Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/287

 "I hear on all sides," he said abstractedly—"that serious anxiety is beginning to be felt. It would be sad if there were ground for these fears."

"I do not think there is, at least not immediately," remarked Emanuel, quite fluent on the subject. "The spring seed certainly has suffered a good deal, especially the six-rowed barley, and the grass land in hilly places is a good deal spoilt; but the rye is, so far, in very good condition, where it has not been touched by spring frosts."

The bishop turned towards him as if roused from his thoughts.

"Ah, ha! I see you are quite a farmer already!"

Emanuel blushed and his heart began to beat. Now it is coming, he thought.

But the bishop went on again, and again spoke of the difficulties in a town life and the influence of nature on the mind.

All at once he stopped and said, as if it had just occurred to him: "Tell me—are you not a son of Etatsraad Hansted?"

"Yes."

"Yes, I thought so," he added, and then said no more.

For several minutes the two men followed the little path in silence. A flock of hooded crows, which were startled by their footsteps from the ridges of a fallow field, wheeled about, scream-