Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/270

 soft fat hand; then he took both his hands and squeezed them.

"Bravo! dear friend, bravo!" he went on. "We need all our young, fiery blood in the camp. We old fellows must get out of the way. Just look at me, I'm a perfect wreck. I am devastated by time, dear friend! Well, we old folks can comfort ourselves with the thought that we did not spare ourselves in our youth. And—God be praised—we have the satisfaction of seeing that our efforts have not been entirely in vain. Ah, you don't know how blessed it is to us old folks to see how the People's cause is winning its way, it is spreading in every part of the country and among all sorts of people. And now you! Well, that's as it should be." This he went on repeating in the voice of a conqueror. "I couldn't keep quiet at home any longer; I said to Jetté this morning, I really must go to Skibberup to see how they are getting on over there. So here thou hast me."

"But won't you come into the house," Emanuel at last found an opportunity to say. He was quite abashed by the overflowing confidences of the other; and also at being found in his working clothes, in which no one had yet seen him.

"No, dear friend, not now—not now! But I am coming soon. I only peeped in to announce my arrival. I am on my way to see a sick woman, who's an old friend. Well, tell Else she may ex-