Jerusalem

by Selma Lagerlöf

BOOK TWO

AT THE SCHOOLMASTER'S

In the early eighties there was no one in the parish where the old Ingmarsson family lived who would have thought of embracing any new kind of faith or attending any new form of sacred service. That new sects had sprung up, here and there, in other Dalecarlian parishes, and that people went out into rivers and lakes to be immersed in accordance with the new rites of the Baptists, was known; but folks only laughed at it all and said: "That sort of thing may suit those who live at Applebo and in Gagnef, but it can never touch our parish."

The people of that parish clung to their old customs and habits, one of which was a regular attendance at church on Sundays; every one that could go went, even in the severest winter weather. Then, of all times, it was almost a necessity; with the thermometer at twenty below zero outside, it would have been beyond human endurance to sit in the unheated church had it not been packed to the doors with people.

It could not be said of the parishioners that they turned out in such great numbers because they had a particularly brilliant pastor or one who had any special gift for expounding the Scriptures. In those days folks went to church to praise God and not to be entertained by fine sermons. On the way home, when fighting against the cutting wind on an open country road, one thought: "Our Lord must have noticed that you were at church this cold morning." That was the main thing. It was no fault of theirs if the preacher had said nothing more than he had been heard to say every Sunday since his appointment to the pastorate.

As a matter of fact, the majority seemed perfectly satisfied with what they got. They knew that what the pastor read to them was the Word of God, and therefore they found it altogether beautiful. Only the schoolmaster and one or two of the more intelligent farmers occasionally said among themselves: "The parson seems to have only one sermon; he talks of nothing but God's wisdom and God's government. All that is well enough so long as the Dissenters keep away. But this stronghold is poorly defended and would fall at the first attack."

Lay preachers generally passed by this parish. "What's the good of going there?" they used to say. "Those people don't want to be awakened." Not only the lay preachers, but even all the "awakened souls" in the neighbouring parishes looked upon the Ingmarssons and their fellow-parishioners as great sinners, and whenever they caught the sound of the bells from their church they would say the bells were tolling, "Sleep in your sins! Sleep in your sins!"

The whole congregation, old and young alike, were furious when they learned that people spoke in that way of their bells. They knew that their folks never forgot to repeat the Lord's Prayer whenever the church bells rang, and that every evening, at the time of the Angelus, the menfolk uncovered their heads, the women courtesied, and everybody stood still about as long as it takes to say an Our Father. All who have lived in that parish must acknowledge that God never seemed so mighty and so honoured as on summer evenings, when scythes were rested, and plows were stopped in the middle of a furrow, and the seed wagon was halted in the midst of the loading, simply at the stroke of a bell. It was as if they knew that our Lord at that moment was hovering over the parish on an evening cloud—great and powerful and good—breathing His blessing upon the whole community.

None of your college-bred men had ever taught in that parish. The schoolmaster was just a plain, old-fashioned farmer, who was self-taught. He was a capable man who could manage a hundred children single-handed. For thirty years and more he had been the only teacher there, and was looked up to by everybody. The schoolmaster seemed to feel that the spiritual welfare of the entire congregation rested with him, and was therefore quite concerned at their having called a parson who was no kind of a preacher. However, he held his peace as long as it was only a question of introducing a new form of baptism, and elsewhere at that; but on learning that there had also been some changes in the administration of the Holy Communion and that people were beginning to gather in private homes to partake of the Sacrament, he could no longer remain passive. Although a poor man himself, he managed to persuade some of the leading citizens to raise the money to build a mission house. "You know me," he said to them. "I only want to preach in order to strengthen people in the old faith. What would be the natural result if the lay preachers were to come upon us, with their new baptism and their new Sacrament, if there were no one to tell the people what was the true doctrine and what the false?"

The schoolmaster was as well liked by the clergyman as by every one else. He and the parson were frequently seen strolling together along the road between the schoolhouse and the parsonage, back and forth, back and forth, as if they had no end of things to say to each other. The parson would often drop in at the schoolmaster's of an evening to sit in the cozy kitchen by an open fire and chat with the schoolmaster's wife, Mother Stina. At times he came night after night. He had a dreary time of it at home; his wife was always ailing, and there was neither order nor comfort in his house.

One winter's evening the schoolmaster and his wife were sitting by the kitchen fire, talking in earnest whispers, while a little girl of twelve played by herself in a corner of the room. The little girl was their daughter, and her name was Gertrude. She was a fair little lass, with flaxen hair and plump, rosy cheeks, but she did not have that wise and prematurely old look which one so often sees in the children of schoolmasters.

The corner in which she sat was her playground. There she had gathered together a variety of things: bits of coloured glass, broken teacups and saucers, pebbles from the banks of the river, little square blocks of wood, and more rubbish of the same sort.

She had been let play in peace all the evening; neither her father nor her mother had disturbed her. Busy as she was she did not want to be reminded of lessons and chores. It didn't look as if there were going to be any extra sums to do for father that night, she thought.

She had a big work in hand, the little girl back there in her corner. Nothing less than making a whole parish! She was going to build up the entire district with both church and schoolhouse; the river and the bridge were also to be included. Everything had to be quite complete, of course.

She had already got a good part of it done. The whole wreath of hills that went round the parish was made up of smaller and larger stones. In all the crevices she had planted forests of little spruce twigs, and with two jagged stones she had erected Klack Mountain and Olaf's Peak on either side of the Dal River. The long valley in between the mountains had been covered with mould taken from one of her mother's flowerpots. So far everything was all right, only she had not been able to make the galley blossom. But she comforted herself by pretending it was early springtime, before grass and grain had sprouted.

The broad, beautiful Dal River that flows through the valley she had managed to lay out effectively with a long and narrow piece of glass, and the floating bridge connecting both sides of the parish, had been making on the water this long while. The more distant farms and settlements were marked off by pieces of red brick. Farthest north, amid fields and meadows, lay the Ingmar Farm. To the east was the village of Kolasen, at the foot of the mountain. At the extreme south, where the river, with rapids and falls, leaves the valley and rushes under the mountain, was Bergsana Foundry.

The entire landscape was now ready, with country roads laid out along the river, sanded and gravelled. Groves had also been set out, here and there, on the plains and near the cottages. The little girl had only to cast a glance at her structure of glass and stone and earth and twigs to see before her the whole parish. And she thought it all very beautiful.

Time after time she raised her head to call her mother and show her what she had done, then changed her mind. She had always found it wiser not to call attention to herself. But the most difficult work of all was yet to come: the building up of the town on both sides of the river. It meant much shifting about of stones and bits of glass. The sheriff's house wanted to crowd out the merchant's shop; there was no room for the judge's house next door to the doctor's. There were the church and the parsonage, the drug-store and post-office, the peasant homesteads, with their barns and outhouses, the inn, the hunter's lodge, the telegraph station. To remember everything was no small task!

Finally, the whole town of white and red houses stood embedded in green. Now there was only one thing left: she had worked hard to get everything else done so as to begin on the schoolhouse. She wanted plenty of space for the school, which was to be built on the riverside, and must have a big yard, with a flagpole right in the middle of the lawn.

She had saved all her best blocks for the schoolhouse. Now she wondered how she had best go about it. She wanted it to be just like their school, with a big classroom on the ground floor and another upstairs; then there was the kitchen and also the big room where she and her parents lived. But all that would take a good while. "They won't leave me in peace long enough," she said to herself.

Just then footsteps were heard in the entry; some one was stamping off snow. In a twinkling she went ahead with her building. "Here comes the parson to chat with father and mother," she thought. Now she would have the whole evening to herself. And with renewed courage she began to lay the foundation of a schoolhouse as big as half the parish.

Her mother, who had also heard the steps in the hall, got up quickly and drew an old armchair up to the fireplace. Then turning to her husband, she said: "Shall you tell him about it to-night?"

"Yes," answered the schoolmaster, "as soon as I can get round to it."

Presently the pastor came in, half frozen and glad to be in a warm room where he could sit by an open fire. He was very talkative, as usual. It would be hard to find a more likable man than the parson when he came in of an evening to chat about all sorts of things, big and little. He spoke with such ease and assurance of everything pertaining to this world, that one could scarcely believe that he and the dull preacher were one and the same person. But if you happened to speak to him about spiritual things he grew red in the face, began fishing for words, and never said anything that was convincing, unless he chanced to mention that "God governs wisely."

When the parson had settled himself comfortably, the schoolmaster suddenly turned to him and said in a cheery tone:

"Now I must tell you the news: I'm going to build a mission house."

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."

The schoolmaster, however, did not keep still, but went on talking of all that must be done to protect the flock from the wolves.

"I haven't seen any wolves," said the pastor.

"But I know they are on their way."

"And you, Storm, are opening the door to them," declared the minister, rising. The schoolmaster's talk had irritated him. The blood mounted to his face, and he regained a little of his old dignity.

"My dear Storm, let us drop the subject," he said. Then turning to the housewife, he passed some pleasant remark about the last pretty bride she had dressed. For Mother Stina dressed all the brides in the parish.

Peasant woman though she was, she understood how it must hurt him to be so cruelly reminded of his own impotence. She wept from compassion, and could not answer him for the tears; so the pastor had to do most of the talking.

Meanwhile, he kept thinking: "Oh, if I only had some of the power and the capacity of my younger days, I would convince this peasant at once of the wrong he is doing." With that he turned again to the schoolmaster:

"Where did you get the money, Storm?" he asked.

"A company has been formed," Storm explained; then he mentioned the names of several men who had pledged their support, just to show the parson that they were the kind of people who would harm neither the church nor its pastor.

"Is Ingmar Ingmarsson in it, too?" the parson exclaimed. The effect of this was like a deathblow. "And to think that I was as sure of Ingmar Ingmarsson as I had been of you, Storm!"

He said nothing more about this just then, but instead turned to Mother Stina and talked to her. He must have seen that she was crying, but acted as if he had not noticed it. In a little while he again addressed the schoolmaster.

"Drop it, Storm!" he begged. "Drop it for my sake. You wouldn't like it if somebody put up another school next to yours."

The schoolmaster sat gazing at the floor and reflected a moment.
Presently he said, almost reluctantly, "I can't, Parson."

For fully ten minutes there was a dead silence. Where upon the pastor put on his overcoat and cap, and went toward the door.

The whole evening he had been trying to find words with which to prove to Storm that he was not only doing harm to the pastor with this undertaking, but he was undermining the parish. Although thoughts and words kept crowding into his head, he could neither arrange them into an orderly sequence nor give utterance to them, because he was a broken man. Walking toward the door, he espied Gertrude sitting in her corner playing with her blocks and bits of glass. He stopped and looked at her. Evidently she had not heard a word of the conversation, for her eyes sparkled with delight and her cheeks were like fresh-blown roses.

The pastor was startled at the sight of all this innocent happiness of the child in contrast to his own heart heaviness.

"What are you making?" he asked, and went up to her.

The little girl had got through with her parish long before that; in fact, she had already pulled it down and started something new.

"If you had only come a minute sooner!" exclaimed the child. "I had made such a beautiful parish, with both church and schoolhouse—"

"But where is it now?"

"Oh, I've destroyed the parish, and now I'm building a Jerusalem, and—"

"What?" interrupted the parson. "Have you destroyed the parish in order to build a Jerusalem?"

"Yes," said Gertrude, "and it was such a fine parish! But we read about Jerusalem yesterday in school, and now I have pulled down the parish to build a Jerusalem."

The preacher stood regarding the child. He put his hand to his forehead and thought a moment, then he said: "It is surely someone greater than you that speaks through your mouth."

The child's words seemed to him so extraordinarily prophetic that he kept repeating them to himself, over and over. Gradually his thoughts drifted back into their old groove, and he began to ponder the ways of Providence and the means by which He works His will.

Presently he went back to the schoolmaster, his eyes shining with a new light, and said in his usual cheery tone:

"I'm no longer angry at you, Storm. You are only doing what you must do. All my life I have been pondering the ways of Providence, and I can't seem to get any light on them. Nor do I understand this thing, but I understand that you are doing what you needs must do."

"AND THEY SAW HEAVEN OPEN"

The spring the mission house was built there was a great thaw, and the Dal River rose to an alarming height. And what quantities of water that spring brought! It came in showers from the skies; it came rushing down in streams from the mountainsides, and it welled out of the earth; water ran in every wheel rut and in every furrow. All this water found its way to the river, which kept rising higher and higher, and rolled onward with greater and greater force. It did not present its usual shiny and placid appearance, but had turned a dirty brown from all the muddy water that kept flowing in. The surging stream, filled with logs and cakes of ice, looked strangely weird and threatening.

At first the grown folks paid no special heed to the spring flood; only the children ran down to the banks to watch the raging river and all that it carried along.

But timber and ice floes were not the only things that went floating by! Presently the stream came driving with washing piers and bath houses, then with boats and wreckage of bridges.

"It will soon be taking our bridge, too!" the children exclaimed. They felt a bit uneasy, but were glad at the same time that something so extraordinary was likely to happen.

Suddenly a huge pine, root and branch, came sailing past, followed by a white-stemmed aspen tree, its spreading branches thick with buds which had swelled from being so long in the water. Close upon the trees came a little hay shed, bottom upward; it was still full of hay and straw, and floated on its roof like a boat on its keel.

But when things of that sort began to drift past, the grown-ups, too, bestirred themselves. They realized now that the river had overflowed its banks somewhere up north, and hurried down to the shores with poles and boat hooks, to haul up on land buildings and furniture.

At the northern end of the parish, where the houses were scattered and people were scarce, Ingmar Ingmarsson alone was standing on the bank, gazing out at the river. He was then almost sixty, and looked even older. His face was weatherbeaten and furrowed, his figure bent; he appeared to be as awkward and helpless as ever. He stood leaning on a long, heavy boat hook, his dull, sleepy-looking eyes fixed on the water. The river raged and foamed, arrogantly marching past with all that it had matched from the shores. It was as if it were deriding the peasant for his slowness. "Oh, you're not the one to wrest from me any of the things I'm carrying away!" it seemed to say.

Ingmar Ingmarsson made no attempt to rescue any of the floating bridges or boat hulls that passed quite close to the bank. "All that will be seen to down at the village," he thought. Not for a second did his gaze wander from the river. He took note of everything that drifted past. All at once he sighted something bright and yellow floating on some loosely nailed boards quite a distance up the river. "Ah, this is what I have been expecting all along!" he said aloud. At first he could not quite make out what the yellow was; but for one who knew how little children in Dalecarlia are dressed it was easy to guess. "Those must be youngsters who were out on a washing pier playing," he said, "and hadn't the sense to get back on land before the river took them."

It was not long until the peasant saw that he had guessed rightly. Now he could distinctly see three little children, in their yellow homespun frocks and round yellow hats, being carried downstream on a poorly constructed raft that was being slowly torn apart by the swift current and the moving ice floes.

The children were still a long way off. Big Ingmar knew there was a bend in the river where it touched his land. If God in His mercy would only direct the raft with the children into this current, he thought, he might be able to get them ashore.

He stood very still, watching the raft. All at once it seemed as if some one had given it a push; it swung round and headed straight for the shore. By that time the children were so close that he could see their frightened little faces and hear their cries. But they were still too far out to be reached by the boat hook, from the bank at least; so he hurried down to the water's edge, and waded into the river.

As he did so, he had a strange sort of feeling that some one was calling to him to comeback. "You are no longer a young man, Ingmar; this may prove a perilous business for you!" a voice said to him.

He reflected a moment, wondering whether he had the right to risk his life. The wife, whom he had once fetched from the prison, had died during the winter, and since her going his one longing had been that he might soon follow. But, on the other hand, there was his son who needed a father's care, for he was only a little lad and could not look after the farm.

"In any case, it must be as God wills," he said.

Now Big Ingmar was no longer either awkward or slow. As he plunged into the raging river, he planted his boat hook firmly into the bottom, so as not to be carried away by the current, and he took good care to dodge the floating ice and driftwood. When the raft with the children was quite near, he pressed his feet down in the river bed, thrust out his boat hook, and got a purchase on it.

"Hold on tight!" he shouted to the children, for just then the raft made a sudden turn and all its planks creaked. But the wretched structure held together, and Big Ingmar managed to pull it out of the strongest current. That done, he let go of it, for he knew that the raft would now drift shoreward by itself.

Touching bottom with his boat hook again, he turned to go back to the bank. This time, however, he failed to notice a huge log that was coming toward him with a rush. It caught him in the side just below the armpit. It was a terrific blow, for the log was hurled against him with a violent force that sent him staggering in the water. Yet he kept a tight grip on the boat hook until he reached the bank. When he again stood on firm ground, he hardly dared touch his body, for he felt that his chest had been crushed. Then his mouth suddenly filled with blood. "It's all up with you, Ingmar!" he thought, and sank down on the bank, for he could not go a step farther. The little children whom he had rescued gave the alarm, and soon people came running down to the bank, and Big Ingmar was carried home.

The pastor was called in, and he remained at the Ingmar Farm the whole afternoon. On his way home, he stopped at the schoolmaster's. He had experienced things in the course of the day which he felt the need of telling to some one who would understand.

Storm and Mother Stina were deeply grieved, for they had already heard that Ingmar Ingmarsson was dead. The clergyman, on the other hand, looked almost radiant as he stepped into the schoolmaster's kitchen.

Immediately Storm asked the pastor if he had been in time.

"Yes," he said, "but on this occasion I was not needed."

"Weren't you?" said Mother Stina.

"No," answered the pastor with a mysterious smile. "He would have got on just as well without me. Sometimes it is very hard to sit by a deathbed," he added.

"It is indeed," nodded the schoolmaster.

"Particularly when the one who is passing from among us happens to be the best man in your parish."

"Just so."

"But things can also be quite different from what one had imagined."

For a moment the pastor sat quietly gazing into space; his eyes looked clearer than usual behind the spectacles.

"Have you, Strong, or you, Mother Stina, ever heard of the wonderful thing that once happened to Big Ingmar when he was a young man?" he asked.

The schoolmaster said that he had heard many wonderful things about him.

"Why, of course; but this is the most wonderful of all! I never knew of it myself until to-day. Big Ingmar had a good friend who has always lived in a little cabin on his estate," the pastor continued.

"Yes, I know," said the schoolmaster. "He is also named Ingmar; folks call him Strong Ingmar by way of distinction."

