The clergyman became as white as a sheet and sank back in his chair.

“What are you saying, Storm?” he gasped.  “Are they really thinking of building a mission house here?  Then what’s to become of me and the church?  Are we to be dispensed with?”

“The church and the pastor will be needed just the same,” returned the schoolmaster with a confident air.  “It is my purpose that the mission house shall promote the welfare of the church.  With so many schisms cropping up all over the country, the church is sorely in need of help.”

“I thought you were my friend, Storm,” said the parson, mournfully.  Only a few moments before he had come in confident and happy, and now all at once his spirit was gone, and he looked as if he were entirely done for.

The schoolmaster understood quite well why the pastor was so distressed.  He and every one else knew that at one time the clergyman had been a man of rare promise; but in his student days he had “gone the pace,” so to speak, and, in consequence, had suffered a stroke.  After that he was never the same.  Sometimes he seemed to forget that he was only the ruin of a man; but when reminded of it, a sense of deep despondency came over him.  Now he sat there as if paralyzed.  It was a long time before any one ventured to speak.

“You mustn’t take it like that, Parson,” the schoolmaster said at last, trying to make his voice very soft and low.

“Hush, Storm!  I know that I’m not a great preacher; still I couldn’t have believed it possible that you would wish to take the living from me.”

Storm made a gesture of protest, which said, in effect, that anything of the sort had never entered his mind, but he had not the courage to put it into words.

The schoolmaster was a man of sixty and, despite all the work and responsibility which had fallen to his lot, he was still master of his forces.  There was a great contrast between him and the parson.  Storm was one of the biggest men in Dalecarlia.  His head was covered with a mass of black bushy hair, his skin was as dark as bronze, and his features were strong and clear cut.  He looked singularly powerful beside the pastor, who was a little narrow-chested, bald-headed man.

The schoolmaster’s wife thought that her husband, as the stronger, ought to give in, and motioned to him to drop the matter.  Whatever of regret he may have felt, there was nothing in his manner to indicate that he had any idea of relinquishing his project.

Then the schoolmaster began to speak plainly and to the point.  He said he was certain that before long the heretics would invade their parish; therefore, it was very necessary that they should have a meeting place where one could talk to the people in a more informal way than at a regular church service; where one might choose one’s own text, expound the whole Bible, and interpret its most difficult passages to the people.

His wife again signed to him to keep still.  She knew what the clergyman was thinking while her husband talked.  “So I haven’t taught them anything, and I haven’t given them any sort of protection against unbelief?  I must be a poor specimen of a pastor when the schoolmaster in my own parish thinks himself a better preacher than I.”