For thirty years she laid it aside
Lest the colors might fade away:
'My cap I'll wear when to God I pray,
A happy and grateful bride.'
For forty years she laid it aside,
Still holding her mother as dear:
'My little cap, I certainly fear
I never shall be a bride.'
She went to look for the cap one day
In the chest where it long had lain;
But, ah! her looking was all in vain:
The cap had mouldered away."
Arne listened, and the words seemed to him like music playing far away over the mountains. He went up to Knut and asked him, "Have you a mother?"
"No."
"Have you a father?"
"Ah, no; no father."
"Is it long since they died?"
"Ah, yes; it's long since."
"You haven't many, I dare say, who love you?"