Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/259

 his coming, was the Provst. At the end of the introductory prayer he took up his book and read the text for the day. When he raised his voice there was a heavy thrilling under-current in it like distant thunder.

Johansen immediately discovered the commotion, and by craning his head over the pew he could just see the stranger, and the effect was to make his curls almost stand on end. He looked up at the Provst with a startled glance as if to warn him, but he continued calmly reading the Gospel, and when it was over he leant with both hands on the front of the pulpit and began to speak.

at this same time was walking briskly, humming as he went along the path from Veilby common to Skibberup.

He had exchanged his inseparable umbrella for a more countrified oak staff, and in place of his former head-covering he now wore a broad-brimmed rush hat. The burning spring sun of the past week, when he had been constantly on foot, had tanned his face and covered it with freckles, and bleached his fair pointed beard, till it looked almost white against his reddened skin.

He had no clear idea of the stir that had been