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 completed. 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 Böen. 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. "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 off his cap, and sat silently looking at it. "I was about fourteen years old when I became acquainted 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 sure 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.