At home, things got worse.  As Nils grew feebler he became more drunken and violent, and often Arne would stay at home to amuse him in order that Margit might have an hour’s peace.  Arne began to loathe his father; but he kept this feeling to himself, as he did his love for his mother.

His one friend was Kristen, the eldest son of a sea-captain.  With Kristen, Arne could talk of books and travel.  But there came a day when Kristen went away to be a sailor, and Arne was left alone.

Life was very heavy for him.  He made up songs and put his grief into them.  But for his mother, Arne would have left Kampen—­he stood between her and Nils.

One night, about this time, Nils came back late from a wedding-feast.  Margit had gone to bed, and Arne was reading.  The boy helped his father upstairs, and Nils began quoting texts from the Bible and cursing his own downfall, shedding drunken tears.  Presently he made his way to the bed, and put his fingers on Margit’s throat.

In vain the boy and his mother called on Nils to desist; the drunkard took no notice.  Arne rushed to a corner of the room and picked up an axe; at the same moment Nils fell down, and, after a piercing shriek, lay quite still.

All that night they watched by the dead.  A feeling of relief came upon them both.

“He fell of himself,” Arne said simply, for at first his mother was terrified by the sight of the axe.

“Remember, Arne, it’s for your sake I’ve borne it all,” Margit said, weeping.  “You must never leave me.”

“Never, never,” he answered fervently.

II.—­The Call of the Mountains

Arne grew up reserved and shy; he went on tending the cattle and making songs.  He was now in his twentieth year.  The pastor lent him books to read, the only thing he cared for.

Many a time he would have liked to read aloud to his mother, but he could not bring himself to do it.  One of the songs he made at this time began: 

    The parish is all restless, but there’s peace in grove and wood. 
    No beadle here impounds you, to suit his crabbed mood;
    No strife profanes our little church, tho’ there it rages high,
    But then we have no little church, and that, perhaps, is why!

The folks round about got to hear of his songs, and would have been glad to talk to him; but Arne was shy of people and disliked them, chiefly because he thought they disliked him.

He gave up tending the cattle, and stayed at home, looking after the farm.  He was near his mother all day now, and she would give him dainty meals.  In his heart was a song with the refrain “Over the mountains high!” Somehow, Arne could never finish this song.

There was a field labourer named Upland Knut, at whose side Arne often worked.  This man had neither parents nor friends, and when Arne said to him, “Have you no one at all, then, to love you?” he answered, “Ah, no!  I have no one.”