Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/198

 imparting the whole story, so that his daughter's communication only confirmed what he already suspected.

A person now approached him from the end of the avenue, in a light overcoat, and a hard straw hat with a violet ribbon. It was Johansen, the assistant teacher. When the Provst caught sight of him he called out impatiently:

"Well, what's in the wind now?"

Johansen bared his curly head, stopped a few paces off, bowed, and said:

"Excuse me, your reverence, I have a birth to register."

"Oh! is that all! why should that make you creep along as if a misfortune had happened?… Whose child is it?"

"Netté Andersen's."

"Another unmarried woman!… Of course, looseness and licentiousness on every side! Emancipation from every tie, that is the watchword of the times."

Johansen looked downwards and sideways uneasily. He was not quite sure to whom these words alluded; and his own conscience was somewhat burdened in this respect just at present.

"I hope," continued the Provst severely, "that you, Mr Johansen, bring up the school-children strictly in the paths of virtue. It is more necessary now than ever before, when licentiousness is preached in the market-place. Look over nothing. The imps must be tamed."