For this very reason the work-people began to be unspeakably dear to him. He no longer feared them in consequence of having deceived them; they had become his brothers and fellow sufferers; it was in fact for their sakes that he was now being persecuted.
In this way the recollection of his regrets and resolutions in the dark railway carriage became less and less frequent, and in their place rose anger against the social powers, whose the blame really was. Nor was the oppressive sense of duty to expiate and become better himself, any longer any concern of his; in this matter, too, he could leave himself out of consideration, and look at society.
He turned from the window, and began to pace the floor. “So he was willing to let himself be used too, was he?” he thought, and the more he thought about it, the more excited he became. “Fancy! that lazy priest, who perhaps lies in bed until ten o’clock in the morning, grudges the working men a little ease!”
He bit his lip. By Jove, the working men ought to hear this! It would be a good thing if they could hear it all over the country. Priests were priests all the world over. He would have it in the newspapers in some form or other.
And Norby? He might send out as many priests as ever he liked. He should go to prison anyhow. Wait till the day after to-morrow!
[CHAPTER III]
EVERY evening lately, Ingeborg Norby had sat and read the Bible to the pensioners in the little house. The pensioners were four in number, the dairymaid and the two farm-servants, who were all between seventy and eighty years of age, and had been in service at the farm for more than half a century; and the blind tenant farmer, whom Norby had taken in, so that he should not go to the workhouse.
In the little room lay the bedridden dairymaid; and in the larger room sat the two white-haired farm-labourers and speculated on various matters. They smoked, moved from one chair to another, and talked together chiefly about their various illnesses. The blind man for the most part kept his bed.
From the large house nothing was seen of these four persons. Even Norby seldom went to see them; but he kept them supplied with clothes and tobacco, although they all had money in the bank.