"True," said the pastor; "his father named him Ingmar in honour of the master's family. One Saturday evening, at midsummer, when the nights are almost as light as the days, Big Ingmar and his friend, Strong Ingmar, after finishing their work, put on their Sunday clothes and went down to the village in quest of amusement."

The pastor paused a moment, and pondered. "I can imagine that the night must have been a beautiful one," he went on, "clear and still—one of those nights when earth and sky seem to exchange hues, the sky turning a bright green while the earth becomes veiled in white mists, lending to everything a white or bluish tinge. When Big Ingmar and Strong Ingmar were crossing the bridge to the village, it was as if some one had told them to stop and look upward. They did so. And they saw heaven open! The whole firmament had been drawn back to right and left, like a pair of curtains, and the two stood there, hand in hand, and beheld all the glories of heaven. Have you ever heard anything like it, Mother Stina, or you, Storm?" said the pastor in awed tones. "Only think of those two standing on the bridge and seeing heaven open! But what they saw they have never divulged to a soul. Sometimes they would tell a child or a kinsman that they had once seen heaven open, but they never spoke of it to outsiders. But the vision lived in their memories as their greatest treasure, their Holy of Holies."

The pastor closed his eyes for a moment, and heaved a deep sigh. "I have never before heard tell of such things." His voice shook a little as he proceeded. "I only wish I had stood on the bridge with Big Ingmar and Strong Ingmar, and seen heaven open!

"This morning, immediately after Big Ingmar had been carried home, he requested that Strong Ingmar be sent for. At once a messenger was dispatched to the croft to fetch him, only to find that Strong Ingmar was not at home. He was in the forest somewhere, chopping firewood, and was not easy to find. Messenger after messenger went in search of him. In the meantime, Big Ingmar felt very anxious lest he should not get to see his old friend again in this life. First the doctor came, then I came, but Strong Ingmar they couldn't seem to find. Big Ingmar took very little notice of us. He was sinking fast. 'I shall soon be gone, Parson,' he said to me. 'I only wish I might see Strong Ingmar before I go.' He was lying on the broad bed in the little chamber off the living-room. His eyes were wide open and he seemed to be looking all the while at something that was far, far away, and which no one else saw. The three little children he had rescued sat huddled at the foot of his bed. Whenever his eyes wandered for an instant from that which he saw in the distance, they rested upon the children, and then his whole face was wreathed in smiles.

"At last they had succeeded in finding the crofter. Big Ingmar glanced away from the children with a sigh of relief when he heard Strong Ingmar's heavy step in the hallway. And when his friend came over to the bedside, he took his hand and patted it gently, saying: 'Do you remember the time when you and I stood on the bridge and saw heaven open?' 'As if I could ever forget that night when we two had a vision of Paradise!' Strong Ingmar responded. Then Big Ingmar turned toward him, his face beaming as if he had the most glorious news to impart. 'Now I'm going there,' he said. Then the crofter bent over him and looked straight into his eyes. 'I shall come after,' he said. Big Ingmar nodded. 'But you know I cannot come before your son returns from the pilgrimage.' 'Yes, yes, I know,' Big Ingmar whispered. Then he drew in a few deep breaths and, before we knew it, he was gone."

The schoolmaster and his wife thought, with the pastor, that it was a beautiful death. All three of them sat profoundly silent for a long while.

"But what could Strong Ingmar have meant," asked Mother Stina abruptly, "when he spoke of the pilgrimage?"

The pastor looked up, somewhat perplexed. "I don't know," he replied. "Big Ingmar died just after that was said, and I have not had time to ponder it." He fell to thinking, then he spoke kind of half to himself: "It was a strange sort of thing to say, you're right about that, Mother Stina."

"You know, of course, that it has been said of Strong Ingmar that he can see into the future?" she said reflectively.

The pastor sat stroking his forehead in an effort to collect his thoughts. "The ways of Providence cannot be reasoned out by the finite mind," he mused. "I cannot fathom them, yet seeking to know them is the most satisfying thing in all the world."

KARIN, DAUGHTER OF INGMAR

Autumn had come and school was again open. One morning, when the children were having their recess, the schoolmaster and Gertrude went into the kitchen and sat down at the table, where Mother Stina served them with coffee. Before they had finished their cups a visitor arrived.

The caller was a young peasant named Halvor Halvorsson, who had lately opened a shop in the village. He came from Tims Farm, and was familiarly known as Tims Halvor. He was a tall, good-looking chap who appeared to be somewhat dejected. Mother Stina asked him also to have some coffee; so he sat down at the table, helped himself, and began to talk to the schoolmaster.

Mother Stina sat by the window knitting; from where she was seated she could look down the road. All at once she grew red in the face and leaned forward to get a better view. Trying to appear unconcerned, she said with feigned indifference: "The grand folk seem to be out walking to-day."

Tims Halvor thought he detected a certain something in her tone that sounded a bit peculiar, and he got up and looked out. He saw a tall, stoop-shouldered woman and a half-grown boy coming toward the schoolhouse.

"Unless my eyes deceive me, that's Karin, daughter of Ingmar!" said
Mother Stina.

"It's Karin all right," Tims Halvor confirmed. He said nothing more, but turned away from the window and glanced around the room, as if trying to discover some way of escape; but in a moment he quietly went back to his seat.

The summer before, when Big Ingmar was still alive, Halvor had paid court to Karin Ingmarsson. The courtship had been a long one, with many ifs and buts on the part of her family. The old Ingmars were not quite sure that he was good enough for Karin. It had not been a question of money, for Halvor was well-to-do; his father, however, had been addicted to drink, and who could say but that this failing had been transmitted to the son. However, it was finally decided that Halvor should have Karin. The wedding day was fixed and they had asked to have the banns published. But before the day set for the first reading Karin and Halvor made a journey to Falun, to purchase the wedding ring and the prayerbook. They were away for three days, and when they got back Karin told her father that she could not marry Halvor. She had no fault to find with him save that on one occasion he had taken a drop too much, and she feared he might become like his father. Big Ingmar then said that he would not try to influence her against her better judgment, so Halvor was dismissed, and the engagement was off.

Halvor took it very much to heart. "You are heaping upon me shame that will be hard to bear," he said. "What will people think if you throw me over in this way? It isn't fair to treat a decent man like that."

But Karin was not to be moved, and ever since Halvor had been morose and unhappy. He could not forget the injustice that had been done him by the Ingmarssons. And here sat Halvor, and there came Karin! What would happen next? This much was certain: a reconciliation was out of the question. Since the previous autumn Karin had been married to one Elof Ersson. She and her husband lived at the Ingmar Farm, which they had been running since the death of Big Ingmar, in the spring. Big Ingmar had left five daughters and one son, but the son was too young to take over the property.

Meanwhile Karin had come in. She was only about two and twenty, but was one of those women who never look real young. Most people thought her exceedingly plain, for she favoured her father's family and had their heavy eyelids, their sandy hair, and hard lines about the mouth. But the schoolmaster and his wife were pleased to think that she bore such a striking resemblance to the old Ingmars. When Karin saw Halvor, her face did not change. She moved about, slowly and quietly, and greeted each of them in turn; when she offered her hand to Halvor, he put out his, and they barely touched each other with the tips of their fingers. Karin always stooped a little and, as she stood before Halvor, with head bowed, she seemed to be more bent than usual, while Halvor looked taller and straighter than ever.

"So Karin has really ventured out to-day?" said Mother Stina, drawing up the pastor's chair for her.

"Yes," she answered. "It's easy walking now that the frost has set in."

"There has been a hard frost during the night," the schoolmaster put in.

This was followed by a dead silence, which lasted several minutes. Presently Halvor got up, and the others started, as if suddenly awakened from a sound sleep.

"I must get back to the shop," said Halvor.

"What's your hurry?" asked Mother Stina.

"I hope Halvor isn't going on my account," said Karin meekly.

As soon as Halvor was gone the tension was broken, and the schoolmaster knew at once what to say. He looked at the lad Karin had brought with her, and of whom no one had taken any notice before. He was a little chap who could not have been much older than Gertrude. He had a fair, soft baby face, yet there was something about him that made him appear old for his years. It was easy to tell to what family he belonged.

"I think Karin has brought us a new pupil," said Storm.

"This is my brother," Karin replied. "He is the present Ingmar
Ingmarsson."

"He's rather little for that name," Storm remarked.

"Yes, father died too soon!"

"He did indeed," said the schoolmaster and his wife, both in the same breath.

"He has been attending the school in Falun," Karin explained.
"That's why he hasn't been here before."

"Aren't you going to let him go back this year, too?"

Karin dropped her eyes and a sigh escaped her. "He has the name of being a good student," she said, evading his question.

"I'm only afraid that I can't teach him anything. He must know as much as I do."

"Well, I guess the schoolmaster knows a good deal more than a little chap like him." Then came another pause, after which Karin continued: "This is not only the question of his attending school, but I would also like to ask whether you and Mother Stina would let the boy come here to live."

The schoolmaster and his wife looked at each other in astonishment, but neither of them was prepared to answer.

"I fear our quarters are rather close," said Storm, presently.

"I thought that perhaps you might be willing to accept milk and butter and eggs as part payment."

"As to that—"

"You would be doing me a great service," said the rich peasant woman.

Mother Stina felt that Karin would never have made this singular request had there not been some good reason for it; so she promptly settled the matter.

"Karin need say no more. We will do all that we can for the
Ingmarssons."

"Thank you," said Karin.

The two women talked over what had best be done for Ingmar's welfare. Meantime, Storm took the boy with him to the classroom, and gave him a seat next to Gertrude. During the whole of the first day Ingmar never said a word.

***

Tims Halvor did not go near the schoolhouse again for a week or more; it was as if he were afraid of again meeting Karin there. But one morning when it rained in torrents, and there was no likelihood of any customers coming, he decided to run over and have a chat with Mother Stina. He was hungry for a heart-to-heart talk with some kindly and sympathetic person. He had been seized by a terrible fit of the blues. "I'm no good, and no one has any respect for me," he murmured, tormenting himself, as he had been in the habit of doing ever since Karin had thrown him over.

He closed his shop, buttoned his storm coat, and went on his way to the school, through wind and rain and slush. Halvor was happy to be back once more in the friendly atmosphere of the schoolhouse, and was still there when the recess bell rang, and Storm and the two children came in for their coffee. All three went over to greet him. He arose to shake hands with the schoolmaster, but when little Ingmar put out his hand, Halvor was talking so earnestly to Mother Stina that he seemed not to have noticed the boy. Ingmar remained standing a moment, then he went up to the table and sat down. He sighed several times, just as Karin had done the day she was there.

"Halvor has come to show us his new watch," said Mother Stina.

Whereupon Halvor took from his pocket a new silver watch, which he showed to them. It was a pretty little timepiece, with a flower design engraved on the case. The schoolmaster opened it, went into the schoolroom for a magnifying glass, adjusted it to his eye, and began examining the works. He seemed quite carried away as he studied the delicate adjustment of the tiny wheels, and said he had never seen finer workmanship. Finally he gave the watch back to Halvor, who put it in his pocket, looking neither pleased nor proud, as folks generally do when you praise their purchases.

Ingmar was silent during the meal, but when he had finished his coffee, he asked Storm whether he really knew anything about watches.

"Why, of course," returned the schoolmaster. "Don't you know that I understand a little of everything?"

Ingmar then brought out a watch which he carried in his vest pocket. It was a big, round, silver turnip that looked ugly and clumsy as compared with Halvor's watch. The chain to which it was attached was also a clumsy contrivance. The case was quite plain and dented. It was not much of a watch: it had no crystal, and the enamel on its face was cracked.

"It has stopped," said Storm, putting the watch to his ear.

"Yes, I kn-n-ow," stammered the boy. "I was just wondering if you didn't think it could be mended."

Storm opened it and found that all the wheels were loose. "You must have been hammering nails with this watch," he said. "I can't do anything with it."

"Don't you think that Eric, the clockmaker, could fix it?"

"No, no more than I. You'd better send it to Falun and have new works put in."

"I thought so," said Ingmar, and took the watch.

"For heaven's sake, what have you been doing with it?" the schoolmaster exclaimed.

The boy swallowed hard. "It was father's watch," he explained, "and it got damaged like that when father was struck by the whirling log."

Now they all grew interested.

With an effort to control his feelings, Ingmar continued: "As you know, it happened during Holy Week, when I was at home. I was the first person to reach father when he lay on the bank. I found him with the watch in his hand. 'Now it's all over with me, Ingmar,' he said. 'I'm sorry the watch is broken, for I want you to give it, with my greetings, to some one that I have wronged.' Then he told me who was to have the watch, and bade me take it along to Falun and have it repaired before presenting it. But I never went back to Falun, and now I don't know what to do about it."

The schoolmaster was wondering whether he knew of any one who was soon going to the city, when Mother Stina turned to the boy:

"Who was to have the watch, Ingmar?" she asked.

"I don't know as I ought to tell," the boy demurred.

"Wasn't it Tims Halvor, who is sitting here?"

"Yes," he whispered.

"Then give Halvor the watch just as it is," said Mother Stina.
"That will please him best."

Ingmar obediently rose, took out the watch and rubbed it in the sleeve of his coat, to shine it up a bit. Then he went over to Halvor.

"Father asked me to give you this with his compliments," he said, holding out the watch.

All this while Halvor had sat there, silent and glum. And when the boy went over to him, he put his hand up to his eyes, as if he did not want to look at him. Ingmar stood a long time holding out the watch; finally, he glanced appealingly at Mother Stina.

"Blessed are the peacemakers," she said.

Then Storm put in a word. "I don't thick you could ask for a better amend, Halvor," he said. "I've always maintained that if Ingmar Ingmarsson had lived he would have given you full justice long before this."

The next they saw was Halvor reaching out for the watch, almost as if against his will. But the moment he had got it into his hand, he put it in the inside pocket of his vest.

"There's no fear of any one taking that watch from him," said the schoolmaster with a laugh, as he saw Halvor carefully buttoning his coat.

And Halvor laughed, too. Presently he got up, straightened himself, and drew a deep breath. The colour came into his cheeks, and his eyes shone with a new-found happiness.

"Now Halvor must feel like a new man," said the schoolmaster's wife.

Then Halvor put his hand inside his overcoat and drew out his brand-new watch. Crossing over to Ingmar, who was again seated at the table, he said: "Since I have taken your father's watch from you, you must accept this one from me."

He laid the watch on the table and went out, without even saying good-bye. The rest of the day he tramped the roads and bypaths. A couple of peasants who had come from a distance to trade with him hung around outside the shop from noon till evening. But no Tims Halvor appeared.

***

Elof Ersson, the husband of Karin Ingmarsson, was the son of a cruel and avaricious peasant, who had always treated him harshly. As a child he had been half starved, and even after he was grown up his father kept him under his thumb. He had to toil and slave from morning till night, and was never allowed any pleasures. He was not even allowed to attend the country dances like other young folk, and he got no rest from his work even on Sundays. Nor did Elof become his own master when he married. He had to live at the Ingmar Farm and be under the domination of his father-in-law; and also at the Ingmar Farm hard work and frugality were the rule of the day. As long as Ingmar Ingmarsson lived Elof seemed quite content with his lot, toiling and slaving with never so much as a complaint. Folks used to say that now the Ingmarssons had got a son-in-law after their own hearts, for Elof Ersson did not know that there was anything else in life than just toil and drudgery.

But as soon as Big Ingmar was dead and buried, Elof began to drink and carouse. He made the acquaintance of all the rounders in the parish, and invited them down to the Farm, and went with them to dance halls and taverns. He quit work altogether, and drank himself full every day. In the space of two short months he became a poor drunken wretch.

The first time Karin saw him in a state of intoxication she was horrified. "This is God's judgment upon me for my treatment of Halvor," was the thought that came to her. To the husband she said very little in the way of rebuke or warning. She soon perceived that he was like a blasted tree, doomed to wither and decay, and she could not hope for either help or protection from him.

But Karin's sisters were not so wise as she was. They resented his escapades, blushed at his ribald songs and coarse jokes, by turns threatening and admonishing him. And although their brother-in-law was on the whole rather good-natured, he sometimes got into a rage and had words with them. Then Karin's only thought was how she should get her sisters away from the house, that they might escape the misery in which she herself had to live. In the course of the summer she managed to marry off the two older girls, and the two younger ones she sent to America, where they had relatives who were well-to-do.

All the sisters received their proportion of the inheritance, which amounted to twenty thousand kroner each. The farm had been left to Karin, with the understanding that young Ingmar was to take it over when he became of age.

It seemed remarkable that Karin, who was so awkward and diffident, should have been able to send so many birds from the nest, find mates for them, and homes. She arranged it all herself, for she could get no help whatever from her husband, who had now become utterly worthless.

Her greatest concern, however, was the little brother—he who was now Ingmar Ingmarsson. The boy exasperated Karin's husband even more than the sisters had done. He did it by actions rather than words. One time he poured out all the corn brandy Elof had brought home; another time the brother-in-law caught him in the act of diluting his liquor with water.

When autumn came Karin demanded that the boy be sent back to high school that year, as in former years, but her husband, who was also his guardian, would not hear of it.

"Ingmar shall be a farmer, like his father and me and my father," said Elof. "What business has he at high school? When the winter comes, he and I will go into the forest to put up charcoal kilns. That will be the best kind of schooling for him. When I was his age, I spent a whole winter working at the kiln."

As Karin could not induce him to alter his mind, she had to make the best of it and keep Ingmar at home for the time being.

Elof then tried to win the confidence of little Ingmar. Whenever he went anywhere he always wanted the boy to accompany him. The lad went, of course, but unwillingly. He did not like to go with him on his sprees. Then Elof would coax the boy, and vow that he was not going any farther than the church or the shop. But when once he got Ingmar in the cart, he would drive off with him, down to the smithies at Bergsana, or the tavern in Karmsund.

Karin was glad that her husband took the boy along; it was at least a safeguard against Elof being left in a ditch by the roadside, or driving the horse to death.

Once, when Elof came home at eight in the morning, Ingmar was sitting beside him in the cart, fast asleep.

"Come out here and look after the boy!" Elof shouted to Karin, "and carry him in. The poor brat's as full as a tick, and can't walk a step."

Karin was so shocked that she almost collapsed. She was obliged to sit down on the steps for a moment, to recover herself, before she could lift the boy. The minute she took hold of him she discovered that he was not really asleep, but stiff from the cold, and unconscious. Taking the boy in her arms, she carried him into the bedroom, locked the door after her, and tried to bring him to. After a while she stepped into the living-room, where Elof sat eating his breakfast. She walked straight up to him and put her hand on his shoulder.

