Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/158

 next day, when it became known that the Provst's colleague had been the speaker in his Meeting House.

last a solitary figure appeared on the sandbanks. It was Emanuel. He carried a light overcoat, and walked down to the village with hasty steps. When he caught sight of the expectant group outside the Meeting House, he hurried forward and reached the door in a few minutes. His face, in spite of the heat and his hurried walk, was unusually pale, and betrayed a high state of nervous excitement, which gave him an utterly strange expression. He greeted the weaver and a few of the other bystanders absently, with a silent shake of the hand, and then immediately entered the hall.

Here the conversation was abruptly brought to a close, and all necks were craned to see himhim. [sic] The weaver forced a way through the crowds with his long, baboon-like arms, and led him to the upper end of the room, where he offered him the place of honour, a basket chair with a broken seat.

After a few words had been exchanged between them, the weaver mounted the reading-desk and took a hymn-book from his coat-tail pocket. He