clerical duties at the farm at Skibberup, where he took part in all kinds of work daily. He ploughed, hoed turnips, and carted manure on to the fallow land. In the evening he would sit in the garden with Hansine, looking at the sunsets and talking of the future, or they walked hand in hand through the fields looking at the crops and the cattle. Now, when his way lay smoothly before him, he had more quiet to devote to his love, and he gave himself up to it with ever-increasing pleasure.
In this way the time passed happily till the autumn set in, with short, stormy days and long dark nights.
Then Emanuel found it every evening more difficult to take leave of Hansine, and the warm, cosy room at the farm; and to trudge home over the muddy roads to the empty Parsonage, where his steps echoed as in a vault. He always went straight to bed; but though he was tired with his work, he was often kept awake by the various indescribable sounds which haunt an empty house at night. Or else he lay awake listening to the wild moaning of wind through the trees in the garden, which sounded like great waves thundering one on the top of the other.
