There was no strife between them now. True, they associated with
each other no longer, but saluted and exchanged a few words
whenever they met. Canute always felt a little pain in remembering
Lars, but struggled to overcome it, by saying to himself that it
must have been so. Many years afterward at a large wedding-party,
where both were present and a little gay, Canute stepped upon a
chair and proposed a toast to the chairman of the parish council,
and the county's first congressman. He spoke until he manifested
emotion, and, as usual, in an exceedingly handsome way. It was
honorably done, and Lars came to him, saying, with an unsteady
eye, that for much of what he knew and was, he had to thank him.
At the next election, Canute was again elected chairman.
But if Lars Hogstad had foreseen what was to follow, he would not
have influenced this. It is a saying that "all events happen in
their time," and just as Canute appeared again in the council, the
ablest men in the parish were threatened with bankruptcy, the
result of a speculative fever which had been raging long, but now
first began to react. They said that Lars Hogstad had caused this
great epidemic, for it was he who had brought the spirit of
speculation into the parish. This penny malady had originated in
the parish board; for this body itself had acted as leading
speculator. Down to the youth of twenty years, all were
endeavoring by sharp bargains to make the one dollar, ten; extreme
parsimony, in order to lay up in the beginning, was followed by an
exceeding lavishness in the end: and as the thoughts of all were
directed to money only, a disposition to selfishness, suspicion,
and disunion had developed itself, which at last turned to
prosecutions and hatred.
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