Arne still sat there listening to the singing. The sun fell directly on the group, it shone on their white sleeves; soon they twined their arms about each other's waists; they went dancing across the meadow, godfather after them with his cane, because they were treading down his grass. Arne thought no more about the dreams. Soon he even left off watching the girls; his thoughts wandered far beyond the valley, as did the fine sunbeams, and he sat alone there on the hill and spun. Before he was aware of it, he was entangled in a close web of melancholy; he yearned to break away, and never in the world before so ardently as now. He faithfully promised himself that when he got home he would talk with his mother, come of it what would. His thoughts grew stronger, and drifted into the song,-- "Over the lofty mountains." Words had never flowed so readily as now, nor had they ever blended so surely into verse,--they almost seemed like girls sitting around on a hill. He had a scrap of paper about him and placing it on his knee, he wrote. When the song was complete, he arose, like one who was released, felt that he could not see people, and took the forest road home, although he knew that the night, too, would be needed for this. The first time he sat down to rest on the way, he felt for the song, that he might sing it aloud as he went along, and let it be borne all over the parish; but he found he had left it in the place where it was written. One of the girls went up the hill to look for him, did not find him, but found his song. CHAPTER X. To talk with the mother was more easily thought than done. Arne alluded to Kristian and the letter that never came; but the mother went away from him, and for whole days after he thought her eyes looked red. He had also another indication of her feelings, and that was that she prepared unusually good meals for him. He had to go up in the woods to fetch an armful of fuel one day; the road led through the forest, and just where he was to do his chopping was the place where people went to pick whortleberries in the autumn. He had put down his axe in order to take off his jacket, and was just about beginning, when two girls came walking along with berry pails. It was his wont to hide himself rather than meet girls, and so he did now. "O dear, O dear! What a lot of berries! Eli, Eli!" "Yes, dear, I see them." "Well, then, do not go any farther; here are many pailfuls!" "I thought there was a rustling in that bush over there!" "Oh, you must be mad!" and the girls rushed at each other, and put their arms about each other's waists. They stood for a long while so still, that they scarcely breathed. "It is surely nothing; let us go on picking!" "Yes, I really think we will." And so they began to gather berries. "It was very kind of you, Eli, to come over to the parsonage to-day. Have you anything to tell me?" "I have been at godfather's."