egation was beyond reproach.

But there was one fat farmer who slept during the sermon, and do what
the Kyrkegrim would, he could not keep him awake. Again and again did
he pinch him, nudge him, or let in a cold draught of wind upon his
neck. The fat farmer shook himself, pulled up his neck-kerchief, and
dozed off again.

"Doubtless the fault is in my sermons," said the priest, when the
Kyrkegrim complained to him. For he was humble-minded.

But the Kyrkegrim knew that this was not the case, for there was no
better preacher in all the district.

And yet when he overheard the farmer's sharp-tongued little wife speak
of this and that in the discourse, he began to think it might be so.
No doubt the preacher spoke somewhat fast or slow, a little too loud
or too soft. And he was not "stirring" enough, said the farmer's wife;
a failing which no one had ever laid at her door.

"His soul is in my charge," sighed the good priest, "and I cannot even
make him hear what I have got to say. A heavy reckoning will be
demanded of me!"

"The sermons are in fault, beyond a doubt," the Kyrkegrim said. "The
farmer's wife is quite right. She's a sensible woman, and can use a
mop as well as myself."

"Hoot, hoot!" cried the church owl, pushing his head out of the
ivy-bush. "And shall she be Kyrkegrim when thou art turned preacher,
and the preacher sits on the judgment seat? Not so, little Niss! Dust
thou the pulpit, and leave the parson to preach, and let the Maker of
souls reckon with them."

"If the preacher cannot keep the people awake, it is time that another
took his place," said the Kyrkegrim.

"He is not bound to find ears as well as arguments," retorted the
owl, and he drew back into his ivy bush.

But the Kyrkegrim settled his red cap firmly on his head, and betook
himself to the priest, whose meekness (as is apt to be the case)
encouraged the opposite qualities in those with whom he had to do.

"The farmer must be roused somehow," said he. "It is a disgrace to us
all, and what, in all the hundreds of years I have been Kyrkegrim,
never befell me before. It will be well if next Sunday you preach a
stirring sermon on some very important subject."

So the preacher preached on Sin--fair of flower, and bitter of
fruit!--and as he preached his own cheeks grew pale for other men's
perils, and the Kyrkegrim trembled as he sat listening in the porch,
though he had no soul to lose.

"Was that stirring enough?" he asked, twitc