“That is not for us to say,” declared Erik Grubbe. “I have more faith, I own, in the Brunswick hops and the other herbs they mix.”
“Nay,” said the pastor, “it were wrong to think so, for there is much that is hidden from us in the realm of nature,—of that there can be no doubt. Everything, living or dead, has its miraculum within it, and we need but patience to seek and open eyes to find. Alas, in the old days when it was not so long since the Lord had taken his hands from the earth, then all things were still so engirded with his power that they exhaled healing and all that was good for time and eternity. But now the earth is no longer new nor fine: it is defiled with the sins of many generations. Now it is only at particular times that these powers manifest themselves, at certain places and certain seasons, when strange signs may be seen in the heavens,—as I was saying to the blacksmith, when we spoke of the awful flaming light that has been visible in half the heavens for several nights recently.... That reminds me, a mounted courier passed us just then; he was bound this way, I think.”
“So he was, Pastor Jens.”
“I hope he rode with none but good tidings?”
“He rode with the tidings that war has been declared.”
“Lord Jesu! Alas the day! Yet it had to come some time.”
“Ay, but when they’d waited so long, they might as well have waited till folks had their harvest in.”
“’Tis the Skaanings who are back of it, I make no doubt. They still feel the smart of the last war and would seek balm in this.”
“Oh, it’s not only the Skaanings. The Sjælland people are ever spoiling for war. They know it will pass them by as usual. Well, it’s a good time for neats and fools, when the Councillors of the Realm have gone mad one and all!”