Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/116

 their eyes as far as they could. Some of the youths who were leaning over the fences by the girls, or standing in the gateways smoking long pipes, were beguiled by the bright sunshine into insolent smiles and half-audible remarks as he passed.

In the doorway of a low house stood a man in blue striped shirt-sleeves, with a child in his arms. It was the big black-bearded snow-clearer who had made the hearty little speech of welcome to Emanuel on the evening that he went to the sick girl. Now the man only smiled, showing his white teeth when Emanuel passed; and the child in his arms beginning to cry, he said, quite loud, as he wiped its nose with his fingers, "There's naught to be frightened of, my lass! it's on'y his rev'rence, our young parson!"

Although Emanuel was already tolerably accustomed to the incivility of the people, and although he had brought himself to believe that the reason of the discord between himself and the congregation was principally owing to a want in himself, he was often obliged to struggle against the dull wrath which was roused in him, more especially by the conduct of the young people. To-day, too, he found it difficult to preserve his equanimity, and he did not breathe freely till he reached Anders Jörgen's little farm in the southern end of the village. It was not without emotion that he passed under the low gateway and recognised the lantern which still twisted slowly round at the end of the cord, under the