“Then it certainly has its good points—it helps a man over the time of waiting!”
“Do you really believe that an eternal kingdom is coming—the ‘thousand-year kingdom’—the millennium? With good times for all, for the poor and the miserable?”
Sort nodded. “God has promised it, and we must believe His Word. Something is being prepared over on the mainland, but whether it’s the real millennium, I don’t know.”
They tramped along. The road was stony and deserted. On either side the rocky cliffs, with their scrubby growth, were beginning to rise from the fields, and before them ranged the bluish rocky landscape of the heath or moorland. “As soon as we’ve been home, I shall travel; I must cross the sea and find out what they do really intend there,” said Pelle.
“I have no right to hold you back,” answered Sort quietly, “but it will be lonely travelling for me. I shall feel as if I’d lost a son. But of course you’ve got other things to think of than to remember a poor hunchback! The world is open to you. Once you’ve feathered your nest, you’ll think no more of little Sort!”
“I shall think of you, right enough,” replied Pelle. “And as soon as I’m doing well I shall come back and look out for you—not before. Father will be sure to object to my idea of travelling—he would so like me to take over Heath Farm from him; but there you must back me up. I’ve no desire to be a farmer.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Now just look at it! Nothing but stone upon stone with heather and scrubby bushes in between! That’s what Heath Farm was four years ago —and now it’s quite a fine property. That the two of them have done —without any outside help.”
“You must be built of good timber,” said Sort. “But what poor fellow is that up on the hill? He’s got a great sack on his back and he’s walking as if he’d fall down at every step.”
“That—that is Father Lasse! Hallo!” Pelle waved his cap.