No strife profanes our little church, tho' there it rages high,
But then we have no little church, and that, perhaps, is why!

The folks round about got to hear of his songs, and would have been glad
to talk to him; but Arne was shy of people and disliked them, chiefly
because he thought they disliked him.

He gave up tending the cattle, and stayed at home, looking after the
farm. He was near his mother all day now, and she would give him dainty
meals. In his heart was a song with the refrain "Over the mountains
high!" Somehow, Arne could never finish this song.

There was a field labourer named Upland Knut, at whose side Arne often
worked. This man had neither parents nor friends, and when Arne said to
him, "Have you no one at all, then, to love you?" he answered, "Ah, no!
I have no one."

Arne thought of his own mother, and his heart was full of love to her.
What if he were to lose her because he had not sufficiently prized her,
he thought; and he rushed home, to find his mother sleeping gently like
a child.

Mother and son were much together in those days, and once they agreed to
go to a wedding at a neighbouring farm.

For the first time in his life Arne drank too much, and all next day he
lay in the barn. He was full of self-reproach, and it seemed to him that
cowardice was his besetting sin.

Cowardice had been his failing as a boy. It had prevented him taking his