Arne had no fixed errand at the parsonage, but still he wanted to learn about the papers he and the priest took together. Recently he had seen the names of several Norsemen who had done remarkably well digging gold in America, and among them was Kristian. Now Arne had heard a rumor that Kristian was expected home. He could, no doubt, get information about this at the parsonage,--and if Kristian had really returned, then Arne would go to him in the interval between spring and haying time. This was working in his mind until he had advanced so far that he could see Black Water, and Boeen on the other side. The fog had lifted there, too; the sun was playing on the green, the mountain loomed up with shining peak, but the fog was still lying in its lap; the wood darkened the water on the right side, but in front of the house the ground was more flat, and its white sand glittered in the sunshine. Suddenly his thoughts sped to the red-painted building with white doors and window-frames, that he had had in mind when he painted his own. He did not remember those first gloomy days he had passed there; he only thought of that bright summer they had both seen, he and Eli, up beside her sick-bed. Since then he had not been to Boeen, nor would he go there, not for the whole world. If only his thoughts barely touched on it, he grew crimson and abashed; and yet this happened again every day, and many times a day. If there was anything which could drive him out of the parish, it was just this! Onward he went, as though he would flee from his thoughts, but the farther he walked the nearer opposite Boeen he came, and the more he gazed upon it. The fog was entirely gone, the sky clear from one mountain outline to the other, the birds sailed along and called aloud to one another in the glad sunny air, the fields responded with millions of flowers; the Kamp force did not here compel gladness to bow the knee in submission and awe, but buoyant and frolicsome it tumbled over, singing, twinkling, rejoicing without end! Arne had walked till he was in a glowing heat; he flung himself down in the grass at the foot of a hill, looked over towards Boeen, then turned away to avoid seeing it. Presently he heard singing above him, pure and clear, as song had never sounded to him before; it floated out over the meadow, mingled with the chattering of the birds, and he was scarcely sure of the tune before he recognized the words too,--for the tune was his favorite one, and the words were those that had been working in his mind from the time he was a boy, and forgotten the same day he had brought them forth! He sprang up as though he would catch them, then paused and listened; here came the first stanza, here came the second, here came the third and the fourth of his own forgotten song streaming down to him:--