 Margit named them one by one to Eli, and told her how 
 much milk each gave, and which would calve in the sum- 
 mer, and which would not. The sheep were counted and 
 penned in ; they were of a large foreign breed, raised 
 from two lambs which Arne had got from the South. 
 u He aims at all such things," said Margit, " though one 
 wouldn't think it of him." Then they went into the 
 barn, and looked at some hay which had been brought in, 
 and Eli had to smell it; "for such hay isn't to be found 
 everywhere," Margit said. She pointed from the barn- 
 hatch to the fields, and told what kind of seed was sown 
 on them, and how much of each kind. "No less than 
 three fields are new-cleared, and now, this first year, 
 they're set with potatoes, just for the sake of the ground ; 
 over there, too, the land's new-cleared, but I suppose that 
 soil's different, for there he has sown barlev ; but then he 
 has strewed burnt turf over it for manure, for he attends 
 to all such tilings. Well, she that conies here will find 
 things in good order, I'm sure." Now they went out 
 towards the dwelling-house ; and Eli. who had answered 
 nothing to all that Margit had told her about other things. 
 when thev passed the garden a^ked if she might go into 
 it ; and when she got leave to go, she begged to pick a 
 flower or two. Awav in one corner was a little garden- 
 seat : she went over and sat down upon it perhaps only 
 to try it, for she rose directly. 
 
 "Now we must make haste, else we shall be too late." 
 said Margit, as she stood at the house-door. Then they
 
 138 ARNE. 
 
 went in. Margit asked if Eli would not take some 
 refreshment, as this was the first time she had been at 
 Kampen ; but Eli turned red and quickly refused. Then 
 they looked round the room, which was the one Arne 
 and the mother generally used in the day-time ; it was 
 not very large, but cosy and pleasant, with windows look- 
 ing out on the road. There were a clock and a stove ; 
 and on the wall hung Nils' fiddle, old and dark, but with 
 new strings ; beside it hung some guns belonging to 
 Arne, English fishing-tackle and other rare things, which 
 the mother took down and showed to Eli, who looked at 
 them and touched them. The room was without paint- 
 ing, for this Arne did not like ; neither was there any in 
 the large pretty room which looked towards the ravine, 
 with the green mountains on the other side, and the blue 
 peaks in the background. But the two smaller rooms in 
 the wing were both painted ; for in them the mother 
 would live when she became old, and Arne brought a 
 wife into the house : Margit was very fond of painting. 
 and so in these rooms the ceilings were painted with 
 roses, and her name was painted on the cupboards, the 
 bedsteads, and on all reasonable and unreasonable places ; 
 for it was Arne himself who had done it. They went 
 into the kitchen, the store-room, and the bake-house ; 
 and now they had only to go into the up-stairs rooms ; 
 i; all the best things were there," the mother said. 
 
 These were comfortable rooms, corresponding with 
 those below, but thcv were new and not yet taken into 
 use, save one which looked towards the ravine. In them 
 hung and stood all sorts of household things not in every- 
 day use. Here hung a lot of fur coverlets and other bed- 
 clothes ; and the mother took hold of them and lifted 
 them ; so did Eli. who looked at all of them with 
 pleasure, examined some of them twice, and asked
 
 SOMEBODY'S FUTURE HOME. 139 
 
 questions about them, growing all the while more inter- 
 ested. 
 
 " Now we'll find the key of Arne's room," said the 
 mother, taking it from under a chest where it was hidden. 
 They went into the room ; it looked towards the ravine ; 
 and once more the awful booming of the waterfall met 
 their ears, for the window was open. They could see 
 the spray rising between the cliffs, but not the fall itself, 
 save in one place farther up, where a huge fragment of 
 rock had fallen into it just where the torrent came in full 
 force to take its last leap into the depths below. The 
 upper side of this fragment was covered with fresh sod ; 
 and a few pine-cones had dug themselves into it. and 
 had grown up to trees, rooted into the crevices. The wind 
 had shaken and twisted them ; and the fall had dashed 
 against them, so that they had not a sprig lower than 
 eight feet from their roots : they were gnarled and bent ; 
 yet they stood, rising high between the rocky walls. 
 When Eli looked out from the window, these trees first 
 caught her eye ; next, she saw the snowy peaks rising far 
 beyond behind the green mountains. Then her eyes 
 passed over the quiet fertile fields back to the room ; and 
 the first thing she saw there was a large bookshelf. 
 There were so manv books on it that she scarcely be- 
 lieved the Clergyman had more. Beneath it was a cup- 
 board, where Arne kept his money. The mother said 
 money had been left to them twice already, and if every- 
 thing went right they would have some more. " But, 
 after all, money's not the best thing in the world : he may 
 get what's better still." she added. 
 
