One evening when it was growing late, Arne sat reading: indeed, when he felt more sad than usual he always took refuge in his books; little understanding that they only increased his burden. The father had gone to a wedding party, but was expected home that evening; the mother, weary and afraid of him, had gone to bed. Then Arne was startled by the sound of a heavy fall in the passage, and of something hard pushing against the door. It was the father, just coming home. "Is it you, my clever boy?" he muttered; "come and help your father to get up." Arne helped him up, and brought him to the bench; then carried in the violin-case after him, and shut the door. "Well, look at me, you clever boy; I don't look very handsome now; Nils, the tailor's no longer the man he used to be. One thing I--tell--you--you shall never drink spirits; they're--the devil, the world, and the flesh.... 'God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.' ... Oh dear! oh dear!--How far gone I am!" He sat silent for a while, and then sang in a tearful voice, "Merciful Lord, I come to Thee; Help, if there can be help for me; Though by the mire of sin defiled, I'm still Thine own dear ransomed child." "'Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldest come under my roof; but speak the word only....'" He threw himself forward, hid his face in his hands, and sobbed violently. Then, after lying thus a long while, he said, word for word out of the Scriptures, just as he had learned it more than twenty years ago, "'But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table.'" Then he was silent, and his weeping became subdued and calm. The mother had been long awake, without looking up; but now when she heard him weeping thus like one who is saved, she raised herself on her elbows, and gazed earnestly at him. But scarcely did Nils perceive her before he called out, "Are you looking up, you ugly vixen! I suppose you would like to see what a state you have brought me to. Well, so I look, just so!" ... He rose; and she hid herself under the fur coverlet. "Nay, don't hide, I'm sure to find you," he said, stretching out his right hand and fumbling with his forefinger on the bed-clothes, "Tickle, tickle," he said, turning aside the fur coverlet, and putting his forefinger on her throat. "Father!" cried Arne. "How shrivelled and thin you've become already, there's no depth of flesh here!" She writhed beneath his touch, and seized his hand with both hers, but could not free herself. "Father!" repeated Arne. "Well at last you're roused. How she wriggles, the ugly thing! Can't you scream to make believe I am beating you? Tickle, tickle! I only want to take away your breath."