that we have the
little bell rung once a week for poor folks' funerals in this parish; it
is not so everywhere."

"It would seem more solemn to see the pastor in his black gloves if he
didn't wear them always," said the cellar-master. "Why does he do it? I
never happened to meet anybody that knew. He's still-like himself, and
nobody likes to ask him questions. Some people say it is to make him
look grand with fine folks, and to kind of put down them that have bare
hands used to work."

"Don't you know about his hands?" asked Gull, with surprise. "I've known
it so many years, it seems as if everybody must have heard that."

"I don't happen to have inquired into the matter," said the
cellar-master, somewhat humiliated. "I have never been one to gossip."

"Why, I was there when it happened," broke out Gull, eager to tell her
story to a new listener. "He was stable-boy when I was housemaid at the
major's. My lady was sitting in the carriage one day, and Lars--we
called him Lars then--was standing holding the horses. My lady had sent
the coachman in for his cape, for it was getting cold--just like her.
The horses took fright at a travelling music-man who came along, and
must begin just then to play. Off they started full run, dragging Lars,
who hung on to the reins until they stopped. He'd have held on to those
reins, I'm sure, till he died (what he began he always stuck to); and my
lady sitting there in the carriage half scared to death. The fingers on
his left hand were cut to the bones. They were long healing, and a sight
to be seen then at the best. The right wasn't much better, dragged along
the road as it had been. My lady always liked Lars after that. He had
always been for reading; and when he took it into his head he wanted to
be a priest, she helped him, and other folks helped him too. He changed
his name, as poor fellows do when they go to Upsala. When my lady and
the major were taken off so sudden with the fever, he kept on at his
learning. He wouldn't have given up if he'd had to starve. But he
didn't, for one way and another he got on. And then what a wife he
picked up, and a little money with her too; not that it's enough to wipe
out old scores. Those Upsala debts hang after him, as they have after
many another. He's got them all in one hand now, they say, so that he
hasn't to pay on them more than once a year, and that time is just
coming on. You can see it in him as well as you can see in the west when