"If your life had been straight and pure God would have watched over you."
"And hasn't it? Haven't I tried to do what was right? And yet God is seeing me sold up and turned out, and my dear ones left to die in a ditch."
"God chastises His own, and if we only have faith in Him----"
"Faith in Him? Where is He? Is He in the Northlands? I have never heard of it. Is He in the Southlands? I've never seen Him here, though I've seen the devil often enough. He's in the clouds if He's anywhere, and that's no use to me."
"Magnus Stephenson----"
"If God is on the earth let Him do something. Here's His chance. You call the poor His people, don't you? Well, I've fed and sheltered His people for fifteen years, and now I want feeding and sheltering myself. I want eight thousand crowns before nine o'clock to-morrow morning, and if God can do anything in the world let him find me the money and save my mother and my child from starvation. But He can't do it! He can do nothing!"
"Magnus Stephenson," said the little clergyman, raising his little fat hand again, "when you come to stand before the great white throne God will have something to forgive you."
"Pastor Peter, when I come to stand before the great white throne I shall have something to forgive God, it seems to me."
"Blasphemy! Blasphemy!" cried the Pastor, and as he followed the Sheriff out of the house Magnus sent a ringing laugh of contempt after him into the darkness of the night. At the same moment two sheep-dogs that had been lying at the door with their snouts on their paws, as if anxious to join the uproar, began to growl and bark, whereupon Magnus (who had always been a lover of animals) kicked them savagely and then reeled back to his seat by the stove.
The strangers being gone and the little family alone, Elin, who had been standing by the dresser, went over to Magnus and slid into her seat on his knee and said: