Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/269

 Emanuel was quite bewildered. Who in the world could this be?

"To tell the truth, dear friend!" the other exclaimed. "We have waited long and anxiously for thee over there. Jetté has been saying nearly every day lately, 'I wonder if Emanuel will come to-day.' Oh, she is quite in love with thee already! When we heard of the grand meeting here on Sunday, and about thy speech, I can't tell thee how glad we were! And then, too, thou hast set thyself free and taken a bride from among the people! That's as it should be! yes, that's as it should be! But thou canst guess how surprised we were. Jetté wouldn't believe it at first, but afterwards she was so moved by it that it made her cry. I had to go over to the school to tell the girls the news. It made them half crazy, the hussies! They thought now there'd be a priest waiting for each of them! Ha, ha! Then we sang 'Love comes from God,' and then a lot of other songs, for when once they had begun they wouldn't stop. We didn't get to bed till after eleven. But we had the moon to light us in the schoolroom, the hussies."

At this moment it dawned upon Emanuel who this was. He must be the High School director from Sandinge. Now he recognised the face from a photograph which Hansine had. But he did not have a chance of assuring himself if he was right. The stranger continued to talk uninterruptedly, all the time patting him on the shoulder with his