"You'd better lay in a good meal while you're about it," she said, "for if you have made my brother drink himself to death, you'll soon have to put up with poorer fare than you're getting on the Ingmar Farm."

"How you talk! As if a little brandy could hurt him!"

"Mark what I say! If the boy dies, you'll get twenty years in prison, Elof."

When Karin returned to the bedroom, the boy had come out of his stupor, but was delirious and unable to move hand or foot. He suffered agonies.

"Do you think I'm going to die, Karin?" he moaned.

"No, dear, of course not," Karin assured him.

"I didn't know what they were giving me."

"Thank God for that!" said Karin fervently.

"If I die, write to my sisters and tell them I didn't know it was liquor," wailed the boy.

"Yes, dear," soothed Karin.

"Really and truly I didn't know—I swear it!"

All day Ingmar lay in a raging fever. "Please don't tell father about it!" he raved.

"Father will never know of it," she said.

"But suppose I die, then father would surely find it out, and I would be shamed before him."

"But it wasn't your fault, child."

"Maybe father will think that I shouldn't have taken what Elof offered me? Don't you suppose the whole parish must know that I have been full?" he asked. "What do the hired men say, and what does old Lisa say, and Strong Ingmar?"

"They're not saying anything," Karin replied.

"You will have to tell them how it happened. We were at the tavern in Karmsund, where Elof and some of his pals had been drinking the whole night. I was sitting in a corner on a bench, half asleep, when Elof came over and roused me. 'Wake up, Ingmar,' he said very pleasantly, 'and I'll give you something that will make you warm. Drink this,' he urged, holding a glass to my lips. 'It's only hot water with a little sugar in it.' I was shivering with the cold when I awoke and, as I drank the stuff, I only noticed that it was hot and sweet. But he had gone and mixed something strong with it! Oh, what will father say?"

Then Karin opened the door leading to the living-room, where Elof still lingered over his meal. She felt that it would be well for him to hear this.

"If only father were living, Karin, if only father were living!"

"What then, Ingmar?"

"Don't you think he'd kill him?"

Elof broke into a loud laugh, and when the boy heard him, he turned so pale with fright that Karin promptly closed the door again.

It had this good effect upon Elof, at all events: he put up no objection when Karin decided to take the boy to Storm's school.

***

Soon after Halvor had received the watch, his shop was always full of people. Every farmer in the parish, when in town, would stop at Halvor's shop in order to hear the story of Big Ingmar's watch. The peasants in their long white fur coats stood hanging over the counter by the hour, their solemn, furrowed faces turned toward Halvor as he talked to them. Sometimes he would take out the watch, and show them the dented case and the cracked face.

"So it was there the blow caught him," the peasants would say. And they seemed to see before them what had happened when Big Ingmar was hurt. "It is a great thing for you, Halvor, to have that watch!"

When Halvor was showing the watch he would never let it out of his hands, but would always keep a tight grip on the chain.

One day Halvor stood talking to a group of peasants, telling them the usual story, and at the climax the watch was of course brought out. As it was being passed from one to the other (he holding the chain) there fell upon all a solemn hush. In the meantime Elof had come into the shop, but as every one's attention was riveted upon the watch, no one had remarked his presence. Elof had also heard the story of his father-in-law's watch, and knew at once what was going on. He did not begrudge Halvor his souvenir; he was simply amused at the sight of him and the others standing there looking so solemn over nothing but an old and battered silver watch.

Elof stole quietly up behind the men, reached over, and snatched the watch from Halvor. It was only meant in fun. He had no thought of taking the watch only from Halvor; he just wanted to tease him a bit.

When Halvor tried to snatch it again, Elof stepped back and held it up, as if he were holding out a lump of sugar to a dog. Then Halvor vaulted the counter; and he looked so angry that Elof got frightened and, instead of standing still and handing him back the watch, he ran for the door.

Outside were some badly worn wooden steps; Elof's foot caught in a hole, and down he went. Halvor fell upon him, seized the watch, then gave him several hard kicks.

"You'd better quit kicking me, and find out what's wrong with my back," said Elof.

Halvor stopped at once, but Elof made no move to raise himself.

"Help me up," he said.

"You can help yourself when you've slept off your jag."

"I'm not full," Elof protested. "The fact is, as I started to run down the stairs I thought I saw Big Ingmar coming toward me, to take the watch. That's how I got such an ugly fall."

Then Halvor bent down and gave the poor wretch a lift, for his back was broken. He had to be put into a wagon and driven home. He would never again have the use of his legs. From that time forth Elof was confined to his bed, a helpless cripple. But he could talk, and all day long he kept begging for brandy. The doctor had left strict orders with Karin not to give him any spirits, lest he drink himself to death. Then Elof tried to get what he wanted by shrieking and making the most hideous noises, especially at night. He behaved like a madman, and disturbed every one's rest.

That was Karin's most trying year. Her husband sometimes tormented her until it seemed as though she could not stand it any longer. The very air became polluted by his vile talk and profanity, so that the home was like a hell. Karin begged the Storms to keep little Ingmar with them also during the holidays; she did not want her brother to be at home with her for a day, not even at Christmas.

All the servants at the Ingmar Farm were distantly related to the family, and had always lived on the place. But for the feeling that they belonged to the Ingmarssons, they could not have gone on serving under such conditions. There were precious few nights that they were allowed to sleep in peace. Elof was constantly hitting upon new ways of tormenting both the servants and Karin, to make them give in to his demands.

In this misery Karin passed a winter and a summer and another winter.

But Karin had a retreat to which she would flee at times in order to be alone with her thoughts. Behind the hop garden there was a narrow seat upon which she often sat, with her elbows on her knees and her chin resting in her hands, staring straight ahead, yet seeing nothing. Fronting her were great stretches of cornfields, beyond which was the forest, and in the distance the range of hills and Mount Klack.

One evening in April she sat on her bench, feeling tired and listless, as one often does in the springtime when the snow turns to slush and the ground is still unwashed by spring rains. The hops lay sleeping under a cover of fir brush. Over against the hills hung a thick mist, such as always accompanies a thaw. The birch tops were beginning to turn brown, but all along the skirt of the forest there was still a deep border of snow. Spring would soon be there in earnest, and the thought of it made her feel even more tired. She felt that she could never live through another summer like the last one. She thought of all the work ahead of her—sowing and haymaking; spring baking and spring cleaning; weaving and sewing—and wondered how she would ever get through with it all.

"I might better be dead," she sighed. "I seem to be here for no other purpose than to prevent Elof killing himself with drink."

Suddenly she looked up, as if she had heard some one calling her.
Leaning against the hedge, looking straight at her, stood Halvor
Halvorsson. She did not know just when he had come, but apparently
he had been standing there a good while.

"I thought I should find you over here," Halvor said.

"Oh, did you?"

"I remembered how in days gone by you used to step away, and come here to sit and brood."

"I didn't have much to brood over at that time."

"Then your troubles were mostly imaginary."

Karin mused as she looked at Halvor: "He must be thinking what a fool I was not to have married him, who is such a handsome and dignified man. Now he's got me where he can crow over me, and he has come only to laugh at me."

"I've been inside talking with Elof," Halvor enlightened. "It was really him I wanted to see."

Karin made no reply, but sat there, frigid and unresponsive, her eyes fixed on the ground and her hands crossed, prepared to meet all the scorn she fancied Halvor would now heap upon her.

"I said to him," Halvor continued, "that I considered myself largely to blame for his misfortune, since it was at my place that he got hurt." He paused a moment, as if waiting for some expression from her, either of approval or disapproval. But Karin was silent. "So I have asked him to come and live with me for a while. It would at least be a change, and he could see more people than he meets here."

Then Karin raised her eyes, but otherwise remained as motionless as before.

"We have arranged to have him sent to my place to-morrow morning. I know he'll come, because he thinks he can get his liquor. But, of course, you must know, Karin, that that's out of the question. No, indeed! It's no more to be had with me than with you. I shall expect him to-morrow. He is to occupy the little room off the shop, and I've promised him that I'll let his door stand open, so that he may see all persons who come and go."

At Halvor's first words Karin wondered whether this was not something he had made up, but gradually it dawned on her that he was in earnest.

As a matter of fact, Karin had always imagined that Halvor had courted her only because of her money and good connections. It had never occurred to her that he might have loved her for herself alone. She probably knew she was not the kind of girl that men care for. Nor had she herself been in love, either with Halvor or Elof. But now that Halvor had come to her in her trouble, and wanted to help her, she was completely overwhelmed by the bigness of the man. She marvelled that he could be so kind. She felt that surely he must like her a little, since he had come like that, to help her.

Karin's heart began to beat violently and anxiously. She awoke to something she had never before experienced, and wondered what it meant. Then all at once she realized that Halvor's kindness had thawed her frozen heart, and that love was beginning to flame up in her. Halvor went on unfolding his plan, fearing all the while that she might oppose him. "It's hard for Elof, too," he pleaded. "He needs a change of scene, and he won't make as much trouble for me as he has made for you. It will be quite different when he's got a man to reckon with."

Karin hardly knew what she should do. She felt that she could not make a movement or say a word without letting Halvor see that she was in love with him; yet she knew she would have to give him some kind of an answer.

Presently Halvor stopped talking and simply looked at her.

Then Karin rose, involuntarily went up to him, and patted him on the hand. "God bless you, Halvor!" she said in broken tones. "God bless you!"

Despite all her precautions, Halvor must have divined something, for he quickly grasped her hands and drew her to him.

"No! No!" she cried in alarm, freeing herself; then she hurried away.

***

Elof had gone to live with Halvor. All summer he lay in the little bedroom off the shop. Halvor was not troubled with the care of him for a great while, for in the autumn he died.

Shortly after his death Mother Stina said to Halvor: "Now you must promise me one thing: promise me that you will exercise patience as regards Karin."

"Of course I'll have patience," Halvor returned, wonderingly.

"She's somebody worth winning, even if one has to wait seven long years."

But it was not so easy for Halvor to have patience, for he soon learned that this one and that one was paying court to Karin. This began within a fortnight of Elof's funeral.

One Sunday afternoon Halvor sat on the steps in front of his shop, watching the people coming and going. Presently it occurred to him that an unusual number of fine rigs were moving in the direction of the Ingmar Farm. In the first carriage sat an inspector from Bergsana Foundry, in the second was the son of the proprietor of the Karmsund Inn, and last came the Magistrate Berger Sven Persson, who was the richest man in western Dalecarlia, and a sensible and highly esteemed man, too. He was not young, to be sure; he had been twice married, and was now a widower for the second time.

When Halvor saw Berger Sven Persson driving by, he could not contain himself any longer. He jumped to his feet and started down the road; in almost no time he was over the bridge and on the side of the river where the Ingmar Farm lay.

"I'd like to know where all those carriages have gone to," he said to himself. He followed the wheel ruts, half running, but all the while becoming more and more determined. "I know this is stupid of me," he thought, remembering Mother Stina's warning. "But I'm only going as far as the gate, to see what they're up to down there."

In the best room at the Ingmars sat Berger Sven Persson and two other men, drinking coffee. Ingmar Ingmarsson, who still lived at the schoolhouse, was at home over Sunday. He sat at table with them and acted as host, for Karin had excused herself, saying she had some work to do in the kitchen, as the maids had gone down to the mission house to hear the schoolmaster preach.

It was deadly dull in the parlour. All the men sat drinking their coffee without exchanging a word. The suitors were practically strangers to one another, and all three of them were watching for an opportunity to slip into the kitchen for a private word with Karin.

Presently the door opened and in stepped another caller, who was received by Ingmar, and conducted to the table.

"This is Tims Halvor Halvorsson," said Ingmar, introducing the newcomer to Berger Sven Persson.

Sven Persson did not rise, but greeted Halvor with a sweep of the hand, saying, somewhat facetiously:

"It is a pleasure to meet so distinguished a personage."

Ingmar noisily drew up a chair for Halvor, so that he was spared the embarrassment of replying.

From the moment Halvor entered the room, all the suitors became chatty and began to talk big. Each in turn praised and championed the others. It was as if they had all agreed among themselves to stand together until Halvor was well out of the game.

"The magistrate is driving a fine horse to-day," the inspector began.

Berger Sven Persson took up the fun by complimenting the inspector on having shot a bear the winter before. Then the two turned to the innkeeper's son, and said something in praise of a house his father was building.

Finally all three of them bragged about the wealth of Bergen Sven Persson. They waxed eloquent, and with every word they gave Halvor to understand that he was too lowly a man to think of pitting himself against them. And Halvor certainly did feel very insignificant, and bitterly regretted having come.

Just then Karin came along with fresh coffee. At sight of Halvor she brightened for an instant; then it occurred to her that his calling on her so soon after her husband's death looked rather bad. "If he is in such a hurry, people will surely say that he hadn't given Elof proper care, and that he wanted him out of the way so he could marry me." She would rather he had waited two or three years before coming; that would have been long enough to make folks see that he had not been impatient for Elof's departure. "Why need he be in such haste?" she wondered. "Surely he must know that I don't want anyone but him."

Every one had stopped talking the moment Karin appeared, wondering how she and Halvor would greet each other. They barely touched hands. .At which the magistrate expressed his delight by a short whistle, while the inspector broke into a loud guffaw. Haldor quietly turned to him. "What are you laughing at?" he said.

The inspector was at a loss for an answer. With Karin there he did not wish to say anything that might give offence.

"He is thinking of a hound that raises a hare and allows some one else to catch it," remarked the innkeeper's son, insinuatingly.

Karin turned blood red, but refilled the coffee cups. "Berger Sven Persson and the rest of you will have to be satisfied with plain coffee," she said. "We no longer serve spirits to any one on this farm."

"Nor do I at my home," said the magistrate approvingly.

The inspector and the innkeeper's son kept quiet; they understood that Sven Persson had scored heavily.

The magistrate straightway began to discourse on temperance and its salutary effects. Karin listened to him with interest, and agreed with all that he said. Seeing that this was the kind of talk that would appeal to her, the magistrate began to spread himself, and delivered long-winded harangue on the curse of liquor and drunkenness. Karin recognized all her own thoughts on the subject, and was glad to find that they were shared by so intelligent a man as the magistrate.

In the middle of his monologue Berger Sven Persson glanced over at Halvor, who sat at the table, looking glum and sulky, his coffee cup untouched.

"It's pretty rough on him," thought Berger Sven Persson, "particularly if there's any truth in what people say about his having given Elof a little lift on his way into the next world. Anyway, he did Karin a good service by relieving her of that dreadful sot." And since the magistrate seemed to think that he had as good as won the game, he felt rather friendly toward Halvor. Raising his cup, he said: "Here's to you, Halvor! You certainly did Karin a good turn when you took her drunken sot of a husband off her hands."

Halvor did not respond to the toast. He sat looking the man straight in the eyes, and wondered how he should take this.

The inspector again burst out laughing. "Yes, yes, a good turn," he haw-hawed, "a real good turn."

"Yes, yes, a real good turn," echoed the innkeeper's son, with a chuckle.

Before they were done laughing, Karin had vanished like a shadow through the kitchen door; but she could hear from the kitchen all that was said inside. She was both sorry and distressed over Halvor's untimely visit. It would probably result in her never being able to marry Halvor. It was plain that the gossips were already spreading evil reports. "I can't bear the thought of losing him," she sighed.

For a time no sound came from the sitting-room, but presently she heard a noise as if a chair were being pushed back. Some one had evidently risen.

"Are you going already, Halvor?" young Ingmar was heard to say.

"Yes," Halvor replied. "I can't stop any longer. Please say good-bye to Karin for me."

"Why don't you go into the kitchen and say it for yourself?"

"No," Halvor was heard to answer, "we two have nothing more to say to each other."

Karin's heart began to pump hard, and thoughts came rushing into her head, as if on wings. Now Halvor was angry at her—and no wonder! She had hardly dared even to shake hands with him, and when the others had scoffed at him, she never opened her mouth in his defence, but quietly sneaked away. Now he must think she did not care for him, and was therefore going, never to return. She could not understand why she should have treated him so shabbily—she who was so fond of him. Then, all at once her father's old saying came to her: "The Ingmarssons need have no fear of men; they have only to walk in the ways of God."

Karin hastily opened the door, and stood facing Halvor before he could manage to leave the room.

"Are you leaving so soon, Halvor?" she asked. "I thought you were going to stay to supper."

Halvor stood staring at Karin. She seemed to be completely changed; her cheeks were aglow, and there was something tender and appealing about her which he had never seen before.

"I'm going, and I'm not coming back," said Halvor. He had not caught her meaning, apparently.

"Do stay and finish your coffee," she urged. Then she took him by the hand and led him back to the table. She turned both white and red, and several times she all but lost her courage. Just the same she braved it out, although there was nothing she feared so much as scorn and contempt. "Now he will at least see that I'm willing to stand by him," she thought. Turning toward her guests, she said: "Berger Sven Persson and all of you! Halvor and I have not spoken of this matter—as I have so recently become a widow—but now it seems best that you should all know that I would rather marry Halvor than any one else in the world." She paused to get control of her voice, then concluded: "Folks may say what they like about this, but Halvor and I have done nothing wrong."

When Karin had finished speaking, she drew nearer to Halvor, as if seeking protection against all the cruel slander that would come now.

The men were speechless, mostly from astonishment at Karin Ingmarsson, who looked younger and more girlish than ever before in her life.

Then Halvor said in a voice vibrant with feeling: "Karin, when I received your father's watch, I felt that nothing greater could have happened to me; but this thing which you have just done transcends everything."

Whereupon Berger Sven Persson, who was in many ways an excellent man, arose.

"Let us all congratulate Karin and Halvor," he said, graciously, "for every one must know that he whom Karin, daughter of Ingmar, has chosen is a man of sterling worth."

IN ZION

That an old country schoolmaster should sometimes be a little too self-confident is not surprising: for well nigh a lifetime he has imparted knowledge and given advice to his fellowmen. He sees that all the peasants are living by what he has taught, and that not one among them knows more than what he, their schoolmaster, has told them. How can he help but regard all the people in the parish as mere school children, however old they may have grown? It is only natural that he should consider himself wiser than every one else. It seems almost an impossibility for one of these regular old school persons to treat any one as a grown-up, for he looks upon each and every one as a child with dimpled cheeks and wide innocent baby eyes.

