Arne: Early Tales and Sketches Part 4

"Oh, my pet lamb, try to grow Fat and fine wheresoe'er you go!

Know you not, little sweeting, A spring lamb is dainty eating!"[10]

One day in his twentieth year Arne chanced to overhear a conversation between his mother and the wife of the former gard owner; they were disputing about the horse they owned in common.

"I must wait to hear what Arne says," remarked the mother.

"That lazy fellow!" was the reply. "He would like, I dare say, to have the horse go ranging about the woods as he does himself."

The mother was now silent, although before she had been arguing her own case well.

Arne turned as red as fire. It had not occurred to him before that his mother might have to listen to taunting words for his sake, and yet perhaps she had often been obliged to do so. Why had she not told him of this?

He considered the matter well, and now it struck him that his mother scarcely ever talked with him. But neither did he talk with her. With whom did he talk, after all?

Often on Sunday, when he sat quietly at home, he felt a desire to read sermons to his mother, whose eyes were poor; she had wept too much in her day. But he did not have the courage to do so. Many times he had wanted to offer to read aloud to her from his own books, when all was still in the house, and he thought the time must hang heavily on her hands. But his courage failed him for this too.

"It cannot matter much. I must give up tending the herds, and move down to mother."

He let several days pa.s.s, and became firm in his resolve. Then he drove the cattle far around in the wood, and made the following song:--

"The vale is full of trouble, but here sweet Peace may reign; Within this quiet forest no bailiffs may distrain; None fight, as in the vale, in the Blessed Church's name, Yet if a church were here, it would no doubt be just the same.

"How peaceful is the forest:--true, the hawk is far from kind, I fear he now is striving the plumpest sparrow to find; I fear yon eagle's coming to rob the kid of breath, And yet perchance if long it lived, it might be tired to death.

"The woodman fells one tree, and another rots away, The red fox killed the lambkin white at sunset yesterday; The wolf, though, killed the fox, and the wolf itself must die, For Arne shot him down to-day before the dew was dry.

"I'll hie me to the valley back--the forest is as bad; And I must see to take good heed, lest thinking drive me mad.

I saw a boy in my dreams, though where I cannot tell-- But I know he had killed his father--I think it was in h.e.l.l."[11]

He came home and told his mother that she might send out in the parish after another herd-boy; he wanted to manage the gard himself. Thus it was arranged; but the mother was always after him with warnings not to overtax himself with work. She used also to prepare such good meals for him at this time that he often felt ashamed; but he said nothing.

He was working at a song, the refrain of which was "Over the lofty mountains." He never succeeded in finishing it, and this was chiefly because he wanted to have the refrain in every other line; finally he gave it up.

But many of the songs he made got out among the people, where they were well liked; there were those who wished very much to talk with him, especially as they had known him from boyhood up. But Arne was shy of all whom he did not know, and thought ill of them, chiefly because he believed they thought ill of him.

His constant companion in the fields was a middle-aged man, called Upland Knut, who had a habit of singing over his work; but he always sang the same song. After listening to this for a few months, Arne was moved to ask him if he did not know any others.

"No," was the man's reply.

Then after the lapse of several days, once when Knut was singing his song, Arne asked:

"How did you chance to learn this _one_?"

"Oh, it just happened so," said the man.

Arne went straight from him into the house; but there sat his mother weeping, a sight he had not seen since his father's death. He pretended not to notice her, and went toward the door again; but he felt his mother looking sorrowfully after him again and he had to stop.

"What are you crying for, mother?"

For a while his words were the only sound in the room, and therefore they came back to him again and again, so often that he felt they had not been said gently enough. He asked once more:--

"What are you crying for?"

"Oh, I am sure I do not know;" but now she wept harder than ever.

He waited a long time, then was forced to say, as courageously as he could:--

"There must be something you are crying about!"

Again there was silence. He felt very guilty, although _she_ had said nothing, and _he_ knew nothing.

"It just happened so," said the mother. Presently she added, "I am after all most fortunate," and then she wept.

But Arne hastened out, and he felt drawn toward the Kamp gorge. He sat down to look into it, and while he was sitting there, he too wept. "If I only knew what I was crying for," mused Arne.

Above him, in the new-plowed field, Upland Knut was singing his song:--

"Ingerid Sletten of Willow-pool Had no costly trinkets to wear; But a cap she had that was far more fair, Although it was only of wool.

"It had no tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, 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 G.o.d I pray A happy and grateful bride.'

"For forty years she laid it aside, Still holding her mother as dear; 'My little cap, I certainly 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 moldered away."[12]

Arne sat and listened as though the words had been music far away up the slope. He went up to Knut.

"Have you a mother?" asked he.

"No."

"Have you a father?"

"Oh, no; I have no father."

"Is it long since they died?"

"Oh, yes; it is long since."

"You have not many, I dare say, who care for you?"

"Oh, no; not many."