"'Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldest come under my roof; but speak the word only....'" He threw himself forward, hid his face in his hands, and sobbed violently. Then, after lying thus a long while, he said, word for word out of the Scriptures, just as he had learned it more than twenty years ago, "'But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table.'"
Then he was silent, and his weeping became subdued and calm.
The mother had been long awake, without looking up; but now when she heard him weeping thus like one who is saved, she raised herself on her elbows, and gazed earnestly at him.
But scarcely did Nils perceive her before he called out, "Are you looking up, you ugly vixen! I suppose you would like to see what a state you have brought me to. Well, so I look, just so!" ... He rose; and she hid herself under the fur coverlet. "Nay, don't hide, I'm sure to find you," he said, stretching out his right hand and fumbling with his forefinger on the bed-clothes, "Tickle, tickle," he said, turning aside the fur coverlet, and putting his forefinger on her throat.
"Father!" cried Arne.
"How shrivelled and thin you've become already, there's no depth of flesh here!" She writhed beneath his touch, and seized his hand with both hers, but could not free herself.
"Father!" repeated Arne.
"Well at last you're roused. How she wriggles, the ugly thing! Can't you scream to make believe I am beating you? Tickle, tickle! I only want to take away your breath."
"Father!" Arne said once more, running to the corner of the room, and snatching up an axe which stood there.
"Is it only out of perverseness, you don't scream? you had better beware; for I've taken such a strange fancy into my head. Tickle, tickle! Now I think I shall soon get rid of that screaming of yours."