One Sunday, in the winter, just after service, the pastor and the schoolmaster stood talking together in the vestry; the conversation had turned upon the Salvation Army.

"It's a singular idea to have hit upon," the pastor remarked. "I never imagined that I should live to see anything of that sort!"

The schoolmaster glanced sharply at the pastor; he thought his remark entirely irrelevant. Surely the pastor could never think that such an absurd innovation would find its way into their parish.

"I don't believe you are likely to see it, either," he said emphatically.

The pastor, knowing that he himself was a weak and broken-down man, let the schoolmaster have things pretty much his own way, but all the same, he could not refrain from chaffing him a little, occasionally.

"How can you feel so cocksure that we shall escape the Salvation Army, Storm?" he said. "You see, when pastor and schoolmaster stand together, there's no fear of any nuisance of that sort crowding in. Yet I'm not altogether certain, Storm, that you do stand by me. You preach to suit yourself in your Zion."

To this the schoolmaster did not reply at once. Presently he said, quite meekly: "The pastor has never heard me preach."

The mission house was a veritable rock of offence. The clergyman had never set foot in the place. And now that this mooted question had come up, both men were sorry they had said anything to hurt each other's feelings. "Perhaps I'm unjust to Storm," thought the pastor. "During the four years that he has been holding his afternoon Bible Talks, on Sundays, there has been a larger attendance at the morning church services than ever before, and I haven't seen the least sign of division in the church. Storm has not destroyed the parish, as I feared he would. He is a faithful friend and servant, and I mean to show him how much I appreciate him."

The little misunderstanding of the forenoon resulted in the pastor's attending the schoolmaster's meeting in the afternoon.

"I'll give Storm a pleasant surprise," he thought. "I will go to hear him preach in his Zion."

On the way to the mission house the pastor's thoughts went back to the time it was built. How full the air had been of prophecies, and how firmly he had believed that God had intended it to be something great! But nothing much had happened. "Our Lord must have changed His mind," he thought, amused at his entertaining such queer ideas regarding our Lord.

The schoolmaster's Zion was a large hall with light-coloured walls. On either side hung wood engravings of Luther and Melanchton, in fur-trimmed cloaks; along the borders, close to the ceiling, ran highly illuminated Bible texts, embellished with flowers and heavenly trumpets and bassoons. At the front of the room, above the speaker's platform, hung an oleograph representing the Good Shepherd.

The large bare room was full of people, which was all that seemed necessary to create an atmosphere of impressive solemnity. Most of the people were dressed in the picturesque peasant costume of the parish, and the starched and flaring white headgear of the women made the room look as if it were filled with large white-winged birds.

Storm had already commenced his address, when he saw the pastor come down the aisle, and take a seat in the front row.

"You're a wonderful man, Storm!" thought the school-master. "Everything comes your way. Here's the pastor himself to do you honour."

During the time that the schoolmaster had been holding meetings, he had explained the Bible from cover to cover. That afternoon he spoke of the Heavenly Jerusalem and everlasting bliss, as given in the Book of the Revelation. He was so pleased at the parson having come, that he kept thinking to himself: "For my part I shouldn't ask for anything better than to stand on a platform through all eternity, teaching good and obedient children; and if, on occasion, our Lord Himself should drop in to hear me, as the pastor has done to-day, no one in heaven would be more delighted than I."

The pastor became interested when the schoolmaster began to talk about Jerusalem, and the strange misgivings which he had had long ago flashed through his mind again. In the middle of the service the door opened, and a number of people came in. There were about twenty, and they stopped at the door so as not to disturb the meeting. "Ah!" thought the parson. "I knew something was going to happen."

Storm had no sooner said "Amen" than a voice, coming from some one in the group down by the door, piped up: "I should very much like to say a few words."

"That must be Hök Matts Ericsson," thought the pastor, and others with him. For no one else in the parish had such a sweet and childlike treble.

The next moment a little meek-faced man made his way up to the platform, followed by a score of men and women who seemed to be there for the purpose of supporting and encouraging him.

The pastor, the schoolmaster, and the entire congregation sat in suspense. "Hök Matts has come to tell us of some awful calamity," they thought. "Either the king is dead, or war has been declared, or perhaps some poor creature has fallen into the river and been drowned." Still Hök Matts did not look as if he had any bad news to impart. He seemed to be in earnest and somewhat stirred, but at the same time he looked so pleased that he could hardly keep from smiling.

"I want to say to the schoolmaster and to the congregation," he began, "that Sunday before last, while I was sitting at home with my family, the Spirit descended upon me, and I began to preach. We couldn't get down here to listen to Storm, on account of the ice and sleet, and we sat longing to hear the Word of God. Then all at once I had the feeling that I could speak myself. I've been preaching now for two Sundays, and all my folks at home and our neighbours, too, have told me that I ought to come down here and let all the people hear me."

Hök Matts also said he was astonished that the gift of speech should have fallen upon so humble a man. "But the schoolmaster himself is only a peasant," he added, with a little more confidence.

After this preamble, Hök Matts folded his hands and was ready to begin preaching at once. But by that time the schoolmaster had recovered from his first shock of surprise.

"Do you think of speaking here now, Hök Matts—immediately?"

"Yes, that's my intention," the man replied. He grew as frightened as a child when Storm glowered at him. "It was my purpose, of course, to first ask leave of the schoolmaster and the rest," he stammered.

"We're all through for the day," said Storm, conclusively.

Then the meek little man began to beg with tears in his voice: "Won't you please let me say a few words? I only want to tell of the things that have come to me when walking behind the plow and when working by myself at the kiln; and now they want to come out."

But the schoolmaster, though he had had such a day of triumph himself, felt no pity for the poor little man. "Matts Ericsson comes here with his own peculiar notions, and claims that they are messages from God," he declared rebukingly.

Hök Matts dared not venture a protest, and the schoolmaster opened the hymnbook.

"Let us all join in singing hymn one hundred and eighty-seven," he said. Whereupon he read out the hymn in stentorian tones, then he began to sing at the top of his voice, "Are your windows open toward Jerusalem."

Meanwhile, he thought: "It was well after all that the pastor happened in to-day; now he can see that I know how to maintain order in my Zion."

But no sooner was the hymn finished than a man jumped to his feet. It was proud and dignified Ljung Björn Olafsson, who was married to one of the Ingmar girls, and was the owner of a large farmstead in the heart of the parish.

"We down at this end think that the schoolmaster might have consulted our wishes before turning Matts Ericsson down," he mildly protested.

"Oh, you think so, do you, Sonny?" The schoolmaster spoke in just the kind of tone he would have used in reproving some young whippersnapper. "Then let me tell you that no one but myself has any say here, in this hall."

Ljung Björn turned blood red. He had not meant to provoke a quarrel with Storm, but had simply wished to soften the blow for Hök Matts, who was an inoffensive man. Just the same, he could not help feeling chagrined over the reply he had got; but before he could think of a retort, one of the men who had come in with Hök Matts spoke up:

"Twice I have heard Hök Matts preach, and must say that he is wonderful. I believe that every one present would be helped by hearing him."

The schoolmaster answered pleasantly enough, but in the old admonishing tone of the classroom: "Surely you understand, Krister Larsson, that I can't allow this. Were I to let Hök Matts preach to-day, then you, Krister, would want to preach next Sunday, and Ljung Björn the Sunday after!"

At this several persons laughed; but Ljung Björn was ready with a sharp rejoinder: "I see no reason why Krister and I shouldn't be as well qualified to preach as the schoolmaster," he said.

Thereupon Tims Halvor arose and tried to quiet them and to prevent possible strife. "Those of us who have furnished the money to build and run this mission should be consulted before any new preacher is allowed to speak."

By that time Krister Larsson had become aroused and was on his feet again. "I recall to mind that when we built this hall we were all agreed that it should be a free-for-all meetinghouse and not a church where only one man is allowed to preach the Word."

When Krister had spoken every one seemed to breathe freer. Only one short hour before it had not occurred to them that they could ever wish to hear any speaker but the schoolmaster. Now they thought it would be a treat to hear something different. "We'd like to hear something new and to see a fresh face behind the rostrum," somebody muttered.

In all likelihood there would have been no further disturbance if only Bullet Gunner had remained away that day. He, too, was a brother-in-law of Tims Halvor and a tall, gaunt-looking fellow, with a swarthy skin and piercing eyes. Gunner, as well as every one else, liked the schoolmaster, but what he liked even more was a good scrap.

"There was a lot of talk about freedom while we were building this house," said Gunner "but I haven't heard a liberal word since the place was first opened."

The schoolmaster grew purple. Gunner's remark was the first evidence of any actual hostility or revolt. "Let me remind you, Bullet Gunner, that here you have heard the true freedom preached, as Luther taught it; but here there has been no license to preach the kind of new-fangled ideas that spring up one day and fall to the ground the next."

"The schoolmaster would have us think that everything new is worthless as soon as it touches upon doctrine," Gunner replied soothingly and half regretfully. "He approves of our using new methods of caring for our cattle, and wants us to adopt the latest agricultural machinery; but we are not allowed to know anything about the new implements with which God's acres are now being tilled."

Storm began to think that Bullet Gunner's bark was worse than his bite. "Is it your meaning," he said, adopting a facetious tone, "that we should preach a different doctrine here from the Lutheran?"

"It is not a question of a new doctrine," roared Gunner, "but as to who shall preach; and, as far as I know, Matts Ericsson is as good a Lutheran as either the schoolmaster or the parson."

For the moment the schoolmaster had forgotten about the parson; but now he glanced down at him. The clergyman sat quietly musing, his chin resting upon the knob of his cane. There was a curious gleam in his eyes, which were fixed upon Storm, never leaving him for a second.

"After all, perhaps it would have been just as well if the parson hadn't come to-day," thought the schoolmaster. What was then taking place reminded Storm of something he had experienced before. It could be just like this in school sometimes, on a bright spring morning, when a little bird perched itself outside the schoolroom window and warbled lustily. Then all at once the children would tease and beg to be excused from school; they abandoned their studies and made so much fuss and noise that it was almost impossible to bring them to order. Something of the same sort had come over the congregation after Hök Matts's arrival. However, the schoolmaster meant to show the pastor and all of them that he was man enough to quell the mutiny. "First, I will leave them alone and let the ringleaders talk themselves hoarse," he thought, and went and sat down on a chair behind the table on which the water bottle stood.

Instantly there arose against him a perfect storm of protests; for by that time every one had become inflated with the idea that they were all of them just as good as the schoolmaster. "Why should he alone be allowed to tell us what to believe and what not to believe!" they shouted.

These ideas seemed to be new to most of them, yet from the talk it became evident that they had been germinating in their minds ever since the schoolmaster had built the mission house, and shown them that a plain, ordinary man can preach the Word of God.

After a bit Storm remarked to himself: "The tempest of the children must have spent itself by this. Now is the time to show them who is master here." Whereupon he rose up, pounded the table with his fist, and thundered: "Stop! What's the meaning of all this racketing? I'm going now, and you must go, too, so that I may put out the lights and lock up."

Some of them actually did get up, for they had all gone to Storm's school, and knew that when their teacher rapped on the table it meant that everybody had to mind. Yet the majority stoically kept their seats.

"The schoolmaster forgets that now we are grown men," said one; "but he still seems to think we should run just because he happens to rap on the table!" said another.

They went right on talking about their wanting to hear some new speakers, and which ones they should call in. They were already quarrelling among themselves as to whether it should be the Waldenstromites or colporteurs from the National Evangelical Union.

The schoolmaster stood staring at the assemblage as if he were looking at some weird monstrosity. For up to that time he had seen only the child in each individual face. But now all the round baby cheeks, the soft baby curls, and the mild baby eyes had vanished, and he saw only a gathering of adults, with hard, set faces; he felt that over such as these he had no control. He did not even know what to say to them.

The tumult continued, growing louder and louder. The schoolmaster kept still and let them rage. Bullet Gunner, Ljung Björn, and Krister Larsson led the attack. Hök Matts, who was the innocent cause of all the trouble, rose to his feet time and again and begged them to be quiet, but no one listened to him.

Once again the schoolmaster glanced down at the parson, who was still quietly musing, the same gleam in his eyes, which were fixed on the schoolmaster.

"He's probably thinking of that evening four years ago when I told him I would build a mission," thought Storm. "He was right, too. Everything has turned out just as he said it would: heresy, revolt, and division. Perhaps we might have escaped all this if I hadn't been so bent upon building my Zion."

The instant this became clear to the schoolmaster, his head went up and his backbone straightened. He drew from his pocket a small key of polished steel. It was the key to Zion! He held it toward the light so that it could be seen from all parts of the hall.

"Now I'm going to lay this key upon the table," he said, "and I shall never touch it again, for I see now that it has unlocked the door to everything which I had hoped to shut out."

Whereupon the schoolmaster put the key down, took up his hat, and walked straight over to the pastor.

"I want to thank you, Parson, for coming to hear me to-day," he said; "for if you hadn't come to-day you never could have heard me."

THE WILD HUNT

There were many who thought that Elof Ersson should have found no peace in his grave for the shameful way in which he had dealt with Karin and young Ingmar. He had deliberately made way with all of his and Karin's money, so she would suffer hardship after his death. And he left the farm so heavily mortgaged, that Karin would have been forced to turn it over to the creditors, had not Halvor been rich enough to buy in the property and pay off the debts. Ingmar Ingmarsson's twenty thousand kroner, of which Elof had been sole trustee, had entirely disappeared. Some people thought that Elof had buried the money, others that he had given it away; in any case, it was not to be found.

When Ingmar learned that he was penniless, he consulted Karin as to what he should do. Ingmar told his sister that of all things he would prefer to be a teacher, and begged her to let him remain with the Storms until he was old enough to enter college. Down at the village he would always be able to borrow books from the schoolmaster or the pastor, he said, and, moreover, he could help Storm at the school, by reading with the children; that would be excellent practice.

Karin turned this over in her mind before answering. "I suppose you wouldn't care to remain at home, since you can't become master here?" she said.

When Storm's daughter heard that Ingmar was coming back, she pulled a long face. It seemed to her that if they must have a boy living with them, they might better have the judge's good-looking son, Bertil, or there was jolly Gabriel, the son of Hök Matts Ericsson.

Gertrude liked both Gabriel and Bertil, but as for Ingmar, she couldn't exactly tell what her feelings were toward him. She liked him because he helped her with her lessons and minded her like a slave; but she could also become thoroughly put out with him sometimes, because he was clumsy and tiresome and did not know how to play. She had to admire his diligence and his aptitude for learning, yet at times she fairly despised him for not being able to show off what he could do.

Gertrude's head was always full of droll fancies and dreams, which she confided to Ingmar. If the lad happened to be away for a few days, she grew restless, and felt that she had no one to talk to; but as soon as he got back she hardly knew what she had been longing for.

The girl had never thought of Ingmar as a boy of means and good family connections, but treated him rather as though he were a little beneath her. Yet when she heard that Ingmar had become poor, she wept for him, and when he told her that he would not try to get back his property, but meant to earn his own living as a teacher, she was so indignant she could hardly control herself.

The Lord only knows all she had dreamed that he would be some day!

The children at Storm's school were given very rigid training. They were held strictly to their tasks, and only on rare occasions were they allowed any amusements. However, all this was changed the spring Storm gave up his preaching. Then Mother Stina said to him: "Now, Storm, we must let the young folks be young. Remember that you and I were young once. Why, when we were seventeen, we danced many a night from sundown to sunup."

So, one Saturday night, when young Gabriel and Gunhild, the councilman's daughter, paid a visit to the Storms, they actually had a dance at the schoolhouse.

Gertrude was wild with delight at being allowed to dance, but Ingmar would not join in. Instead, he took up a book, and went and sat down on the sofa by the window. Time and again Gertrude tried to make him lay down his book, but Ingmar, sulky and shy, refused to budge. Mother Stina looked at him and shook her head. "It's plain he comes of an old, old stock," she thought. "That kind can never be really young."

The three who did dance had such a good time! They talked of going to a regular dance the next Saturday evening, and asked the schoolmaster and Mother Stina what they thought about it.

"If you will do your dancing at Strong Ingmar's, I give my consent," said Mother Stina; "for there you will meet only respectable folk."

Then Storm also made it conditional. "I can't allow Gertrude to go to a dance unless Ingmar goes along to look after her," he said.

Whereupon all three rushed up to Ingmar and begged him to accompany them.

"No!" he growled, without even glancing up from his book.

"It's no good asking him!" said Gertrude in a tone that made Ingmar raise his eyes. Gertrude looked radiantly beautiful after the dance. She smiled scornfully, and her eyes flashed as she turned away. It was plainly to be seen how much she despised him for sitting there so ugly and sulky, like some crotchety old man. Ingmar had to alter his mind and say "yes"—there was no way out of it.

A few evenings later while Gertrude and Mother Stina sat spinning in the kitchen, the girl suddenly noticed that her mother was getting uneasy. Every little while she would stop her spinning-wheel and listen. "I can't imagine what that noise is," she said. "Do you hear anything, Gertrude?"

"Yes, I do," replied the girl. "There must be some one upstairs in the classroom."

"Who could be there at this hour?" Mother Stina flouted. "Only listen to the rustling and the pattering from one end of the room to the other!"

And there certainly was a rustling and a pattering and a bumping about over their heads, that made both Gertrude and her mother feel creepy.

"There must surely be some one up there," insisted Gertrude.

"There can't be," Mother Stina declared. "Let me tell you that this thing has been going on every night since you danced here."

Gertrude perceived that her mother imagined the house had been haunted since the night of the dance. If that idea were allowed to become fixed in Mother Stina's mind, there would be no more dancing for Gertrude.

"I'm going up there to see what it is," said the girl, rising; but her mother caught hold of her skirt.

"I don't know whether I dare let you go," she said.

"Nonsense, mother! It's best to find out what this is."

"Then I'd better go with you," the mother decided.

They crept softly up the stairs. When they got to the door they were afraid to open it. Mother Stina bent down and peeped through the keyhole. Presently she gave a little chuckle.

"What pleases you, mother" asked Gertrude.

"See for yourself, only be very quiet!"

Then Gertrude put her eye to the keyhole. Inside, benches and desks had been pushed against the wall, and in the centre of the schoolroom, amid a cloud of dust, Ingmar Ingmarsson was whirling round, with a chair in his arms.

