But then the barn-door was opened, and the mother came rushing across the floor. Her face was deadly pale, though the perspiration dropped from it like great tears. For the last twenty-four hours she had been rushing hither and thither, seeking her son, calling his name, and scarcely pausing even to listen, until now when he answered from the barn. Then she gave a loud cry, jumped upon the hay-mow more lightly than a boy, and threw herself upon Arne's breast....
... "Arne, Arne are you here? At last I've found you; I've been looking for you ever since yesterday; I've been looking for you all night long! Poor, poor Arne! I saw they worried you, and I wanted to come to speak to you and comfort you, but really I'm always afraid!" ... "Arne, I saw you drinking spirits! Almighty God, may I never see it again! Arne, I saw you drinking spirits." It was some minutes before she was able to speak again. "Christ have mercy upon you, my boy, I saw you drinking spirits! ... You were gone all at once, drunk and crushed by grief as you were! I ran all over the place; I went far into the fields; but I couldn't find you: I looked in every copse; I questioned everybody; I came here, too; but you didn't answer.... Arne, Arne, I went along the river; but it seemed nowhere to be deep enough...." She pressed herself closer to him.
"Then it came into my mind all at once that you might have gone home; and I'm sure I was only a quarter of an hour going there. I opened the outer-door and looked in every room; and then, for the first time, I remembered that the house had been locked up, and I myself had the key; and that you could not have come in, after all. Arne, last night I looked all along both sides of the road: I dared not go to the edge of the ravine.... I don't know how it was I came here again; nobody told me; it must have been the Lord himself who put it into my mind that you might be here!"
She paused and lay for a while with her head upon his breast.
He tried to comfort her.
"Arne, you'll never drink spirits again, I'm sure?"
"No; you may be sure I never will."
"I believe they were very hard upon you? they were, weren't they?"
"No; it was I who was cowardly," he answered, laying a great stress upon the word.
"I can't understand how they could behave badly to you. But, tell me, what did they do? you never will tell me anything;" and once more she began weeping.