"What are you doing?" said he, looking up.
"I'm loosening the vane."
"Leave it alone; it makes a wailing noise when it turns."
"Well, I think even that's better than silence," said Arne, seating himself astride on the ridge of the roof. Baard looked up at Arne, and Arne down at Baard. Then Baard smiled and said, "He who must wail when he speaks had better he silent."
Words sometimes haunt us long after they were uttered, especially when they were last words. So Baard's words followed Arne as he came down from the roof in the cold, and they were still with him when he went into the sitting-room in the evening. It was twilight; and Eli stood at the window, looking away over the ice which lay bright in the moonlight. Arne went to the other window, and looked out also. Indoors it was warm and quiet; outdoors it was cold, and a sharp wind swept through the vale, bending the branches of the trees, and making their shadows creep trembling on the snow. A light shone over from the parsonage, then vanished, then appeared again, taking various shapes and colors, as a distant light always seems to do when one looks at it long and intently. Opposite, the mountain stood dark, with deep shadow at its foot, where a thousand fairy tales hovered; but with its snowy upper plains bright in the moonlight. The stars were shining, and northern lights were flickering in one quarter of the sky, but they did not spread. A little way from the window, down towards the water, stood some trees, whose shadows kept stealing over to each other; but the tall ash stood alone, writing on the snow.
All was silent, save now and then, when a long wailing sound was heard. "What's that?" asked Arne.
"It's the weather-vane," said Eli; and after a little while she added in a lower tone, as if to herself, "it must have come unfastened."
But Arne had been like one who wished to speak and could not. Now he said, "Do you remember that tale about the thrushes?"
"Yes."
"It was you who told it, indeed. It was a nice tale."