"Has Ingmar gone mad!" exclaimed Gertrude.

"Ssh!" warned the mother, drawing her away from the door and down the stairs. "He must be trying to teach himself to dance. I suppose he wants to learn how, so he'll be able to dance at the party," she added, with smirk. Then Mother Stina began to shake with laughter. "He came near frightening the life out of me," she confessed. "Thank God he can be young for once!" When she had got over her fit of laughing, she said: "You're not to say a word about this to anybody, do you hear!"

***

Saturday evening the four young people stood on the steps of the schoolhouse, ready to start. Mother Stina looked them over approvingly. The boys had on yellow buckskin breeches and green homespun waistcoats, with bright red sleeves. Gunhild and Gertrude wore stripe skirts bordered with red cloth, and white blouses, with big puffed sleeves; flowered kerchiefs were crossed over their bodices, and they had on aprons that were as flowered as their kerchiefs.

As the four of them walked along in the twilight of a perfect spring evening, nothing was said for quite a long time. Now and then Gertrude would cast a side glance at Ingmar thinking of how he had worked to learn to dance. Whatever the reason—whether it was the memory of Ingmar's weird dancing, or the anticipation of attending a regular dance—her thoughts became light and airy. She managed to keep just a little behind the others, that she might muse undisturbed. She had made up quite little story about how the trees had come by their new leaves.

It happened in this way, she thought: the trees, after sleeping peacefully and quietly the whole winter, suddenly began to dream. They dreamt that summer had come. They seemed to see the fields dressed in green grass and waving corn; the hawthorn shimmered with new-blown roses; brooks and ponds were spread with the leaves of the water-lily; the stones were hidden under the creeping tendrils of the twin flower, and the forest carpet was thick with star flowers. And amid all this that was clothed and decked out, the trees saw themselves standing gaunt and naked. They began to feel ashamed of their nakedness, as often happens in dreams.

In their confusion and embarrassment, the trees fancied that all the rest were making fun of them. The bumblebees came buzzingly up to mock at them, the magpies laughed them to scorn, while the other birds sang taunting ditties.

"Where shall we find something to put on?" asked the trees in despair; but they had not a leaf to their names on either twig or branch, and their distress was so terrible that it awakened them.

And glancing about, drowsy like, their first thought was: "Thank
God it was only a dream! There is certainly no summer hereabout.
It's lucky for us that we haven't overslept."

But as they looked around more carefully, they noticed that the streams were clear of ice, grass blades and crocuses beeped out from their beds of soil, and under their own ark the sap was running. "Spring is here at all events," said the trees, "so it was well we awoke. We have slept long enough for this year; now it's high time we were getting dressed."

So the birches hurriedly put on some sticky pale green leaves, and the maples a few green flowers. The leaves of the alder came forth in such a crinkly and unfinished state that they looked quite malformed, but the slender leave: of the willow slipped out of their buds smooth and shapely from the start.

Gertrude smiled to herself as she walked along and thought this up. She only wished she had been alone with Ingmar so she could have told it all to him.

They had a long way to go to get to the Ingmar Farm—more than an hour's tramp. They followed the riverside; all the while Gertrude kept walking a little behind the others. Her fancy had begun to play around the red glow of the sunset, which flamed now above the river, now above the strand. Gray alder and green birch were enveloped by the shimmer, flashing red one instant, the next taking on their natural hues.

Suddenly Ingmar stopped, and broke off in the middle of something he was telling.

"What's the matter, Ingmar?" asked Gunhild.

Ingmar, pale as a ghost, stood gazing at something in front of him. The others saw only a wide plain covered with grain fields and encircled by a range of hills, and in the centre of the plain a big farmstead. At that moment the glow of sunset rested upon the farm; all the window pans glittered, and the old roofs and walls had a bright red glimmer about them.

Gertrude promptly stepped up to the others, and after a quick glance at Ingmar, she drew Gunhild and Gabriel aside.

"We mustn't question him about anything around here," she said under her breath. "That place over yonder is the Ingmar Farm. The sight of it has probably made him sad. He hasn't been at home in two years—not since he lost all his money."

The road which they had taken was the one leading past the farm and down to Strong Ingmar's cabin, at the edge of the forest.

Soon Ingmar came running after, calling, "Hadn't we better go this way instead?" Then he led them in on a bypath that wound around the edge of the forest, and by which they could reach the cabin without having to cross the farm proper.

"You know Strong Ingmar, I suppose?" said Gabriel.

"Oh, yes," young Ingmar replied. "We used to be good friends in the old days."

"Is it true that he understands magic?" asked Gunhild.

"Well—no!" Ingmar answered rather hesitatingly, as if half-believing it himself.

"You may as well tell us what you know," persisted Gunhild.

"The schoolmaster says we mustn't believe in such things."

"The schoolmaster can't prevent a person seeing what he sees and believing what he knows," Gabriel declared.

Ingmar wanted to tell them all about his home; memories of his childhood came back to him at sight of the old place. "I can tell you about something that I saw once," he said. "It happened one winter when father and Strong Ingmar were up in the forest working at the kiln. When Christmas came around, Strong Ingmar offered to tend the kiln by himself, so that father could come home for the holidays. The day before Christmas, mother sent me up to the forest with a basket of good fare for Strong Ingmar. I started early, so as to be there before the midday dinner hour. When I came up, father and Strong Ingmar had just finished drawing a kiln, and all the charcoal had been spread on the ground to cool. It was still smoking and, where the coals lay thickest, it was ready to take fire, which is something that must not happen. To prevent that is the most important part of the entire process of charcoal making. Therefore, father said as soon as he saw me: 'I'm afraid you'll have to go home alone, little Ingmar. I can't leave Strong Ingmar with all this work.' Strong Ingmar walked along the side of the heap where the smoke rose thickest. 'You can go, Big Ingmar,' he said. 'I've managed worse things than this.' In a little while the smoke grew less. 'Now let's see what kind of a Christmas treat Brita has sent me,' said Strong Ingmar, taking the basket from me. 'Come, let me show you what a fine house we've got here.' Then he took me into the hut where he and father lived. At the back was a rude stone, and the other walls were made up of branches of spruce and blackthorn. 'Well, my lad, you never guessed that your father had a royal castle like this in the forest, eh?' said Strong Ingmar. 'Here are walls that keep out both storm and frost,' he laughed, thrusting his arm clean through the spruce branches.

"Soon father came in laughing. He and the old man were black with soot and reeking with the odour of sour charcoal smoke. But never had I seen father so happy and full of fun. Neither of them could stand upright in the hut, and the only furniture in the place were two bunks made of spruce twigs and a couple of flat stones on which they had built a fire; yet they were perfectly contented. They sat down, side by side, on one of the bunks, and opened the basket. 'I don't know whether you can have any of this,' said Strong Ingmar to father, 'for it's my Christmas dinner, you know.' 'Seeing it's Christmas Eve you must be a good to me,' said father. 'At a time like this I suppose it would never do to let a poor old charcoal burner starve,' Strong Ingmar then said.

"They carried on like that all the time they were eating. Mother had sent a little brandy along with the food. I marvelled that people could be so happy over food and drink. 'You'll have to tell your mother that Big Ingmar has eaten up everything,' said the old man, 'and that she will have to send more to-morrow.' 'So I see,' said I.

"Just then I was startled by a crackling noise in the fireplace. It sounded as if some one had cast a handful of pebbles on the stones. Father did not notice it, but at once Strong Ingmar said: 'What, so soon?' Yet he went on eating. Then there was more crackling; this time it was much louder. Now it sounded as if a shovelful of stones had been thrown on the fire. 'Well, well, is it so urgent!' Strong Ingmar exclaimed. Then he went out. 'The charcoal must be afire!' he shouted back. 'Just you sit still, Big Ingmar. I'll attend to this myself.' Father and I sat very quiet.

"In a little while Strong Ingmar returned, and the fun began anew. 'I haven't had such a merry Christmas in years,' he laughed. He had no sooner got the words out of his mouth than the crackling started afresh. 'What, again? Well, I never!' and out he flew in a jiffy. The charcoal was afire again. When the old man came back for the second time, father said to him: 'I see now that you have such good help up here that you can get along by yourself.' 'Yes, you can safely go home and keep your Christmas, Big Ingmar, for here there are those who will help me.' Then father and I went home, and everything was all right. And never, either before or afterward, was any kiln tended by Strong Ingmar known to get afire."

Gunhild thanked Ingmar for his story, but Gertrude walked on in silence, as if she had become frightened. It was beginning to get dark; everything that had looked so rosy a while ago was now either blue or gray. Here and there in the forest could be seen a shiny leaf that gleamed in the twilight like the red eye of a troll.

Gertrude was astonished at Ingmar having talked so much and so long. He seemed like another person since coming in on home ground; he carried his head higher than usual, and stepped with firmer tread. Gertrude did not quite like this change in him; it made her feel uneasy. All the same she spunked up, and began to tease Ingmar about his going home to dance.

Then at last they came to a little gray hut. Candles were burning inside, the windows being too small to let in much light. They caught the sound of violin music and the clatter of dancing feet. Still the girls paused, wonderingly. "Is it here?" they questioned. "Can any one dance here? The place looks too small to hold even one couple."

"Go along inside," said Gabriel; "the hut isn't as tiny as looks."

Outside the door, which was open, stood a group of boys and girls who had danced themselves into a warm glow; the girls were fanning themselves with their headshawls, and the boys had pulled off their short black jackets in order to dance in their bright green red-sleeved waistcoats.

The newcomers edged their way through the crowd by the door into the hut. The first person they saw was Strong Ingmar—a little fat man, with a big head and a long beard.

"He must be related to the elves and the trolls," thought Gertrude. The old man was standing upon the hearth, playing his fiddle, so as not to be in the way of the dancers.

The hut was larger than it had appeared from the outside, but it looked poor and dilapidated. The bare pine walls were worm-eaten, and the beams were blackened by smoke. There were no curtains at the windows, and no cover on the table. It was evident that Strong Ingmar lived by himself. His children had all left him and gone to America, and the only pleasure the old man had in his loneliness was to gather the young folks around him on a Saturday evening, and let them dance to his fiddle.

It was dim in the hut, and suffocatingly close. Couple after couple were whirling around in there. Gertrude could scarcely breathe, and wanted to hurry out again, but it was an impossibility to get past the tight wedge of humanity that blocked the doorway.

Strong Ingmar played with a sure stroke and in perfect time, but the instant that young Ingmarsson came into the room he drew his bow across the strings, making a rasping noise that brought all the dancers to a stop. "It's nothing," he shouted. "Go on with the dance!"

Ingmar placed his arm around Gertrude's waist to dance out the figure. Gertrude seemed very much surprised at his wanting to dance. But they could get nowhere, for the dancers followed each other so closely that no one who had not been there at the start could squeeze in between them.

The old man stopped short, rapped on the fender with his bow, and said in a commanding voice: "Room must be made for Big Ingmar's son when there's any dancing in my shack!"

With that every one turned to have a look at Ingmar, who became so embarrassed that he could not stir. Gertrude had to take hold of him and fairly drag him across the floor.

As soon as the dance was finished, the fiddler came down to greet Ingmar. When he felt Ingmar's hand in his, the old man pretended to be very much concerned, and instantly let go of it. "My goodness!" he exclaimed, "be careful of those delicate schoolmaster hands! A clumsy old fellow like me could easily crush them."

He took young Ingmar and his friends up to the table, driving away several old women who were sitting there, looking on. Presently he went over to the cupboard and brought out some bread and butter and root beer.

"I don't, as a rule, offer refreshments at these affairs," he said.
"The others have to be content with just music and dancing, but
Ingmar Ingmarsson must have a bite to eat under my roof."

Drawing up a little three-legged stool, the old man sat down in front of Ingmar, and looked sharply at him.

"So you're going to be a school-teacher, eh?" he queried.

Ingmar closed his eyes for a moment, and there was the shadow of a smile on his lips, but all the same he answered rather mournfully: "They have no use for me at home."

"No use for you?" cried the old man. "You don't know how soon you may be needed on the farm. Elof lived only two years, and who knows how long Halvor will hold out?"

"Halvor is a strong, hearty fellow," Ingmar reminded.

"You must know, of course, that Halvor will turn the farm over to you as soon as you're able to buy it back."

"He'd be a fool to give up the Ingmar Farm now that it has fallen into his hands."

During this colloquy Ingmar sat gripping the edge of the plain deal table. Suddenly a noise was heard as of something cracking. Ingmar had broken off a corner of the table. "If you become a school-teacher, he'll never let you have the farm," the old man went on.

"You think not?"

"Think—think? Well it's plain how you have been brought up. Have you ever driven a plow?"

"No."

"Or tended a kiln, or felled a huge pine?"

Ingmar sat there looking quite placid, but the table kept crumbling under his fingers. Finally the old man began to take notice.

"See here, young man!" he said when he saw what was happening, "I shall have to take you in hand once more." Then he picked up some of the splinters of the table and tried to fit them into place. "You rogue! You ought to be going around to fairs, showing your tricks for money!" he laughed, and dealing Ingmar a hard whack on the shoulder, he remarked: "Oh, you'd make a fine school-teacher, you would!"

In a twinkling he was back at the fireplace, fiddling away. Now there was a snap and a go to his performance. He beat time with his foot and set the dancers whirling. "This is young Ingmar's polka," he called out. "Hoop-la! Now the whole house must dance for young Ingmar!"

Two such pretty girls as Gertrude and Gunhild had to be in every dance, of course. Ingmar did not do much dancing. He stood talking most of the time with some of the older men at the farther end of the room. Between dances the people crowded around him as if it did them good just to look at him.

Gertrude thought Ingmar had entirely forgotten her, which made her quite miserable. "Now he feels that he is the son of Big Ingmar, and that I am only the school-master's Gertrude," she pouted. It seemed strange to her that she should take this so to heart. Between the dances some of the young folks went out for a breath of air. The night had grown piercingly cold. It was quite dark, and as no one wanted to go home, they all said: "We'd better wait a little while; the moon will soon be out. Now it's too dark to start for home."

Once, when Ingmar and Gertrude happened to be standing outside the door, the old man came and drew the boy away. "Come, let me show you something," he said, and taking Ingmar by the hand, he led him through a thicket a short distance away from the house. "Stand still now and look down!" he said presently. Then Ingmar found himself looking down a cleft, at the bottom of which something white shimmered. "This must be Langfors Rapids," said young Ingmar.

"Right you are," nodded the old man. "Now what do you suppose a waterfall like that can be used for, eh?"

"It might be used to run a mill," said Ingmar thoughtfully.

The old man laughed to himself. He patted Ingmar on the back, then gave him a dig in the ribs that almost sent him into the rapids. "But who's going to put up a mill here? Who's going to get rich, and who's going to buy the Ingmar Farm, eh?" he chuckled.

"I'd just like to know," said Ingmar.

Then the old man began unfolding a big plan he had in mind: Ingmar was to persuade Tims Halvor to put up a sawmill below the rapids, and afterward lease it to him. For many years the old man's dream had been to find a way by which Big Ingmar's son might come into his own again. Ingmar stood quietly looking down at the foaming rapids.

"Come, let's go back to the house and the dancing!" said the old man, but as Ingmar did not stir he waited patiently. "If he's the right sort, he won't reply to this today, nor yet to-morrow," he remarked to himself. "An Ingmarsson has to have time to consider."

And as they stood there, all at once they heard a sharp and angry bark that seemed to come from some dog running loose in the forest.

"Do you hear that, Ingmar?" asked the old man.

"Yes; that must be a dog on the rampage."

Then they heard the bark more distinctly; it seemed to be coming nearer, as if the beast were heading straight for the hut. The old man seized Ingmar by the wrist. "Come, boy!" he said. "Get into the house as quick as you can!"

"What's the matter?" asked Ingmar, astonished.

"Get in, I tell you!"

As they made for the hut, the angry barking sounded as if it were quite close to them.

"What kind of dog is it?" Ingmar asked, again and again.

"Get inside, only get inside!" cried the old man, fairly pushing Ingmar into the narrow passageway. Before closing the outer door he shouted: "If there are any of you outside, come in at once!" As he stood holding the door open, people came running from all directions. "In with you, in with you!" he shrieked at them, and stamped impatiently.

Meanwhile the people in the hut were becoming alarmed. They all wanted to know what was amiss. When the old man had made sure that everybody was inside, he closed and bolted the door.

"Are you mad, to be running about when you hear the mountain dog!" At that moment the barking was heard just outside the hut; it was as if the mountain dog were chasing round and round the house, emitting hideous yowls.

"Isn't it a real dog?" asked a young rustic.

"You can go out and call to it if you like, Nils Jansson."

Then all were silent, listening to the howling thing which continued to go round and round without a stop. It sounded weird and dreadful. They began to shudder and shake, and some turned as white as death. No, indeed, this was no ordinary dog; anybody could tell that! It was doubtless some demon let loose from hell, they thought.

The little old man was the only one who moved about. First he closed the flue, then he went around and snuffed out the candles.

"No, no!" cried the womenfolk, "don't put out the lights!"

"You must let me do what is best for all of us," said the old man.

One of the girls caught hold of his coat. "Is the mountain dog dangerous?" she asked.

"No, not he, but what comes after."

"And what comes after?"

Again the old man listened. Presently he said: "Now we must all be very still."

Instantly there was breathless silence. Once again the terrible howling seemed to circle the hut, but it grew less distinct as it went across the marsh and up the mountains on the other side of the valley. Then came an ominous stillness. Presently some man, who couldn't hold in any longer, said that the dog was gone.

Without a word Strong Ingmar raised his hand and dealt the man a blow across the mouth.

From far away at the top of Mount Flack came a piercing sound; it was like a howling wind, but it could also have been a blast from a horn. Now and again prolonged blare could be heard, then roaring and tramping and snorting.

All at once the thing came dashing down from the mountain with an awful roar. They could tell when it had reached the foot of the slope; they could tell when it swept the skirt of the forest; and when it was directly above them. It was like the rolling of thunder across the face of the earth; it was as if the whole mountain had come tumbling into the valley. When it seemed to be almost upon them, every head went down. "It will crush us," they all thought. "It will surely crush us."