 There were many little things in the cupboard which 
 were amusing to see, and Eli looked at them all, happy 
 as a child. Then the mother showed her a large chest 
 where Arne's clothes lav. and they, too, were taken out
 
 140 ARNE. 
 
 and looked at. Margit patted Eli on the shoulder. 
 " I've never seen you till to-day, and yet I'm already so 
 fond of you. my child," she said, looking affectionately 
 into her eyes. Eli had scarcely time to feel a little bash- 
 ful, before Margit pulled her by the hand and said in a 
 low voice, " Look at that little red chest ; there's some- 
 thing very choice in that, you may be sure." 
 
 Eli glanced towards the chest : it was a little square 
 one, which she thought she would very much like to 
 have. 
 
 " He doesn't want me to know what's in that chest," 
 the mother whispered ; " and he always hides the kev." 
 She went to some clothes that hung on the wall, took 
 down a velvet waistcoat, looked in the pocket, and there 
 found the key. 
 
 " Xow come and look." she whispered ; and they went 
 gcntlv. and knelt down before the chest. As soon as the 
 mother opened it, so sweet an odor met them that Kli 
 clapped her hands even before she had seen anything. 
 On the top was spread a handkerchief, which the mother 
 took awav. " Here, look." she whispered, taking out a 
 fine black silk neckerchief such as men do not wear. "It 
 looks just as if it was meant for a girl." the mother said. 
 Eli spread it upon her lap and looked at it, but did not say 
 a word. " Here's one more," the mother said. Eli could 
 not help taking it up : and then the mother insistrd upon 
 Irving it on her. though Eli drew back and held her head 
 down. She did not know what she would not have given 
 for such a neckerchief; but she thought of something more 
 than that. They folded them up again, but slowly. 
 
 " Xow. look here." the mother said, taking out some 
 handsome ribands. " Evervthing seems as if it was for 
 a girl." Eli blushed crimson, but she said nothing. 
 "There's some more things vet." said the mother, taking
 
 SOMEBODY S FUTURE HOME. 141 
 
 out some fine black cloth for a dress ; " it's fine, I dare 
 say," she added, holding it up to the light. Eli's hands 
 trembled, her chest heaved, she felt the blood rushing to 
 her head, and she would fain have turned away, but that 
 she could not well do. 
 
 " lie has bought something every time he has been to 
 town," continued the mother. Eli could scarcely bear it 
 any longer ; she looked from one thing to another in the 
 chest, and then again at the cloth, and her face burned. 
 The next thing the mother took out was wrapped in 
 paper; they unwrapped it, and found, a small pair of 
 shoes. Anything like them, they had never seen, and 
 the mother wondered how they could be made. Eli said 
 nothing; but when she touched the shoes her lingers left 
 warm marks on them. " I'm hot. I think," she whis- 
 pered. The mother put all the things carefully to- 
 gether. 
 
 u Doesn't it seem just as if he had bought them all, 
 one after another, for somebody he was afraid to give 
 them to? " she said, looking at Eli. ' He has kept them 
 here in this chest so long." She laid them all in the 
 chest again, just as they were before. " Now we'll see 
 what's here in the compartment," she said, opening the 
 lid carefully, as if she were now going to show Eli some- 
 thing specially beautiful. 
 
 When Eli looked she saw iirst a broad buckle for a 
 waistband, next, two gold riiv_ r s tied together, and a 
 hymn-book bound in velvet and with silver c'asps ; but 
 then she saw nothing more, for on the silver of the book 
 she had seen graven in small letters. " Eli Haardsdatter 
 Biien.'' 
 
 The mother wished her to look at something else ; she 
 got no answer, but saw tear after tear dropping down 
 upon the silk neckerchief and spreading over it. She
 
 142 ARXE. 
 
 put down the sylgjc * which she had in her hand, shut 
 the lid, turned round and drew Eli to her. Then the 
 daughter wept upon her breast, and the mother wept 
 over her, without either of them saying any more. 
 
