When now the time of year came for the cattle to be sent into the wood, Arne wished to go to tend them. But the father opposed him: indeed, he had never gone before, though he was now in his fifteenth year. But he pleaded so well, that his wish was at last complied with; and so during the spring, summer, and autumn, he passed the whole day alone in the wood, and only came home to sleep.
He took his books up there, and read, carved letters in the bark of the trees, thought, longed, and sang. But when in the evening he came home and found the father often drunk and beating the mother, cursing her and the whole parish, and saying how once he might have gone far away, then a longing for travelling arose in the lad's mind. There was no comfort for him at home; and his books made his thoughts travel; nay, it seemed sometimes as if the very breeze bore them on its wings far away.
Then, about midsummer, he met with Christian, the Captain's eldest son, who one day came to the wood with the servant boy, to catch the horses, and to ride them home. He was a few years older than Arne, light-hearted and jolly, restless in mind, but nevertheless strong in purpose; he spoke fast and abruptly, and generally about two things at once; shot birds in their flight; rode bare-backed horses; went fly-fishing; and altogether seemed to Arne the paragon of perfection. He, too, had set his mind upon travelling, and he talked to Arne about foreign countries till they shone like fairy-lands. He found out Arne's love for reading, and he carried up to him all the books he had read himself; on Sundays he taught him geography from maps: and during the whole of that summer Arne read till he became pale and thin.
Even when the winter came, he was permitted to read at home; partly because he was going to be confirmed the next year, and partly because he always knew how to manage with his father. He also began to go to school; but while there it seemed to him he never got on so well as when he shut his eyes and thought over the things in his books at home: and he no longer had any companions among the boys of the parish.
The father's bodily infirmity, as well as his passion for drinking, increased with his years; and he treated his wife worse and worse. And while Arne sat at home trying to amuse him, and often, merely to keep peace for the mother, telling things which he now despised, a hatred of his father grew up in his heart. But there he kept it secretly, just as he kept his love for his mother. Even when he happened to meet Christian, he said nothing to him about home affairs; but all their talk ran upon their books and their intended travels. But often when, after those wide roaming conversations, he was returning home alone, thinking of what he perhaps would have to see when he arrived there, he wept and prayed that God would take care he might soon be allowed to go away.