confessed to himself that he was too weak to face his brother, and he therefore resolved upon another plan. In the corner of the stick-house he found a few pieces of charcoal; then he selected a piece of fir wood for a torch, went up to the hay-loft, and struck fire. When he had got the torch lighted, he sought for the nail where Anders would hang his lamp when he came in the morning to thrash. On this nail Baard hung the gold watch, blew out the light, and went down;--he felt so light-hearted that he sprang over the snow like a young lad.

The day after, he heard that the hay-loft had been burnt down the same night. Undoubtedly a spark must have fallen from his torch while he turned to hang up the watch.

This overpowered him so that he sat all day as though he were ill; then he took the psalm book out and sang, so that the people in the house could not think what was the matter. But in the evening he went out. It was bright moonlight; he made his way to the ruins of the hay-loft, and groped among the ashes. There, sure enough, he found a little lump of gold;--it was the watch.

It was with this in his hand, he went to his brother that evening as before related, and sought for a reconciliation.

A little girl had seen him groping among the ashes. He had also been observed going towards the farm the foregoing Sunday evening; the people in the house told how strangely he had behaved on Monday; everybody knew that he and his brother were not on good terms, and he was reported and brought up for trial. Nothing could be proved against him, but suspicion rested on him, and now more than ever it seemed impossible to approach his brother.

Though Anders had said nothing, he had thought of Baard when the hay-loft was burnt, and when the evening after, he saw him enter the room looking so pale and strange, he at once concluded that now remorse had struck him, but for such an offence, and against his own brother, there was no pardon. On hearing the circumstantial evidence against him, though nothing had been proved at the trial, he firmly believed that Baard was guilty. They met each other at the trial, Baard in his good clothes, and Anders in threadbare. Baard looked up as he went in, with so imploring a glance that Anders felt it deeply. "He does not want me to say anything," thought Anders, and when he was asked if he believed his brother guilty, he answered clearly and decidedly, "No."

From that day Anders took to drinking, and matters grew worse and worse with him. With Baard it was little better, although he never drank; he was not like himself.

Late one evening a poor woman entered the little room where Baard lived, and begged him to go with her. He knew her: it was his brother's wife. He understood the errand she had come upon, turned deadly pale, and followed without a word. There was a flickering light from the window of Anders' room that served to guide them, for there was no pathway over the snow. They reached the house and went in. On entering, Baard felt at once that here reigned poverty; the room was close; a little child sat on the hearth eating a piece of charcoal: its face was black all over, but it looked up with its white teeth and grinned. There on the bed, with all sorts of clothes to cover him, lay Anders, thin and worn, with his clear high forehead, looking mildly upon him. Baard trembled in all his limbs, he sat down on the bed foot, and burst into tears. The sick man continued silently looking at him. At last he told his wife to withdraw, but Baard signed to her to remain, and the two brothers began to speak together. They related each his history, from the day when they bid on the watch to the time they now met together, and it was clearly shown that during all these years they had never been happy for a single day. Baard finished by taking out the little lump of gold, which he always carried about with him.

Anders was not able to talk much, but as long as he was ill, Baard continued to watch by his bedside. "Now I am perfectly well," said Anders, one morning when he awoke,--"Now, my brother, we will always live together as in the olden time!" But that day he died.

Baard took the wife and the child to live with him, and they were well cared for from that time. That which the brothers had said to each other was soon known through the village, and Baard became the most esteemed man among them. Everybody met him as one who had known great sorrow and again found joy, or as one who had been long absent. Baard felt strengthened by all this friendliness around him, he loved God more, and felt a desire to be useful; so the old corporal became a schoolmaster. That which he impressed first and last upon his pupils, was love, and this precept was so exemplified in himself, that the children were attached to him as to a play-fellow and father at the same time.

This was the story told of the old schoolmaster that had such effect upon Ovind, that it became to him both religion and education.

He looked upon the schoolmaster as a being almost supernatural, although he sat there so familiarly and corrected them. Not to know his lessons was impossible, and if, after saying them well, he got a smile or a stroke of the head, he was glad and happy for the whole day. It always made a strong impression upon the children when, before singing, the schoolmaster would sometimes speak a little to them, and, at least once a week, read aloud a few verses about loving your neighbour. As he read the first of these verses his voice trembled, although he had now continually read it for twenty or thirty years. It ran thus:--

But when the whole of the piece was said, and he had stood still a little while, he looked at them and blinked with his eyes,--"Up children, and go nicely and quietly home,--go nicely, that I may hear nothing but good of you, bairns!" Then, while they hastened to find each his own things, he called out through the noise,--"Come again to-morrow, come in good time, little girls and little boys, that we may be industrious."

CHAP. IV.

TWO BRIGHT BUTTONS AND ONE BLACK.

Of his life, till one year before confirmation, there is not much to relate. He read in the mornings, worked in the afternoons, and played in the evenings.

As he was very lively the children of the neighbourhood sought his company during play hours. Close to the farm lay a great hill, as before mentioned, where, on a fine day, they assembled to drive their sledges on the snow. Ovind was always master in the field: he had two sledges, "Quick Trotter," and "Superior." The last he lent out, and the first he used himself, taking Marit with him.

The first thing Ovind did when he awoke in the morning, was to look out and see if it was fine weather; if it was thick and misty, or he heard it dripping from the roof, he dressed as slowly as if there was nothing to be done that day. But on the contrary, and especially on holidays, if it was sharp, cold, and clear weather,--his best clothes and no work, the whole of the afternoon and evening free,--hey! he bounded out of bed, was dressed like lightning, and could scarcely eat anything for excitement. When afternoon came he sprang over the hill to the sledge ground, and joined the party with a long shout that echoed from cliff to