"Has the fox taken it?"
"Oh! I wish it was the fox!"
"Now what have you been doing?" said the mother. "Where is the goat?"
"Oh! oh! oh!... I ... I ... sold the goat for a biscuit!"
Just as he said the words, he felt what it was to sell the goat for a biscuit, he had not thought about it before. The mother said, "And what do you say now the little goat thinks of you, that you could sell him for a biscuit?"
Now the boy fully understood it, and he felt sure he could never more be happy here,--not even with God, he thought again.
He felt so grieved, that he made an agreement with himself that he would never do wrong any more,--he wouldn't cut the spinning thread, and he wouldn't lose the sheep, nor go down to the sea alone. And as he lay, he fell asleep, and dreamt that the goat had gone to heaven; the Lord sat there with a great beard as in the catechism, and the goat stood and nibbled the leaves from a shining tree, but Ovind sat alone upon the roof and couldn't come up.
Suddenly he felt something wet against his ear, and started up. "Ba-a-a!" it said. It was the goat come back again.
"Oh, are you come again!" He sprang up, took both the goat's forelegs, and danced with him as a brother; he pulled him by the beard, and was just going in with him when he heard something behind, and turning, he saw the little girl sitting on the greensward. Now he understood it, and let the goat loose. "Is it you who have brought him back?"
She sat and pulled the grass up. "They wouldn't let me keep him. My grandfather's up there waiting."