(Enter Peer and Jesper.)
JESPER. My dear Monsieur Montanus, we have been working hard for you this day.
MONTANUS. What's that?
JESPER. We have intervened between your parents and your parents-in-law to bring about a reconciliation.
MONTANUS. Well, what have you accomplished? Did my father-in-law give way?
JESPER. The last words he said to us were, "There has never been any heresy in our family. You tell Rasmus Berg"—I merely quote his words; he never once said Montanus Berg—"You tell Rasmus Berg from me," said he, "that my wife and I are both honest, God-fearing people, who would rather wring our daughter's neck than marry her to any one who says that the earth is round, and brings false doctrine into the village."
PEER. To tell the truth, we have always had pure faith here on the hill, and Monsieur Jeronimus isn't far wrong in wishing to break off the match.
MONTANUS. My good friends, tell Monsieur Jeronimus from me that he is committing a sin in attempting to force me to repudiate what I once have said—a thing contrary to leges scholasticas and consuetudines laudabiles.
PEER. Oh, Dominus! Will you give up your pretty sweetheart for such trifles? Every one will speak ill of it.
MONTANUS, The common man, vulgus, will speak ill of it; but my commilitiones, my comrades, will praise me to the skies for my constancy.