But what they felt was not so much the fear of death, as terror lest it might be the prince of darkness himself coming, with all his demons. What frightened them most were the shrieks and moans that could be heard above the other noises. There were wails and groans, laughter and bellowings, whines and hisses. When that which they had supposed was a big thunderstorm was right upon them, it seemed to be a mingling of groans and curses, of sobs and angry cries, of the blast of horns, of crackling fire, of the plaints of doomed spirits, of the mocking laughter of demons, of the flapping of huge wings.

They thought all the furies of the infernal regions had been let loose that night, and would overwhelm them. The ground trembled, and the hut swayed as if it were going to topple over. It was as if wild horses were prancing on the roof; as if howling ghosts rushed past the door, and as if owls and bats were beating their wings against the chimney.

While this was happening, some one put an arm around Gertrude's waist and drew her to her knees. Then she heard Ingmar whisper: "We must kneel down, Gertrude, and ask God to help us."

Only the moment before Gertrude had imagined she was dying, so terrible was the fear that held her. "I don't mind having to die," she thought; "the awful part of it is that the powers of evil are hovering over us."

But Gertrude had no sooner felt Ingmar's protecting arm around her than her heart began to beat once more, and the feeling of numbness in her limbs was gone. She snuggled close to him. She was not frightened now. How wonderful! Ingmar must have felt afraid also, yet he was able to impart to her a sense of security and protection.

Finally the terrible noises died away; they heard only the faintest echoes of them in the distance. They seemed to have followed in the trail of the dog, down through the marsh and up into the mountain passes beyond Olaf's Peak.

And yet the silence in Strong Ingmar's but was unbroken. No one moved, no one spoke; at times it was as if fear had extinguished all life there. Now and then through the stillness a deep sigh was heard. No one moved for a long, long time. Some of the people were standing up against the walls, others had sunk down on the benches, but most of them were kneeling upon the floor in anxious prayer. All were motionless, stunned by fear.

Thus hour after hour passed, and during that time there was many a one in that room who ransacked his soul and resolved to live a new life—nearer to God and farther away from His enemies, for each of those present thought: "It is something that I have done which has brought this upon us. This has happened because of my sins. I could hear how the fiends kept calling to me and threatening me, and shrieking my name, as they rushed by."

As for Gertrude, her only thought was: "I know now that I can never live without Ingmar; I must always be near him because of that feeling of confidence he gives one."

Then gradually the day began to break, the faint light of dawn came stealing into the hut, revealing the many blanched faces. The twitter of a bird was heard, then of another, and another. Strong Ingmar's cow began to low for her breakfast, and his cat, who never slept in the house on nights when there was dancing, came to the door and mewed. But no one inside moved until the sun rolled up from behind the eastern hills. Then, one by one, they stole out without a word or even a good-bye.

Outside the house the departing guests beheld the signs of the night's devastation. A huge pine, which had stood close to the gate, had been torn up by the roots and thrown down; branches and fence posts were littered over the ground; bats and owls had been crushed against the side walls of the hut.

Along the broad roadway leading to the top of Mount Klack all the trees had been blown down. No one could bear to look at this long, so they all hurried on toward the village.

It was Sunday, and most people were still in their beds, but a few persons were already out tending to their cattle. An old man had just emerged from his house with his Sunday coat, to brush and air it. From another house came father, mother, and children—all dressed up for a holiday outing. It was a great relief to see people quietly going about their business, unconscious of the awful things that had happened in the forest during the night.

At last they came to the riverside, where the houses were less scattered, and then to the village. They were glad to see the old church and everything else. It was comforting to see that everything down here looked natural: the sign-board in front of the shop creaked on its hinges as usual; the post-office horn was in its regular place; and the inn-keeper's dog lay sleeping, as always, outside his kennel. It was also a gladsome surprise to them to see a little bird-berry bush that had blossomed overnight, and the green seats in the pastor's garden, which must have been put out late in the evening. All this was decidedly reassuring. But just the same no one ventured to speak until they had reached their several homes.

When Gertrude stood on the steps of the schoolhouse, she said to
Ingmar: "I have danced my last dance, Ingmar."

"And I, too," Ingmar solemnly declared.

"And you'll become a clergyman, won't you, Ingmar? And if you can't become a preacher, you must at least be a teacher. There is so much evil in the world one has to fight against."

Ingmar looked straight at Gertrude. "What did those voices say to you?" he asked.

"They said that I had been caught in the toils of sin, and that the devil would come and take me, because I was so fond of dancing."

"Now I must tell you what I heard," said Ingmar. "It seemed to me that all the old Ingmarssons were threatening and cursing me because I wanted to be something more than a peasant, and to do something besides just tilling the soil and working in the forest."

HELLGUM

The night of the dance at Strong Ingmar's, Tims Halvor was away from home, and his wife, Karin, slept alone in the little chamber off the living-room. In the night Karin had a frightful dream. She dreamt that Elof was alive and was holding a big revel. She could hear him in the next room clinking glasses, laughing loudly, and singing ribald songs. She thought, in the dream, that Elof and his boon companions were getting noisier and noisier, and at last it sounded as though they were trying to break up both tables and chairs. Then Karin became so frightened that she awoke. But even after she had awakened the noise continued. The earth shook, the windows rattled, the tiles on the roof were loosened, and the old pear trees at the gables lashed the house with their stout branches. It was as if Judgment Day had come.

Just when the noise was at its height a window pane was sprung, and the shattered glass fell jingling against the floor. A violent gust of wind rushed through the room, and then Karin thought she heard a laugh quite close to her ear—the same kind of laugh that she had heard in the dream. She fancied she was about to die. Never had she felt such a sense of terror; her heart stopped, and her whole body became numb and cold as ice.

All at once the noise died down, and Karin, as it were, came back to life. The raw night wind came sweeping into the room; so after a little Karin decided to get up and stuff something into the broken window pane. As she stepped out of the bed, her legs gave way, and she found that she could not walk. She did not cry for help, but quietly laid down again. "I'll surely be able to walk when I feel more composed," she thought. In a few moments she made another attempt. This time, too, her legs failed her, and she fell prone on the floor beside the bed.

In the morning, when people were astir in the house, the doctor was called in. He was at a loss to understand what had come over Karin. She did not appear to be ill, nor was she paralyzed. He was of the opinion that her trouble had been brought on by fright.

"You'll soon be all right again," he assured her. Karin listened to the doctor, but said nothing. She felt certain that Elof had been in the room during the night, and that he was the cause of her trouble. She also had the feeling that she would never recover from this shock.

All that morning she sat up in bed, and brooded. She tried to reason out why God had let this trial come upon her. She examined her conscience thoroughly, but could not discover that she had committed any special sin that merited such a terrible punishment. "God is unjust to me," she thought.

In the afternoon she was taken to Storm's mission house, where at that time a lay preacher named Dagson led the meetings. She hoped that he could tell her why she had been punished in this way.

Dagson was a popular speaker, and never had he had so many hearers as on that afternoon. My, but what a gathering of people down at the mission house! And no one talked of anything but what had happened in the night at Strong Ingmar's hut. The whole community was in a state of terror, and had turned out in full force, in order to hear the Word of God preached with a force that would annihilate their fears. Hardly a quarter of the people could get inside; but windows and doors were wide open, and Dagson had such a powerful voice that he could be heard even by those on the outside. Of course he knew what had occurred, and what the people wanted to hear. He opened his address with a terror-striking word picture of hell and the prince of darkness. He reminded them of the evil one who skulks about in the dark to capture souls, who lays the snares of sin and sets the traps of vice. The people shuddered. They seemed to see a world full of devils, tempting and enticing them to destruction. Everything was a sin and a danger. They were wandering among pitfalls, hunted and tormented like the wild beasts of the forest. When Dagson talked in this strain, his voice pierced the room like a blasting wind, and his words were like tongues of fire.

All who heard Dagson's sermon likened it to a roaring torrent of flame. With all this talk about demons and fire and smoke, they had the same feeling as when trapped in a burning forest—when the fire creeps along the moss upon which you are treading, and smoke clouds fill the air you breathe, and the heat singes your hair, while the roar of the fire fills your ears, and flying sparks set fire to your clothing.

Thus did Dagson drive the people through flame and smoke and desolation. They had fire in front of them, fire behind them, and fire to left and right of them, and saw only destruction ahead of them. Yet, after taking them through all these horrors, he finally led them to a green spot in the forest, where it was peaceful and cool and safe. In the centre of a flowery meadow sat Jesus, with His arms outstretched toward the fleeing and hunted men and women who cast themselves at His feet. Now all danger was past, and they suffered no further distress nor persecution.

Dagson spoke as he himself felt. If he could only lay himself down at Jesus' feet, a sense of great peace and serenity would come to him, and he had no more fear of the snares of the world.

After the service there was great emotional excitement. Many persons rushed up to the speaker and thanked him, with tears streaming down their faces. They told him that his words had awakened them to a true faith in God. But all this time Karin sat unmoved. When Dagson had finished speaking, she raised her heavy eyelids and looked up at him, as if reproaching him for not having given her anything. Just then some one outside cried in a voice loud enough to be heard by the entire congregation:

"Woe, woe, woe to those who give stones for bread! Woe, woe, woe to those who give stones for bread!"

Whereupon everybody rushed out, curious to see who it was that had spoken those words, and Karin was left sitting there in her helplessness. Presently members of her own household came back, and told her that the person who had cried out like that was a tall, dark stranger. He and a pretty, fair-haired woman had been seen coming down the road, in a cart, during the service. They had stopped to listen, and just as they were about to drive on, the man had risen up and spoken. Some folks thought they knew the woman. They said she was one of Strong Ingmar's daughters—one of those who had gone to America and married there. The man was evidently her husband. Of course it is not so easy to recognize a person whom one has known as a young girl in the ordinary peasant costume, when she comes back a grown woman dressed up in city clothes.

Karin and the stranger were evidently of the same mind regarding Dagson. Karin never went to the mission house again. But later in the summer, when a Baptist layman came to the parish, baptizing and exhorting, she went to hear him, and when the Salvation Army began to hold meetings in the village, she also attended one of these.

The parish was in the throes of a great religious upheaval. At all the meetings there were awakenings and conversions. The people seemed to find what they had been seeking. Yet among all those whom Karin had heard preach, not one could give her any consolation.

***

A blacksmith named Birger Larsson had a smithy close by the highroad. His shop was small and dark, with a low door, and an aperture in place of a window. Birger Larsson made common knives, mended locks, put tires on wheels and on sled runners. When there was nothing else to be done, he forged nails.

One evening, in the summer, there was a rush of work at the smithy. At one anvil stood Birger Larsson flattening the heads of nails; his eldest son was at another anvil forging iron rods and cutting off pins. A second son was blowing the bellows, a third carried coal to the forge, turned the iron, and, when at white heat, brought it to the smiths. The fourth son, who was not more than seven years old, gathered up the finished nails and threw them into a trough filled with water, afterward bunching and tying them.

While they were all hard at work a stranger came up and stationed himself in the doorway. He was a tall, swarthy-looking man, and he had to bend almost double to look in. Birger Larsson glanced up from his work to see what the man wanted.

"I hope you don't mind my looking in, although I have no special errand here," said the stranger. "I was a blacksmith myself in my younger days, and can never pass by a smithy without first stopping to glance in at the work."

Birger Larsson noticed that the man had large, sinewy hands—regular blacksmith's hands. He at once began to question him as to who he was and whence he came. The man answered pleasantly, but without disclosing his identity. Birger thought him clever and likable, and after showing him around the shop, he went outside with him and began to brag about his sons. He had seen hard times, he said, before the boys were big enough to help with the work; but now that all of them were able to lend a hand, everything went well. "In a few years I expect to be a rich man," he declared.

The stranger smiled a little at that and said he was pleased to hear that Birger's sons were so helpful to him. Placing his heavy hand on Birger's shoulder, and looking him square in the eyes, he said: "Since you have had such good aid from your sons in a material way, I suppose you also let them help you in the things that pertain to the spirit?" Birger stared stupidly. "I see that this is a new thought to you," the stranger added. "Ponder it till we meet again." Then he went on his way smiling, and Birger Larsson, scratching his head, returned to his work. But the stranger's query haunted his mind for several days. "I wonder what made him say that?" he mused. "There must be something back of it all that I don't understand."

***

The day after the stranger had talked with Birger Larsson an extraordinary thing took place at Tims Halvor's old shop, which since his marriage to Karin had been turned over to his brother-in-law, Bullet Gunner. Gunner was away at the time, and, in his absence, Brita Ingmarsson tended the shop. Brita was named after her mother, Big Ingmar's handsome wife, whose good looks she had inherited. Moreover, she had the distinction of being the prettiest girl ever born and reared on the Ingmar Farm. Although she bore no outward resemblance to the old Ingmars, she was, nevertheless, quite as conscientious and upright as any of them.

When Gunner was absent Brita always ran the business in her own way. Whenever old Corporal Felt would come stumbling in, tipsy and shaky, and ask for a bottle of beer, Brita would give him a blunt "No," and when poor Kolbjörn's Lena came and wanted to buy a fine brooch, Brita sent her home with several pounds of rye meal. The peasant woman who dropped in to buy some light flimsy fabric was told to go home and weave suitable and durable cloth on her own loom. And no children dared come into the shop to spend their poor coppers for candy and raisins when Brita was in charge there.

That day Brita had not many customers. So for hours and hours she sat quite alone, staring into vacancy, despair burning in her eyes. By and by she got up and took out a rope; then she moved a little stepladder from the shop into the back room. After that she made a loop in one end of the rope, and fastened the other end to a hook in the ceiling. Just as she was about to slip her head into the noose, she happened to look down.

At that moment the door opened and in walked a tall, dark man. He had evidently entered the shop without her having heard him, and on finding no one in attendance, had stepped behind the counter and opened the door to the next room.

Brita quietly came down from the ladder. The man did not speak, but withdrew into the shop, Brita slowly following him. She had never seen the man before. She noticed that he had black curly hair, throat whiskers, keen eyes, and big, sinewy hands. He was well dressed, but his bearing was that of a labourer. After seating himself on a rickety chair near the door, he began to stare hard at Brita.

By that time Brita was again standing behind the counter. She did not ask him what he wanted; she only wished he would go away. The man just stared and stared, never once taking his eyes off her. Brita felt that she was being held by his gaze, and could not move. Presently she grew impatient, and said, in her mind: "What's the use of your sitting there watching me? Can't you understand that I'm going to do what I want to do, anyhow, as soon as I'm left alone? If this were only something that could be helped," Brita argued mentally, "I wouldn't mind your hindering me, but it can't be remedied now."

All the while the man sat gazing intently at her.

"Let me say to you that we Ingmars are not fitted to be shopkeepers," Brita continued in her thoughts. "You don't know how happy we were, Gunner and I, till he took up with this business. Folks certainly warned me against marrying him; they didn't like him, on account of his black hair, his piercing eyes, and his sharp tongue. But we two were fond of each other, you see, and there was never a cross word between us till Gunner took over the shop. But since then all has not been well. I want him to conduct the business in my way. I can't abide his selling wine and beer to drunkards, and it seems to me that he ought to encourage people in buying only such things as are useful and necessary; but Gunner thinks this a ridiculous notion. Neither of us will give in to the other, so we are forever wrangling, and now he doesn't care for me any more."

She gave the man a savage look, amazed at his not yielding to her mute entreaties.

"Surely you must understand that I cannot go on living under the shame of knowing that he lets the bailiff serve executions upon poor people and take from them their only cow or a couple of sheep! Can't you see that this thing will never come right? Why don't you go, and let me put an end to it all!"

Brita, under the man's gaze, gradually became quieter in her mind, and in a little while she began to cry softly. She was touched by his sitting there and protecting her against herself.

As soon as the man saw that Brita was weeping, he rose and went toward the door. When he was on the doorstep, he turned and again looked straight into her eyes, and said in a deep voice: "Do thyself no harm, for the time is nearing when thou shalt live in righteousness."

Then he went his way. She could hear his heavy footsteps as he walked, down the road. Brita ran into the little room, took down the rope, and carried the stepladder back into the shop. Then she dropped down on a box, where she sat quietly musing for two full hours. She felt, somehow, that for a long time she had wandered in a darkness so thick that she could not see her hand before her. She had lost her way and knew not whither she had strayed, and with every step she had been afraid of sinking into a quagmire or stumbling headlong into an abyss. Now some one had called to her not to go any farther, but to sit down and wait for the break of day. She was glad that she would not have to continue her perilous wanderings; now she sat quietly waiting for the dawn.

***

Strong Ingmar had a daughter who was called Anna Lisa. She had lived in Chicago for a number of years, and had married there a Swede named John Hellgum, who was the leader of a little band of religionists with a faith and doctrine of their own. The day after the memorable dance night at Strong Ingmar's, Anna Lisa and her husband had come home to pay a visit to her old father.

Hellgum passed his time taking long walks about the parish. He struck up an acquaintance with all whom he met on the way. He talked with them at first of commonplace things; but just before parting with a person, he would always place his large hand upon his or her shoulder, and speak a few words of comfort or warning.

Strong Ingmar saw very little of his son-in-law, for that summer the old man and young Ingmar, who had now gone back to the Ingmar Farm to live, were hard at work daytimes putting up a sawmill below the rapids. It was a proud day for Strong Ingmar when the sawmill was ready and the first log had been turned into white planks by the buzzing saws.

One evening on his way home from work, the old man met Anna Lisa on the road. She looked frightened, and wanted to run away. Strong Ingmar, seeing this, quickened his pace, thinking all was not well at home. When he reached his but he stopped short, frowning. As far back as he could remember, a certain rosebush had been growing outside the door. It had been the apple of his eye. He had never allowed any one to pluck a rose or a leaf from that bush. Strong Ingmar had always guarded the bush very tenderly, because he believed it sheltered elves and fairies. But now it had been cut down. Of course it was his son-in-law, the preacher, who had done this, as the sight of the bush had always been an eyesore to him.

Strong Ingmar had his axe with him, and his grip on the handle tightened as he entered the hut. Inside sat Hellgum with an open Bible before him. He raised his eyes and gave the old man a piercing look, then went on with his reading; this time aloud:

"Even as ye think, we will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone, it shall not be at all as ye think. As I live, saith the Lord God, surely with a mighty hand, and with stretched-out arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you—"

Without a word Strong Ingmar turned and walked out of the house.
That night he slept in the barn. The following day he and Ingmar
Ingmarsson set out for the forest to burn charcoal and fell timber.
They were to be gone the whole winter.

