Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/307

 dreamy attitude with her arms round a big dressed-up peasant girl, whom, in a languishing way, she called her "dearest friend."

What depressed her more than anything was the rumour of a possible change of ministry. It was seriously said that the peasants would come into power. A former village schoolmaster was pointed out as the future Prime Minister. Even people who could not reconcile themselves to the present state of things shook their heads and said, "there was nothing else to be done." She could not understand it at all. Had not the peasants always been in a majority? Why then this sudden subjection to them? "After all, the peasant is a man," was the answer always given to her objections. Now, that is just what they are not! Perhaps they were, according to natural history, reckoned by the number of their grinders, etc. But a country yokel was none the less, much more closely allied to his sheep or his cattle than to even an ordinarily intelligent person. Nobody thought of giving votes to sheep or cattle. Could it really be called justice to let everything great and beautiful be laid waste, merely because a certain number of individuals were created with the same number of grinding teeth as man? Oh, would not some man soon arise with the courage and the heart of a man to maintain his old lordship, and drive this peasant brood back to the dunghills where he belonged?