The clergyman looks down on the little heaps he had raised from the sticks of the pile of shame. The longer he talks with Gösta, the more he is convinced that the latter is right. He had always had the thought of doing good some day, when he had enough,—of course he had had that thought.
“Why does he never build the cottages?” he asks shyly.
“He is ashamed. Many would think that he did what he always had meant to do through fear of the people.”
“He cannot bear to be forced, is that it?”
“He can however do much good secretly. Much help is needed this year. He can find some one who will dispense his gifts. I understand what it all means,” cries Gösta, and his eyes shone. “Thousands shall get bread this year from one whom they load with curses.”
“It shall be so, Gösta.”
A feeling of transport came over the two who had so failed in the vocation they had chosen. The desire of their youthful days to serve God and man filled them. They gloated over the good deeds they would do. Gösta would help the minister.
“We will get bread to begin with,” says the clergyman.
“We will get teachers. We will have a surveyor come, and divide up the land. Then the people shall learn how to till their fields and tend their cattle.”