On two or three occasions Hellgum had spoken at prayer meetings and outlined his teaching, which he maintained was the only true Christianity. But Hellgum, who was not as eloquent a speaker as Dagson, had made no converts. Those who had met him outside and had only heard him say a few telling words, expected great things from him; but when he tried to deliver a lengthy address he became heavy, prosy, and tiresome.

***

Toward the close of summer Karin became utterly despondent over her condition. She rarely spoke. All day long she sat motionless in her chair. She went to hear no more preachers, but stayed at home, brooding over her misfortune. Once in a while she would repeat to Halvor her father's old saying about the Ingmars not having anything to fear so long as they walked in the ways of God. Now she had come to the conclusion that there was no truth even in that.

Halvor, not knowing what to do, on one occasion suggested that she talk with the newest preacher, but Karin declared that she would never again look to a parson for help.

One Sunday, toward the end of August, Karin sat at the window in the living-room. A Sabbath stillness rested over the farm, and she could hardly keep awake. Her head kept sinking nearer and nearer her breast, and presently she dropped into a doze.

She was suddenly awakened by the sound of a voice just outside her window. She could not see who the speaker was, but the voice was strong and deep. A more beautiful voice she had never heard.

"I know, Halvor, that it doesn't seem reasonable to you that a poor, uneducated blacksmith should have found the truth, when so many learned men have failed," said the voice.

"I don't see how you can be so sure of that," Halvor questioned.

"It's Hellgum talking to Halvor," thought Karin, trying to close the window, which she was unable to reach.

"It has been said, as you know," Hellgum went on, "that if somebody strikes us on one cheek we must turn the other cheek also, and that we should not resist evil, and other things of the same sort; all of which none of us can live up to. Why, people would rob you of your house and home, they'd steal your potatoes and carry off your grain, if you failed to protect what was yours. I guess they'd take the whole Ingmar Farm from you."

"Maybe you're right," Halvor admitted.

"Well, then, I suppose Christ didn't mean anything when He said all that; He was just talking into the air, eh?"

"I don't know what you're driving at!" said Halvor.

"Now here's something to set you thinking," Hellgum continued. "We are supposed to be very far advanced in our Christianity. There's no one nowadays who steals, no one who commits murder or wrongs the widow and the fatherless, and of course no one hates or persecutes his neighbour any more, and it wouldn't occur to any of us, who have such a good religion, to do any wrong!"

"There are many things that aren't just as they ought to be," drawled Halvor. He sounded sleepy, and anything but interested.

"Now if you had a threshing machine that wouldn't work, you'd find out what was wrong with it. You wouldn't give yourself any rest till you had discovered wherein it was faulty. But when you see that it is simply impossible to get people to lead a Christian life, shouldn't you try to find out whether there is anything the matter with Christianity itself?"

"I can't believe there are any flaws in the teachings of Jesus," said Halvor.

"No, they were unquestionably sound from the start; but it may be that they have become a little rusty, as it were, from neglect. In any perfect mechanism, if a cog happens to slip—only one tiny little cog—instantly the whole machinery stops!"

He paused a moment as if searching for words and proofs.

"Now let me tell you what happened to me a few years ago," he resumed. "I then tried for the first time in my life to really live by the teachings. Do you know what the result was? I was at that time working in a factory. When my fellow-workmen found out what manner of man I was, they let me do a good share of their work in addition to my own. In thanks they took the job away from me by conniving to throw the blame on me for a theft committed by one of them. I was arrested, of course, and sent to the penitentiary."

"One doesn't ordinarily run across such bad people," returned
Halvor indifferently.

"Then said I to myself: It wouldn't be very hard to be a Christian if one were only alone on this earth, and there were no fellow humans to be reckoned with. I must confess that I really enjoyed being in prison, for there I was allowed to lead a righteous life, undisturbed and unmolested. But after a time I began to think that this trying to be good in solitude was about as effective as the automatic turning of a mill when there's no corn in the grinder. Inasmuch as God had seen fit to place so many people in the world," I reasoned, "it must have been done with the idea that they should be a help and a comfort to one another, and not a menace. It occurred tome, finally, that Satan must have taken something away from the Bible, so that Christianity should go to smash."

"But surely he never had the power to do that," said Halvor.

"Yes; he has taken out this precept: Ye who would lead a Christian life must seek help among your fellowmen."

Halvor did not venture a reply, but Karin nodded approvingly. She had listened very carefully, and had not missed a word.

"As soon as I was released from prison," Hellgum continued, "I went to see an old friend, and asked him to help me lead a righteous life. And, mind, when we were two about it, at once it became easier. Soon a third party joined with us, then a fourth, and it became easier and easier. Now there are thirty of us who live together in a house in Chicago. All our interests are common interests; we share and share alike. We watch over each other's lives, and the way of righteousness lies before us, smooth and even. We are able to deal with one another in a Christly manner, for one brother does not abuse the kindness of another, nor trample him down in his humility."

As Halvor remained silent, Hellgum spoke on convincingly: "You know, of course, that he who wishes to do something big always allies himself with others who help him. Now you couldn't run this farm by yourself. If you wanted to start a factory, you'd have to organize a company to coöperate with you, and if you wanted to build a railway, just think how many helpers you'd have to take on!

"But the most difficult work in the world is to live a Christian life; yet that you would accomplish single-handed and without the support of others. Or maybe you don't even try to do so, since you know beforehand that it can't be done. But we—I and those who have joined me back there in Chicago—have found a way. Our little community is in truth the New Jerusalem come down from Heaven. You may know it by these signs: the gifts of the Spirit which descended upon the early Christians, have also fallen upon us. There are some among us who hear the Voice of God, others who prophesy, and others, again, who heal the sick—"

"Can you heal the sick?" Halvor broke in eagerly.

"Yes," answered Hellgum. "I can heal those who have faith in me."

"It's rather hard to believe something different from what one was taught as a child," said Halvor thoughtfully.

"Nevertheless, I feel certain, Halvor, that very soon you will give your full support to the upbuilding of the New Jerusalem," Hellgum declared.

Then came a moment of silence, after which Karin heard Hellgum say good-bye.

Presently Halvor went into the house. On seeing Karin seated by the open window, he remarked: "You must have heard all that Hellgum said."

"Yes," she replied.

"Did you hear him say that he could heal any one who had faith in him?"

Karin reddened a little. She had liked what Hellgum said better than anything she had heard that summer. There was something sound and practical about his teaching which appealed to her common sense. Here were works and service and no mere emotionalism, which meant nothing to her. However, she would not admit this, for she had made up her mind to have no further dealings with preachers. So she said to Halvor: "My father's faith is good enough for me."

***

A fortnight later Karin was again seated in the living-room. Autumn had just set in; the wind howled round the house and a fire crackled on the hearth. There was nobody in the room but herself and her baby daughter, who was almost a year old and had just learned to walk. The child was sitting on the floor at her mother's feet, playing.

As Karin sat watching the child, the door opened, and in came a tall, dark man, with keen eyes and large sinewy hands. Before Karin had heard him say a word, she guessed that it was Hellgum.

After passing the time of day, the man asked after Halvor. He learned that Karin's husband had gone to a town meeting, and was expected home shortly. Hellgum sat down. Now and then he glanced over at Karin, and after a little he said:

"I've been told that you are ill."

"I have not been able to walk for the past six months," Karin replied.

"I have been thinking of coming here to pray for you," volunteered the preacher.

Karin closed her eyes and retired within herself.

"You have perhaps heard that by the Grace of God I am able to heal the sick?"

The woman opened her eyes and sent him a look of distrust. "I'm much obliged to you for thinking of me," she said, "but it isn't likely that you can help me, as I'm not the kind that changes faith easily."

"Possibly God will help you, anyhow, since you have always tried to live an upright life."

"I'm afraid I don't stand well enough in the sight of God to expect help from Him in this matter."

In a little while Hellgum asked her if she had looked within to get at the cause of this affliction. "Has Mother Karin ever asked herself why this affliction has been visited upon her?"

Karin made no reply; again she seemed to retire within herself.

"Something tells me that God has done this that His Name might be glorified," said Hellgum.

At that Karin grew angry and two bright red spots appeared in her cheeks. She thought it very presumptuous in Hellgum to think this illness had come upon her simply to give him an opportunity to perform a miracle.

Presently the preacher got up and went over to Karin. Placing his heavy hand on her head, he asked: "Do you want me to pray for you?"

Karin immediately felt a current of life and health shoot through her body, but she was so offended at the man for his obtrusiveness that she pushed away his hand and raised her own as if to strike him. Her indignation was beyond words.

Hellgum withdrew toward the door. "One should not reject the help which God sends, but accept it thankfully."

"That's true," Karin returned. "Whatever God sends one is obliged to accept."

"Mark well what I say to you! This day shall salvation come unto this house," the man proclaimed.

Karin did not answer.

"Think of me when you receive the help!" he said. The next instant he was gone.

Karin sat bolt upright in her chair, the red spots still burning in her cheeks. "Am I to have no peace even in my own house?" she muttered. "It's singular how many there are nowadays who think themselves sent of God."

Suddenly Karin's little girl got up and toddled toward the fireplace. The bright blaze had attracted the child, who, shrieking with delight, was making for it as fast as her tiny feet could carry her.

Karin called to her to come back, but the child paid no heed to her; at that moment she was trying to clamber up into the fireplace. After tumbling down a couple of times, she finally managed to get upon the hearth, where the fire blazed.

"God help me! God help me!" cried Karin. Then she began to shout for help, although she knew there was no one near.

The little girl bent laughingly over the fire. Suddenly a burning ember rolled out and fell on her little yellow frock. Instantly Karin sprang to her feet, rushed over to the fireplace, and snatched the child in her arms. Not until she had brushed away all the sparks from the child's dress, and had made sure that her baby was unharmed, did she realize what had happened to herself. She was actually on her feet; she had been walking again, and would always be able to walk!

Karin experienced the greatest mental shake-up she had ever felt in her life, and at the same time the greatest sense of happiness. She had the feeling that she was under God's special care and protection, and that God Himself had sent a holy man to her house to strengthen her and to heal her.

***

That autumn Hellgum often stood on the little porch of Strong Ingmar's cottage, looking out across the landscape. The country round about was growing more beautiful every day: the ground was now a golden brown, and all the leafy trees had turned either a bright red or a bright yellow. Here and there loomed stretches of woodland that shimmered in the breeze like a billowy sea of gold. Against the shadowy background of the fir-clad hills could be seen splashes of yellow; they were the leaf trees that had strayed in among the pines and spruces and taken root there.

As an humble gray hut, when ablaze, gives out light and brilliancy, thus did this humble Swedish landscape flame into a marvel of splendour. Everything was so wondrously golden, exactly as one might imagine that a landscape on the surface of the sun would look.

Hellgum was thinking, as he viewed this scene, that a time was coming when God would let the land reflect the brightness of His Glory, and when the seeds of Truth which had been sawn during the summer would yield golden harvests of righteousness.

Then, to and behold, one evening Tims Halvor came over to the croft and invited Hellgum and his wife to come with him to the Ingmar Farm!

On arriving they found everything in holiday order; around the house all the old dry birch leaves had been cleared away; farm implements and carts, which at other times were scattered about the yard, had now been put out of sight.

"They must be having a number of visitors here," thought Anna Lisa.
Just then Halvor opened the front door, and they stepped inside.

The living-room was full of people who were seated upon benches all along the walls, solemnly expectant. Hellgum noticed that they were the leading people of the parish. The first persons he recognized were Ljung Björn Olofsson and his wife, Martha Ingmarsson; also Bullet Gunner and his wife. Then he saw Krister Larsson and Israel Tomasson with their wives, all of whom were members of the Ingmar family. Presently he saw Hök Matts Ericsson and his son Gabriel, the councillor's daughter Gunhild, and several persons besides. Altogether there were about twenty people present.

When Hellgum and Anna Lisa had gone round and shaken hands with every one, Tims Halvor said:

"We who are assembled here have been thinking over the things
Hellgum has said to us during the summer. Most of us belong to an
old family whose wish it has ever been to walk in the ways of God.
If Hellgum can help us do this, we are ready to follow him."

The next day the news spread like wildfire throughout the parish that a new religious sect had sprung up on the Ingmar Farm, which was supposed to embody the only correct and true principles of Christianity.

THE NEW WAY

In the spring, soon after the snow had disappeared, young Ingmar and Strong Ingmar returned to the village to start the sawmill. They had been up in the forest the whole winter cutting timber and making charcoal. And when Ingmar got back to the lowlands he fell like a bear that had just crawled out from its lair. He could hardly accustom himself to the glaring sunlight of an open sky, and blinked as if the light hurt him. The roaring of the rapids and the sound of human voices seemed almost intolerable to him, and all the noises on the farm were a veritable torture to his ears. At the same time he was glad; heaven knows he did not show it, either in speech or manner, but that spring he felt as young as the fresh shoots on the birches.

Oh, but it seemed good to him to sleep once more in a comfortable bed, and to eat properly cooked food! And then to be at home with Karin, who looked after his comfort as tenderly as a mother! She had ordered new clothes for him; and she had a way of coming in from the kitchen and handing him some dainty or other, as if he were still a little boy. And what wonderful things had happened at home while he was up in the forest! Ingmar had heard only a few vague rumours about Hellgum's teachings; but now Karin and Halvor told him of the great happiness that had come to them, and of how they and their friends were trying to help one another to walk in the ways of God.

"We are sure you will want to join us," said Karin.

Ingmar replied that maybe he would, but that he must think it over first.

"All winter I longed for you to come home and share our bliss," the sister went on, "for now we no longer live upon earth, but in 'The New Jerusalem which is come down from Heaven!'"

Ingmar said he was glad to hear that Hellgum was still in the neighbourhood. The summer before the preacher had often dropped in at the mill to chat with Ingmar, and the two had become good friends. Ingmar thought him the finest chap he had ever met. Never had he come across any one who was so much of a man, so firm in his convictions, and so sure of himself. Sometimes, when there had been a great rush of work at the mill, Hellgum had pulled off his coat and given them a lift. Ingmar had been amazed at the man's cleverness; he had never seen any one who was so quick at his work. Just then Hellgum happened to be away for a few days, but was Expected back shortly.

"Once you've talked with Hellgum, I think that you will join us," Karin said. Ingmar thought so, too, although he felt a little reluctant about accepting anything which had not been approved by his father.

"But wasn't it father himself who taught us that we must always walk in the ways of God?" argued Karin.

Everything seemed to be so bright and so promising! Ingmar had never dreamed that it would be so delightful to get back among people once more. There was only one thing wanting: no one ever spoke of the schoolmaster and his wife, or of Gertrude, which was most disquieting to him. He had not seen Gertrude for a whole year. In the summer he had never been without news of her; for then hardly a day went by that some one did not speak of the Storms. He thought that perhaps this silence regarding his old friends was accidental. When one feels timid about asking questions, and when no one voluntarily speaks of that which one longs above everything to hear about, it is mighty provoking, to say the least.

But if young Ingmar seemed to be happy and content, the same could not be said of Strong Ingmar. The old man had of late become sullen and taciturn and difficult to get on with.

"I believe you are homesick for the forest," Ingmar said to him one afternoon as they sat on separate logs eating their sandwiches.

"God knows I am!" the old man burst forth. "I only wish I had never come back at all!"

"Why, what's gone wrong at home?"

"How can you ask! You must know as well as I that Hellgum has been raising the deuce around here."

Ingmar answered that, on the contrary, he had heard that Hellgum had become a big man.

"Yes, he has grown so big and strong that he's been able to upset the whole parish," Strong Ingmar sneered.

It seemed strange to Ingmar that the old man never evinced a particle of affection for any of his own kin. He cared for nobody and for nothing save the Ingmarssons and the Ingmar Farm. Therefore Ingmar felt that he must stand up for the son-in-law.

"I think his doctrine a good one," he said.

"Oh, you do, do you?" snapped the old man; and he gave him a withering look. "Do you think Big Ingmar would have thought so?"

Ingmar replied that his father would have upheld any one who worked for righteousness.

"It's your belief, then, that Big Ingmar would have approved of calling all persons who do not belong to Hellgum's band devils and anti-Christs, and that he would have refused to associate with his old friends because they held to their old faith?"

"I hardly think that such people as Hellgum and Halvor and Karin would behave in that way," said Ingmar.

"Just you try to oppose them once, and you'll soon hear what they think of you!"

Ingmar cut off a big corner of his sandwich and stuffed his mouth full, so he would not have to talk. It irritated him to see Strong Ingmar in such bad humour.

"Heigho, hum! It's a queer world," sighed the old man. "Here you sit, the son of Big Ingmar, with nothing to say, while my Anna Lisa and her husband are living on the fat of your land. The best people in the parish bow and scrape to them, and every day they're being fêted, here, there, and everywhere."

Ingmar kept on munching and swallowing. There was nothing he could say. Strong Ingmar, however, went at him again.

"Yes, it's a fine doctrine that Hellgum is spreading! That's why half the parish has gone over to him. No one has ever had such absolute influence over the people, not even Strong Ingmar himself. He separates children from their parents by preaching that those who are of his fold must not live among sinners. Hellgum need only beckon, and brother leaves brother, friend leaves friend, and the lover deserts his betrothed. He has used his power to create strife and dissension in every household. Of course, Big Ingmar would have been pleased to death with that sort of thing! Doubtless he would have backed Hellgum up in all this! I can just picture him doing it!"

Ingmar looked up and down; he wanted to get away. He knew, to be sure, that the old man had been drawing heavily on his imagination, but all the same this talk depressed him.

"I don't deny that Hellgum has done wonders," he modified. "The way in which he manages to hold his people together, and the way he can get those who formerly would have nothing to do with each other to live on friendly terms, is certainly remarkable. And look how he takes from the rich to give to the poor, and how he makes each person protect the other's welfare. I'm only sorry for those on the outside, who are called children of the devil and are not allowed in the game. But, of course, you don't feel that way."

Ingmar was thoroughly put out with the old man for speaking so disparagingly of Hellgum.

"There used to be such peace and harmony in this parish!" the old man rattled on. "But that's all past and gone. In Big Ingmar's time we lived in such unity that we had the name of being the friendliest people in all Dalecarlia. Now there are angels bucking against devils, and sheep against goats."

"If we could only get the saws going," thought Ingmar, "I wouldn't have to hear any more of this talk!"

