"Who made the song and who sang it first?
He made it and he sang it first,--
A fine young fellow,--
When his love was at the worst."

The long-drawn notes swept over the lea as if borne on the wings of old
yet unforgotten wishes. But they died away, in all probability, long
before reaching the ear for which they were intended.

Could the old ploughman still carry in his heart the roots of so
deep-seated a passion?

At eleven o'clock there was another halt and another prayer; the horse
was unhitched and received a bundle of clover for his dinner. Ivo and
Nat sat down at the edge of the field, in what would have been a
fence-corner if there were fences in that part of Germany, and waited
for Mag, who soon appeared with their dinner. They ate out of one bowl,
with a good appetite, for they had worked hard. The bowl was so
entirely empty that Mag said,--

"There'll be fine weather to-morrow: you make the platter clean."

"Yes," said Nat, turning the bowl upside down; "you couldn't drown a
wasp there."

After dinner they took a little siesta. Ivo, stretched out at full
length, was listening to the many-voiced chirpings among the clover;
and, closing his eyes, he said,--

"It is just as if the whole field were alive, and as if all the flowers
were singing,--and the larks up there,--and the crickets----" He never
finished the sentence, for he had fallen asleep. Nat looked at him for
some time with an expression of delight; then he brought a few sticks,
fixed them carefully into the ground, and hung the cloth in which the
clover had been tied over them, so that the boy slept in the shade.
This done, he got up softly, hitched the horse to the plough, and went
on noiselessly with his work.

It would be hard to tell whether he kept down the songs which mounted
to his lips, or whether solemn thoughts made him so quiet. The dun was
very true to the rein, and a slight jerk was enough, without a word, to
keep the furrow straight.

[Illustration: The boy slept in the shade and he went with his work.]

The sun was sinking when Ivo awoke. He tore away the tent which was
stretched over him, and looked about him in wonder, not knowing, for a
while, where he was. On seeing Nat he bounded toward him with a shout
of joy. He helped Nat to finish the job, and was almost sorry to find
that Nat had managed to plough without him; for he would fain have
thought himself indispensable to the p