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Here you have work to keep you going a lifetime." The manager, thinking his hesitancy was due to uncertainty as to where he should write his name, again pointed to the place. "The name must be written there. Now write 'Hök Matts Ericsson." He put the pen to the paper.
Storm had no sooner said "Amen" than a voice, coming from some one in the group down by the door, piped up: "I should very much like to say a few words." "That must be Hök Matts Ericsson," thought the pastor, and others with him. For no one else in the parish had such a sweet and childlike treble.
He had not meant to provoke a quarrel with Storm, but had simply wished to soften the blow for Hök Matts, who was an inoffensive man. Just the same, he could not help feeling chagrined over the reply he had got; but before he could think of a retort, one of the men who had come in with Hök Matts spoke up: "Twice I have heard Hök Matts preach, and must say that he is wonderful.
Not a man in the troop was ready to make the venture, and Sir Matts sat his horse there all day long waiting in vain for an antagonist. As evening approached he rode back to the fortress, where every one congratulated and praised him for his courage. The next morning the Russians had disappeared.
It no longer sounded like a pitiful lament, but strong, imperative, commanding. "Oh, my beloved, wilt thou not come soon?" Down by the door, in the worst of the crowd, stood Matts Wik. He looked much intoxicated, but that evening he had not drunk. He stood and thought. "If I might speak, if I might speak!" It was the strangest room he had ever seen, the most wonderful chance.
The great poverty of the natives appeared manifest in the goods they brought to these fairs; consisting of small quantities of cotton cloth, and cotton yarn, pulse, oil, millet, wooden tubs, palm matts, and every thing else useful to life, according to their manners, likewise arms, and some small quantities of gold.
After this preamble, Hök Matts folded his hands and was ready to begin preaching at once. But by that time the schoolmaster had recovered from his first shock of surprise. "Do you think of speaking here now, Hök Matts immediately?" "Yes, that's my intention," the man replied. He grew as frightened as a child when Storm glowered at him.
Shortly afterward, they were joined by Hök Matts Ericsson, his son Gabriel, and Gunhild, the daughter of Councilman Clementsson. All these people in their gayly coloured national costumes made a pretty picture walking along the snow-covered road. But to the mind of Eva Gunnersdotter, they were only doomed prisoners being led to the place of execution, like cattle driven to slaughter.
The earth yields all the year a fresh supply of food: Few clothes are requisite, and little art necessary in making them, or in the construction of their houses, which are very simple, principally calculated to defend them from the tempestuous seasons and wild beasts; a few dry reeds covered with matts serve for their beds.
On her return, late in the evening, she stopped to tell her husband that now their son had gone, but he would not leave off an instant to hear what she had to say. The neighbours noticed how Hök Matts worked that day. They came out to watch him, and after looking on a while, they went in and reported that he was still there, that he had been at it the whole day without a break.
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