 A little while after, Eli walked by herself in the gar- 
 den, while the mother was in the kitchen preparing 
 something nice for supper ; for now Arne would soon be 
 at home. Then she came out in the garden to Eli, who 
 sat tracing names on the sand with a stick. When she 
 sa\v Margit, she smoothed the sand down over them, 
 looked up and smiled ; but she had been weeping. 
 
 " There's nothing to cry about, my child," said Margit, 
 caressing her ; kt supper's ready now ; and here comes 
 Arne," she added, as a black figure appeared on the road 
 between the shrubs. 
 
 Eli stole in, and the mother followed her. The supper- 
 table was nicely spread with dried meat, cakes and cream 
 porridge ; Eli did not look at it, however, but went away 
 to a corner near the clock and sat down on a chair close 
 to the wall, trembling at every sound. The mother 
 stood by the table. Firm steps were heard on the flag- 
 stones, and a short, light step in the passage, the door 
 was gently opened, and Arne came in. 
 
 The first thing he saw was Eli in the corner ; lie left 
 hold on the door and stood still. This made Eli feel yet 
 more confused ; she rose, but then felt sorry she had done 
 so, and turned aside towards the wall. 
 
 " Are you here ? " said Arne, blushing crimson. 
 
 She held her hand before her face, as one does when 
 the sun shines into the eyes. 
 
 * Svlg/e. a peculiar kind of brooch worn in Norway. 
 TRANSLATORS.
 
 SOMEBODY S FUTUKK HOME. 143 
 
 " How did you come here ? " he asked, advancing a 
 few steps. 
 
 She put her hand down again, and turned a little tow- 
 ards him, but then bent her head and burst into tears. 
 
 "Why do you weep, Eli?" he asked, coming to her. 
 She did not answer, but wept still more. 
 
 " God bless you, Eli ! " he said, laying his arm round 
 her. She leant her head upon his breast, and he whis- 
 pered something down to her ; she did not answer, but 
 clasped her hands round his neck. 
 
 They stood thus for a long while ; and not a sound was 
 heard, save that of the ' fall which still gave its eternal 
 warning, though distant and subdued. Then some one 
 over against the table was heard weeping ; Arne looked 
 up : it was the mother ; but he had not noticed her till 
 then. " Now, I'm sure you won't go away from me, 
 Arne," she said, coming across the floor to him ; and she 
 wept much, but it did her good, she said. 
 
 Later, when they had supped and said good-bye to the 
 mother, Eli and Arne walked together along the road to 
 the parsonage. It was one of those light summer nights 
 when all things seem to whisper and crowd together, as 
 if in fear. Even he who has from childhood been accus- 
 tomed to such nights, feels strangelv influenced by them, 
 and goes about as if expecting something to happen : 
 light is there, but not life. Often the skv is tmged with 
 blood-red, and looks out between the pale clouds like an 
 eye that has watched. One seems to hear a whispering 
 all around, but it comes only from one's own brain, which 
 is over-excited. Man shrinks, feels his own littleness, 
 and thinks of his God. 
 
 Those two who were walking here also kept close to
 
 144 ARNE. 
 
 each other ; they felt as if they had too much happiness, 
 and they feared it might be taken from them, 
 
 " I can hardly believe it," Arne said. 
 
 " I feel almost the same," said Eli, looking dreamily 
 before her. 
 
 " Tct ifs true" he said, laying stress on each word ; 
 " now I am no longer going about only thinking ; for 
 once I have done something." 
 
 He paused a few moments, and then laughed, but not 
 gladly. " No, it was not I," he said ; " it was mother 
 who did it." 
 
 He seemed to have continued this thought, for after a 
 while he said, " Up to this day I have done nothing ; not 
 taken my part in anything. I have looked on. . . . and 
 listened." 
 
 He went on a little farther, and then said warmly, 
 " God be thanked that I have got through in this way ; 
 . . . now people will not have to see many tilings which 
 would not have been as they ought. . . ." Then after a 
 while he added, '" But if some one had not helped me, 
 perhaps I should have gone on alone for ever." lie was 
 silent. 
 
