“It’s difficult to answer your question, for I’m afraid they know nothing of keeping accounts. But one or two things are certain: that quite half kingdom has been pledged to the foreigner for about three hundred millions.”
“Oh! Lord!”
“And the municipal debts amount to about two hundred millions.”
“Two hundred!”
“And in the years 1881 to 1885 one hundred and forty-six thousand Swedes emigrated.”
“Enough! I don’t want to hear any more!”
Gustav Wasa knocked on the table with his hammer.
“As far as I can understand the matter, the country is in a bad way. Sluggards you are, lazy, envious, irresponsible sluggards; too idle to bestir yourselves, but quick enough to prevent anybody else from doing anything. But tell me, Swede, what about my church and my priests?”
“The priests of the church are farmers and dairy-keepers. The bishops have an income of thirty thousand crowns, and collect money, exactly as they did before the Recess of Vesteraes; moreover, nearly all of them are heretics, or free-thinkers, as they call themselves. Men are beginning to expect some sort of a Reformation.”
“Indeed?... And what is the meaning of this music and singing up here?”