Here all are at peace--true, the hawk is rather unkind; I fear he 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. 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 boy in my 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 would himself manage the farm: and so it was arranged. But the mother was constantly hovering about him, warning him not to work too hard. Then, too, she used to get him such nice meals that he often felt quite ashamed to take them; yet he said nothing. He had in his mind a song having for its burden, "Over the mountains high;" but he never could complete it, principally because he always tried to bring the burden in every alternate line; so afterwards he gave this up. But several of his songs became known, and were much liked; and many people, especially those who had known him from his childhood, were fond of talking to him. But he was shy to all whom he did not know, and he thought ill of them, mainly because he fancied they thought ill of him. In the next field to his own worked a middle-aged man named Opplands-Knut, who used sometimes to sing, but always the same song. After Arne had heard him singing it for several months, he thought he would ask him whether he did not know any others. "No," Knut answered. Then after a few more days, when he was again singing his song, Arne asked him, "How came you to learn that one song?" "Ah! it happened thus----" and then he said no more. Arne went away from him straight indoors; and there he found his mother weeping; a thing he had not seen her do ever since the father's death. He turned back again, just as though he did not notice it; but he felt the mother was looking sorrowfully after him, and he was obliged to stop. "What are you crying for, mother?" he asked. She did not answer, and all was silent in the room. Then his words came back to him again, and he felt they had not been spoken so kindly as they ought; and once more, in a gentler tone, he asked, "What are you crying for, mother?" "Ah, I hardly know," she said, weeping still more. He stood silent a while; but at last mustered courage to say, "Still, there must be some reason why you are crying."