 ' What do you think father will say, dear?" asked Eli, 
 who had been busy with her own thoughts. 
 
 " I am going over to ]56en earlv to-morrow morning," 
 said Arne ; " that, at any rate, I must do myself," he 
 added, determining he would now be cheerful and brave, 
 and never think of sad tilings again ; no, never ! " And, 
 Eli. it was you who found my song in the nut-wood?" 
 She laughed. u And the tune I had made it for, you got 
 hold of. too." 
 
 "I took the one which suited it," she said, looking 
 down. He smiled joyfully and bent his face down to 
 hers.
 
 SOMEBODY S FUTURE HOME. 145 
 
 " But the other song you did not know?" 
 
 " Which ? " she asked looking up. . . . 
 
 " Eli . . . you mustn't be angry with me . . . but one 
 day this spring . . . yes, I couldn't help it, I heard you 
 singing on the parsonage-hill." 
 
 She blushed and looked down, but then she laughed. 
 " Then, after all, you have been served just right," she 
 said. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " Well it was ; nay, it wasn't my fault ; it was your 
 mother . . . well . . . another time . . ." 
 
 " Nay ; tell it me now'." 
 
 She would not ; then he stopped and exclaimed. 
 " Surely, you haven't been up-stairs?" He was so grave 
 that she felt frightened, and looked down. 
 
 " Mother has perhaps found the key to that little 
 chest?" he added in a gentle tone. 
 
 She hesitated, looked up and smiled, but it seemed as 
 if only to keep back her tears ; then he laid his arm 
 round her neck and drew her still closer to him. lie 
 trembled, lights seemed flickering before his eyes, his 
 head burned, he bent over her and his lips sought hers. 
 but could hardly find them ; he staggered, withdrew his 
 arm, and turned aside, afraid to look at her. The clouds 
 had taken such strange shapes ; there was one straight 
 before him which looked like a goat with two great 
 horns, and standing on its hind legs ; and there was the 
 nose of an old woman with her hair tangled ; and then- 
 was the picture of a big man. which was set slantwise. 
 and then was suddenly rent. . . . J Jut just over the moun- 
 tain the sky was blue and clear ; the clilV stood gloomy, 
 while the lake lav quietly beneath it, afraid to move ; pale 
 and mistv it lav, forsaken both by sun and moon, but the 
 wood went down to it, full of love just as before. Some 
 
 10
 
 146 ARNE. 
 
 birds woke and twittered half in sleep ; answers came 
 over from one copse and then from another, but there was 
 no danger at hand, and they slept once more . . . there 
 was peace all around. Arne felt its blessedness lying 
 over him as it lay over the evening. 
 
 " Thou great, thou Almighty God ! " he said, so that 
 he heard the words himself, and he folded his hands, but 
 went a little before Eli that she might not see it.
 
 THE DOUBLE WEDDING. 147 
 
 XVI. 
 THE DOUBLE WEDDING. 
 
 IT was in the end of harvest-time, and the corn was 
 being carried. It was a bright day ; there had been 
 rain in the night and earlier in morning, but now the 
 air was clear and mild as in summer-time. It was 
 Saturday ; yet many boats were steering over the .Swart- 
 water towards the church ; the men, in their white shirt- 
 sleeves, sat rowing, while the women, with light-colored 
 kerchiefs on their heads, sat in the stern and the forepart. 
 But still more boats were steering towards Boen, in readi- 
 ness to go out thence in procession ; for to-day Baard 
 Been kept the wedding of his daughter, Eli, and Arne 
 Nilsson Kampen. 
 
 The doors were all open, people went in and out, 
 children with pieces of cake in their hands stood in the 
 yard, fidgety about their new clothes, and looking dis- 
 tantly at each other ; an old woman sat lonely and weep- 
 ing on the steps of the storehouse : it was Margit Kam- 
 pen. She wore a large silver ring, with several small 
 rings fastened to the upper plate ; and now and then she 
 looked at it: Nils gave it her on their weddh.g-day, and 
 she had never worn it since. 
 
