Lay preachers generally passed by this parish.  “What’s the good of going there?” they used to say.  “Those people don’t want to be awakened.”  Not only the lay preachers, but even all the “awakened souls” in the neighbouring parishes looked upon the Ingmarssons and their fellow-parishioners as great sinners, and whenever they caught the sound of the bells from their church they would say the bells were tolling, “Sleep in your sins!  Sleep in your sins!”

The whole congregation, old and young alike, were furious when they learned that people spoke in that way of their bells.  They knew that their folks never forgot to repeat the Lord’s Prayer whenever the church bells rang, and that every evening, at the time of the Angelus, the menfolk uncovered their heads, the women courtesied, and everybody stood still about as long as it takes to say an Our Father.  All who have lived in that parish must acknowledge that God never seemed so mighty and so honoured as on summer evenings, when scythes were rested, and plows were stopped in the middle of a furrow, and the seed wagon was halted in the midst of the loading, simply at the stroke of a bell.  It was as if they knew that our Lord at that moment was hovering over the parish on an evening cloud—­great and powerful and good—­breathing His blessing upon the whole community.

None of your college-bred men had ever taught in that parish.  The schoolmaster was just a plain, old-fashioned farmer, who was self-taught.  He was a capable man who could manage a hundred children single-handed.  For thirty years and more he had been the only teacher there, and was looked up to by everybody.  The schoolmaster seemed to feel that the spiritual welfare of the entire congregation rested with him, and was therefore quite concerned at their having called a parson who was no kind of a preacher.  However, he held his peace as long as it was only a question of introducing a new form of baptism, and elsewhere at that; but on learning that there had also been some changes in the administration of the Holy Communion and that people were beginning to gather in private homes to partake of the Sacrament, he could no longer remain passive.  Although a poor man himself, he managed to persuade some of the leading citizens to raise the money to build a mission house.  “You know me,” he said to them.  “I only want to preach in order to strengthen people in the old faith.  What would be the natural result if the lay preachers were to come upon us, with their new baptism and their new Sacrament, if there were no one to tell the people what was the true doctrine and what the false?”

The schoolmaster was as well liked by the clergyman as by every one else.  He and the parson were frequently seen strolling together along the road between the schoolhouse and the parsonage, back and forth, back and forth, as if they had no end of things to say to each other.  The parson would often drop in at the schoolmaster’s of an evening to sit in the cozy kitchen by an open fire and chat with the schoolmaster’s wife, Mother Stina.  At times he came night after night.  He had a dreary time of it at home; his wife was always ailing, and there was neither order nor comfort in his house.