 The purveyor of the feast and the two young brides- 
 men the Clergyman's son and Eli's brother- went 
 about in the rooms offering refreshments to the wedding- 
 guests as they arrived. Up-stairs in Eli's room, were the 
 Clergyman's lady, the bride and Mathilde. who had come
 
 148 ARNE. 
 
 from town only to put on her bridal-dress and ornaments, 
 for this they had promised each other from childhood. 
 Arne was dressed in a fine cloth suit, round jacket, black 
 hat, and a collar that Eli had made ; and he was in one 
 of the down-stairs rooms, standing at the window where 
 she wrote " Arne." It was open, and he leant upon the 
 sill, looking away over the calm water towards the dis- 
 tant bight and the church. 
 
 Outside in the passage, two met as they came from 
 doing their part in the day's duties. The one came from 
 the stepping-stones on the shore, where he had been 
 arranging the church-boats ; he wore a round black 
 jacket of fine cloth, and blue frieze trousers, off which 
 the dye came, making his hands blue ; his white collar 
 looked well against his fair face and long light hair ; his 
 high forehead was calm, and a quiet smile lay round his 
 lips. It was Baard. She whom he met had just come 
 from the kitchen, dressed ready to go to church. She 
 was tall and upright, and came through the door some- 
 what hurriedly, but with a firm step ; when she met Baard 
 she stopped, and her mouth drew to one side. It was 
 Birgit, the wife. Each had something to say to the other, 
 but neither could find words for it. Baard was even 
 more embarrassed than she ; he smiled more and more, 
 and at last turned towards the staircase, saying as he 
 began to step up, u Perhaps you'll come too." And she 
 went up after him. Here, up-stairs, was no one but 
 themselves ; yet Baard locked the door after them, and he 
 was a long while about it. When at last he turned round. 
 Birgit stood looking out from the window, perhaps to 
 avoid looking in the room. Baard took from his breast- 
 pocket a little silver cup, and a little bottle of wine, and 
 poured out some for her. But she would not take any, 
 though he told her it was wine the Clergyman had sent
 
 THE DOUBLE WEDDING. 149 
 
 them. Tnen he drank some himself, but offered it to her 
 several times while he was drinking. lie corked the 
 bottle, put it again into his pocket with the cup, and sat 
 down on a chest. 
 
 He breathed deeply several times, looked down and 
 said, " I'm so happy to-day ; and I thought I must speak 
 freely with you ; it's a long while since I did so." 
 
 Birgit stood leaning with one hand upon the window- 
 sill. Baard went on, " I've been thinking about Nils, the 
 tailor, to-day ; he separated us two ; I thought it wouldn't 
 g6 beyond our wedding, but it has gone farther. To-day, 
 a son of his, well-taught and handsome, is taken into our 
 family, and we have given him our only daughter. What 
 now, if we, Birgit, were to keep our wedding once again, 
 and keep it so that we can never more be separated ? " 
 
 His voice trembled, and he gave a little cough. Birgit 
 laid her head down upon her arm, but said nothing. 
 Baard waited long, but he got no answer, and he had 
 himself nothing more to say. He looked up and grew 
 very pale, for she did not even turn her head. Then lie 
 rose. 
 
 At the same moment came a gentle knock at the door, 
 and a soft voice asked, "Are you coming now, mother?" 
 It was Eli. Birgit raised her head, and, looking towards 
 the door, she saw Baard's pale face. "Are you coming 
 now, mother?'' was asked once more. 
 
 "Yes, now I am coming," said Birgit in a broken 
 voice, while she gave her hand to Baard, and burst into a 
 violent Hood of tears. 
 
 The two hands pressed each other ; they were both 
 toihvorn now. but they clasped as iirmlv as if thev had 
 sought each other for twenty years. Thev were still 
 locked together, when Baard and Birgit went to the door ; 
 and afterwards when the bridal train went down to the
 
 150 ARNE. 
 
 stepping-stones on the shore, and Arne gave his hand to 
 Eli, Baard looked at them, and, against all custom, took 
 Birgit by the hand and followed them with a bright 
 smile. 
 
 But Margit Kampen went behind them lonely. 
 
 Baard was quite overjoyed that day. While he was 
 talking with the rowers, one of them, who sat looking at 
 the mountains behind, said how strange it was that even 
 such a steep cliff could be clad. " Ah, whether it wisb.es 
 to be, or not, it must," said Baard, looking all along the 
 train till his eyes rested on the bridal pair and his wife. 
 
 " Who could have foretold this twenty years ago ? " 
 said he. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Cambridge : Stereotyped and Printed by John Wilson & Son.
 
 THE 
 
 CHILDREN'S GARLAND 
 
 FROM THE BEST POETS 
 
 SELECTED AND ARRANGED 
 
 BY COVENTRY PATMORE 
 
 i6mo. Red Vellum. Vignette Title engraved by MARSH. 
 Price, $ 1.75. 
 
 LONDON MORNING POST. 
 
 "It includes specimens of all the great masters in the art 
 of Poetry, selected with the matured judgment of a man con- 
 centrated on obtaining insight into the feelings and tastes of 
 childhood, and desirous to awaken its finest impulses, to cul- 
 tivate its keenest sensibilities." 
 
 CINCINNATI GAZETTE. 
 
 "The University Press at Cambridge has turned out many 
 wonderful specimens of the art, but in exquisite finish it has 
 never equalled the evidence of its skill which now lies before us. 
 The text, compared with the average specimens of modern books, 
 shines out with as bright a contrast as an Elzevir by the side of 
 one of its dingy and bleared contemporaries. In the quality 
 of its paper, in its vignettes and head-pieces, the size of its 
 pages, in every feature that can gratify the eye, indeed, the 
 ' Garland ' could hardly bear improvement. Similar in its gen- 
 eral getting up to the much-admired Golden Treasury of English 
 Songs and Lyrics, issued by the same publishers a few months 
 since, it excels, we think, in the perfection of various minor 
 details." 
 
 NEW YORK WORLD. 
 
 " It is a beautiful book, the most beautiful in some respects 
 that has been published for years ; going over a large number of 
 poets and wide range of themes as none but a poet could have 
 done. A choice cabinet of precious jewels, or better still, a 
 dainty wreath of blossoms, 'The Children's Garland.'" 
 
 BOSTON TRANSCRIPT. 
 
 " It is in all respect-, a delicious volume, and will be as great a 
 favorite with the elder as with the younger members of every 
 family into which it penetrates. Some of the bc^t poems in the 
 English language are included in the selections. Paper, printing, 
 and binding, indeed, all the elements entering into the mechani- 
 cal execution of the book, offer to the view nothing \ herein 
 the most fastidious eye can detect a blemish." 
 
 SPRINGFIELD REPUBLICAN. 
 
 " It is almost too dainty a book to be touched, and yet it is sure 
 to be well thumbed whenever it falls into the hands of a lover of 
 genuine poetry."
 
 THE 
 
 JEST-BOOK 
 
 THE CHOICEST ANECDOTES AND SAYINGS 
 
 SELECTED AND ARRANGED 
 
 BY MARK LEMON 
 
 i6mo. Green Vellum. Vignette Title. Price, $ 1.75. 
 
 BOSTON POST. 
 
 " Gentlemen, prepare to smile. Here is an interest for a min- 
 ute or a dull day. Mark Lemon gives us the result of his recon- 
 dite searches and seizures in the regions of infinite jest. Like 
 all good jesters, he has the quality of sound philosophy in him, 
 and of reason also, for he discriminates closely, and serves up his 
 wit with a deal of refinement in it." 
 
 HARTFORD PRESS. 
 
 " So exquisitely is the book printed, that every jest in it shines 
 
 like a new gold dollar. It is the apotheosis of jokes 
 
 There is jollity enough in it to keep the whole American press 
 good humored." 
 
 PROVIDENCE JOURNAL. 
 
 " Mark Lemon, who helps to flavor Punch, ha? gathered this 
 volume of anecdotes, this parcel of sharp and witty sayings, and 
 we have no fear in declaring that the reader will find it a book of 
 some wisdom and much amusement. By this single ' Lemon ' 
 we judge of the rest" 
 
 CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE. 
 
 "This little volume is a very agreeable provocative of mirth, 
 and as such, it will be useful in driving dull care away." 
 
 ST. JOHN'S GLOBE. 
 
 " It contains many old jokes, which like good wine become 
 all the better for age, and many new and fugitive ones which un- 
 til now never had a local habitation and a name." 
 
 CHICAGO JOURNAL. 
 
 " For a fireside we can imagine nothing more diverting or 
 more likely to be laughed over during the intervals of labor or 
 study."
 
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