"It won't be long either till it's all over between you and me," Strong Ingmar continued. "For if you join Hellgum's angels it isn't likely that they will let you associate with me."

With an oath Ingmar jumped to his feet. "If you go on talking in this strain it may turn out just as you say," he warned. "You may as well understand, once for all, that it is of no use your trying to turn me against my own people, or against Hellgum, who is the grandest man I know."

That silenced the old man. In a little while he left his work, saying that he was going down to the village to see his friend Corporal Felt. He had not talked with a sensible person for a long time, he declared.

Ingmar was glad to have him go. Naturally, when a person has been away from home for a long time he does not care to be told unpleasant things, but wants every one around him to be bright and cheerful.

At five the next morning Ingmar got down to the mill, but Strong
Ingmar was there ahead of him.

"To-day you can see Hellgum," the old man began. "He and Anna Lisa got back late last night. I think they must have hurried home from their round of feasts in order to convert you."

"So you're at it again!" scowled Ingmar. The old man's words had been ringing in his ears all night, and he could not help wondering who was in the right. But now he did not want to listen to any more talk against his relatives. The old man held his peace for a time; presently he began to chuckle.

"What are you laughing at?" Ingmar demanded, his hand on the sluice gate ready to set the sawmill going.

"I was just thinking of the schoolmaster's Gertrude."

"What about her?"

"They said down at the village yesterday that she was the only person who had any influence over Hellgum—"

"What's Gertrude got to do with Hellgum?"

Ingmar, meanwhile, had not opened the sluice gate, for with the saws going he could not have heard a word. The old man eyed him questioningly. Ingmar smiled a little. "You always manage somehow to have your own way," he said.

"It was that silly goose, Gunhild, Councillor Clementsson's daughter, who—"

"She's no silly goose!" Ingmar broke in.

"Oh, call it anything you like, but she happened to be at the Ingmar Farm when this new sect was founded. As soon as she got home, she informed her parents that she had accepted the only true faith, and that she would there fore have to leave them and make her home at the Ingmar Farm. Her parents asked her, of course, why she wanted to leave home. So she'd be able to lead a righteous life, she up and told them. But they seemed to think that could be done just as effectively at home with them. Oh, no, that wouldn't be possible, she declared, unless one could live with those who were of the same faith. Her father then asked her if all of them were going to live on the Ingmar Farm. No, only herself; the others had true Christians in their own homes. Now Clementsson is a pretty good sort, as you know, and both he and his wife tried to reason with Gunhild in all kindness, but she stood firm. At last her father became so exasperated that he just took her and locked her up in her room, telling her she'd have to stay there till this crazy fit had passed."

"I thought you were going to tell me about Gertrude," Ingmar reminded him.

"I'll get round to her by and by, if you'll only have patience. I may as well tell you at once that early the next morning, while Gertrude and Mother Stina were sitting in the kitchen spinning, Mrs. Clementsson called to see them. When they saw her they became alarmed. She, who was usually so happy and light of heart, now looked as if she'd been crying her eyes out. 'What's the matter? What has happened? And why do you look so forlorn?' they asked. Then Mother Clementsson answered that when one has lost one's dearest treasure, one can't very well look cheerful. I'd like to give them a good beating!" said the old man.

"Who?" asked Ingmar.

"Why, Hellgum and Anna Lisa. They marched themselves down to
Clementsson's in the night and kidnapped Gunhild."

A cry of amazement escaped Ingmar.

"I'm beginning to think my Anna Lisa is married to a brigand!" said the old man. "In the middle of the night they came and tapped on Gunhild's window, and asked her why she wasn't at the Ingmar Farm. She told them about her parents having locked her in. "'Twas Satan who made 'em do it,' said Hellgum. All this her father and mother overheard."

"Did they really?"

"Yes, they slept in the next room, and the door between was partly open; so they heard all that Hellgum said to entice their daughter."

"But they could have sent him away."

"They felt that Gunhild should decide for herself. How could they think she would want to leave them, after all they had done for her? They lay there expecting her to say that she would never desert her old parents."

"Did she go?"

"Yes, Hellgum wouldn't budge till the girl went along with them. When Clementsson and his wife realized that she couldn't resist Hellgum, they let her go. Some folks are like that, you see. In the morning the mother regretted it, and begged the father to drive down to the Ingmar Farm and get their daughter. 'No indeed!' he said, 'I'll do nothing of the sort, and what's more, I never want to set eyes on her again unless she comes home of her own accord.' Then Mrs. Clementsson hurried down to the school to see if Gertrude wouldn't go and talk to Gunhild."

"Did Gertrude go?"

"Yes; she tried to reason with Gunhild, but Gunhild wouldn't listen."

"I have not seen Gunhild at our house," said Ingmar thoughtfully.

"No, for now she is back with her parents. It seems that when Gertrude left Gunhild she met Hellgum. 'There stands the one who is to blame for all this,' she thought, and then she went straight up to him, and gave him a tongue lashing. She wouldn't have minded striking him."

"Oh, Gertrude can talk all right," said Ingmar approvingly.

"She told Hellgum that he had behaved like a heathen warrior and not as a Christian preacher, in skulking about like that in the night and abducting a young girl."

"What did Hellgum say to that?"

"He stood quietly listening for a while; then he said as meek as you please that she was right, he had acted in haste. And in the afternoon he took Gunhild back to her parents and made everything right again."

Ingmar glanced up at the old man with a smile. "Gertrude is splendid," he said, "and Hellgum is a fine fellow, even if he is a little eccentric."

"So that's the way you take it, eh? I thought you would wonder why
Hellgum had given in like that to Gertrude."

Ingmar did not reply to this.

After a moment's reflection the old man began again. "There are many in the village who want to know on which side you stand."

"I don't see as it matters which party I belong to."

"Let me remind you of one thing," said the old man: "In this parish we are accustomed to having somebody that we can look up to as a leader. But now that Big Ingmar is gone, and the schoolmaster has lost his power over the people, while the pastor, as you know, was never any good at ruling, they run after Hellgum, and they're going to follow him just as long as you choose to remain in the background."

Ingmar's hands dropped; he looked quite worn out. "But I don't know who is in the right," he protested.

"The people are looking to you for deliverance from Hellgum. You may be sure that we were spared a lot of unpleasantness by being away from home all winter. It must have been something dreadful in the beginning, before people had got used to this converting craze and to being called devils and hellhounds. But the worst of all was when the converted children started in to preach!"

"You don't mean to tell me that even the children preached," said
Ingmar doubtingly.

"Oh, yes!" the old man returned. "Hellgum told them that they should serve the Lord instead of playing, so they started in to convert their elders. They lay in ambush along the roadside, and pounced upon innocent passers-by with such ravings as these: 'Aren't you going to begin the fight against the devil? Shall you continue to live in sin?'"

Young Ingmar did not want to believe what Strong Ingmar was recounting. "Old man Felt must have put all that into your head," he concluded.

"By the way, this was what I wanted to tell you," said Strong Ingmar: "Felt is done for, too! When I think that all this mischief has been hatched on the Ingmar Farm, I feel ashamed to look people in the face."

"Have they wronged Felt in any way?" asked Ingmar.

"It was the work of those youngsters, drat them! One evening, when they had nothing else to do, they took it into their heads to go and convert Felt, for of course they had heard that he was a great sinner."

"But in the old days all the children were as afraid of Felt as they were of witches and trolls," Ingmar reminded.

"Oh, these youngsters were scared, too, but they must have had their hearts set upon doing something very heroic. So one evening, as Felt sat stirring his evening porridge, they stormed his cabin. When they opened the door and saw the old Corporal, with his bristling moustaches, his broken nose, and his game eye, sitting before the fire, they were terribly frightened, and two of the littlest ones ran away. The dozen or so that went in knelt in a circle around the old man, and began to sing and pray."

"And didn't he drive them out?" asked Ingmar.

"If only he had!" sighed the old man. "I don't know what had come over the Corporal. The poor wretch must have been sitting there brooding over the loneliness and desolation of his old age. And then I suppose it was because those who had come to him were children. The fact that children had always been afraid of him must have been a source of grief to the old man; and when he saw all those baby faces, with their upturned eyes filled with shining tears, he was powerless. The children were only waiting for him to rush at them and strike them. Although they kept right on singing and praying, they were ready to cut and run the instant he made a move. Presently a pair of them noticed that Felt's face was beginning to twitch. 'Now he'll go for us,' they thought, getting up to flee. But the old man blinked his one good eye, and a tear rolled down his cheek. 'Hallelujah!' the youngsters shouted, and now, as I've already told you, it's all up with Felt. Now he does nothing but run about to meetings, and fasts and prays, and fancies he hears the voice of God."

"I don't see anything hurtful in all that," said Ingmar. "Felt was killing himself with drink when the Hellgumists took him into camp."

"Well, you've got so many friends to lose that a little thing like this wouldn't matter to you. No doubt you would have liked it if the children had succeeded in converting the schoolmaster."

"I can't imagine those poor little kids trying to tackle Storm!" Ingmar was dumfounded. What Strong Ingmar had said about the parish being turned upside down must be true after all, he thought.

"But they did, though," Strong Ingmar replied. "One evening, as Storm was sitting in the classroom writing, a score of them came in and began preaching to him."

"And what did Storm do?" asked Ingmar, unable to keep from laughing.

"He was so astounded at first that he couldn't say or do a thing. But, as luck would have it, Hellgum had arrived a few moments before and was in the kitchen talking with Gertrude."

"Was Hellgum with Gertrude?"

"Yes; Hellgum and Gertrude have been friends ever since the day that he acted upon her advice in the little matter with Gunhild. When Gertrude heard the racket in the schoolroom, she said: 'You're just in time to see something new, Hellgum. It would seem that henceforth the children are to instruct the schoolmaster.' Then Hellgum laughed, for he comprehended that this sort of thing was ludicrous. He promptly drove the children out, and abolished the nuisance."

Ingmar noticed that the old man was eying him in a peculiar way; it was as if a hunter were looking at a wounded bear and wondering whether he should give it another shot.

"I don't know what you expect of me," said Ingmar.

"What could I expect of you, who are only a boy! Why, you haven't a penny to your name. All you've got in the world are your two empty hands."

"I verily believe you want me to throttle Hellgum!"

"They said down at the village that this would soon blow over if you could only induce Hellgum to leave these parts."

"Whenever a new religious sect springs up there's always strife and dissension," said Ingmar. "So this is nothing out of the common."

"All the same, this will be a good way for you to show people what sort of stuff you're made of," the old man persisted.

Ingmar turned away and set the saws going. He would have liked above everything to ask how Gertrude was getting along, and whether she had already joined the Hellgumists; but he was too proud to betray his fears.

At eight o'clock he went home to his breakfast. As usual, the table was heaped with tempting dishes, and both Halvor and Karin were especially nice to him. Seeing them so kind and gentle, he could not believe a word of Strong Ingmar's chatter. He felt light of heart once more, and positive that the old man had exaggerated. In a little while his anxiety about Gertrude returned, with a force so overwhelming that it took away his appetite, and he could not touch his food. Suddenly he turned to Karin and said abruptly:

"Have you seen anything of the Storms lately?"

"No!" replied Karin stiffly. "I don't care to associate with such ungodly people."

Here was an answer that set Ingmar thinking. He wondered whether he had better speak or be silent. If he were to speak it might end in a break with his family; at the same time he did not want them to think that he up held them in matters that were altogether wrong. "I have never seen any signs of ungodliness about the schoolmaster's folks," he retorted. "And yet I have lived with them for four years."

The very thought that had occurred to Ingmar the moment before, now came to Karin. She, too, wondered whether she should or should not speak. But she felt that she would have to hold to the truth, even if it hurt Ingmar; therefore she said that if people would not hearken to the voice of God, one could not help but think them ungodly.

Then Halvor joined in. "The question of the children is a vital one," he said. "They should be given the right kind of training."

"Storm has trained the entire parish, and you, too, Halvor," Ingmar reminded him.

"But he has not taught us how to live rightly," said Karin.

"It seems to me that you have always tried to do that, Karin."

"Let me tell you how it was to live by the old teaching. It was like trying to walk upon a round beam: one minute you were up, the next you were down. But when I let my fellow-Christians take me by the hand and support me, I can tread the straight and narrow path of Righteousness without stumbling."

"I dare say," Ingmar smiled; "but that's too easy."

"Even so, it's quite difficult enough, but no longer impossible."

"But what about the Storms?"

"Those who belong with us took their children out of the school. You see we didn't want the children to absorb any of the old teaching."

"What did the schoolmaster say to that?"

"He said it was against the law to take children away from school, and promptly sent a constable over to Israel Tomasson's and Krister Larsson's to fetch their children."

"And now you are not on friendly terms with the Storms?"

"We simply keep to ourselves."

"You seem to be at odds with every one."

"We only keep away from those who would tempt us to sin."

As the three went on talking, they lowered their voices. They were all very fearful of every word they let drop, for they felt that the conversation had taken a painful turn.

"But I can give you greetings from Gertrude," said Karin, trying to assume a more cheerful tone. "Hellgum had many talks with her last winter; he says that she expects to join us this evening."

Ingmar's lips began to quiver. It was as if he had been going about blindfolded all day, expecting to be shot, and now the shot had come; the bullet had pierced his heart.

"So she wants to become one of you!" he murmured faintly. "Many things can happen here while one is up in the dark forest." Ingmar seemed to think that all this time Hellgum had been ingratiating himself with Gertrude, and had laid snares to catch her. "But what's to become of me?" he asked suddenly. And there was a strange, helpless appeal in his voice.

"You must embrace our faith," said Halvor decisively. "Hellgum is back now, and if he talks to you once, you'll soon become converted."

"But maybe I don't care to be converted!"

Halvor and Karin stared at Ingmar in speechless amazement.

"Maybe I don't want any faith but my father's."

"Don't say anything until you have had a talk with Hellgum," begged
Karin.

"But if I don't join you I suppose you won't want me to remain under your roof?" said Ingmar, rising. As they did not reply, it seemed to him that all at once he had been cut off from everything. Then he pulled himself together and looked more determined. "Now I want to know what you're going to do about the sawmill!" he demanded, thinking it was best to have this matter settled once for all.

Halvor and Karin exchanged glances; both were afraid of committing themselves.

"You know, Ingmar, that there is no one in the world who is more dear to us than you," said Halvor.

"Yes, yes; but what about the sawmill?" Ingmar insisted.

"The principal thing is to get all your timber sawed."

At Halvor's evasive reply, Ingmar drew his own conclusions. "Maybe
Hellgum wants to run the sawmill, too?"

Karin and Halvor were perplexed at Ingmar's show of temper; since telling him that about Gertrude, they could not seem to get anywhere near him.

"Let Hellgum talk to you," pleaded Karin.

"Oh, I'll let him talk to me," said Ingmar, "but first I'd like to know just where I stand."

"Surely, Ingmar, you must know that we wish you well!"

"But Hellgum is to run the sawmill?"

"We must find some suitable employment for Hellgum so that he may remain in his own country. We have been thinking that possibly you and he might become business partners, provided you accept the only true faith. Hellgum is a good worker." This from Halvor.

"Since when have you been afraid to speak plainly, Halvor?" said Ingmar. "All I want to know is whether Hellgum is to have the sawmill."

"He is to have it if you resist God," Halvor declared.

"I'm obliged to you for telling me what a good stroke of business it would be for me to adopt your faith."

"You know well enough it wasn't meant in that way," said Karin reprovingly.

"I understand quite well what you mean," returned Ingmar. "I'm to lose Gertrude and the sawmill and the old home unless I go over to the Hellgumists." Then Ingmar turned suddenly and walked out of the house.

Once outside, the thought came to him that he might as well end this suspense, and find out at once where he stood with Gertrude. So he went straight down to the school-house. When Ingmar opened the gate a mild spring rain was falling. In the schoolmaster's beautiful garden all things had started sprouting and budding. The ground was turning green so rapidly that one could almost see the grass growing. Gertrude was standing on the steps watching the rain, and two large bird-cherry bushes, thick with newly sprung leaves, spread their branches over her. Ingmar paused a moment, astonished at finding everything down here so lovely and peaceful. He was already beginning to feel less disquieted. Gertrude had not yet seen him. He closed the gate very gently, then went toward her. When he was quite close he stopped and gazed at her in rapt wonder. When he had last seen her she was hardly more than a child, but in one short year she had developed into a dignified and beautiful young lady. She was now tall and slender and quite grown up, her head was finely poised on a graceful neck; her skin was soft and fair, shading into a fresh pink about the cheeks; her eyes were deep and thoughtful, and her mouth, around which mischief and merriment had once played, now expressed seriousness and wistful longing.

On seeing Gertrude so changed, a sense of supreme happiness came to Ingmar. A peaceful stillness pervaded his whole being; it was as though he were in the presence of something great and holy. It was all so beautiful that he wanted to go down on his knees and thank God.

But when Gertrude saw Ingmar she suddenly stiffened, her eyebrows contracted, and between her eyes there appeared the shadow of a wrinkle. He saw at once that she did not like his being there, and it cut him to the quick. "They want to take her from me," he thought; "they have already taken her from me." The feeling of Sabbath peace vanished, and the old fear and anxiety returned. Waving all ceremony, he asked Gertrude if it was true that she intended to join Hellgum and his followers. She answered that it was. Then Ingmar asked her if she had considered that the Hellgumists would not allow her to associate with persons who did not think as they did. Gertrude quietly answered that she had carefully considered this matter.

"Have you the consent of your father and mother?" asked Ingmar.

"No," she replied; "they know nothing as yet."

"But, Gertrude—"

"Hush, Ingmar! I must do this to find peace. God compels me."

"No," he cried, "not God, but—"

Gertrude suddenly turned toward him.

Then Ingmar told her that he would never join the Hellgumists. "If you go over to them, that will part us for ever."

Gertrude looked at him as much as to say that she did not see how this could affect her.

"Don't do it, Gertrude!" he implored.

"You mustn't think that I'm acting heedlessly, for I have given this matter very serious thought."

"Then think it over once more before you act."

Gertrude turned from him impatiently.

"You should also think it over for Hellgum's sake," said Ingmar with rising anger, seizing her by the arm.

She shook off his hand. "Are you out of your senses, Ingmar?" she gasped.

"Yes," he answered; "these doings of Hellgum are driving me mad.
They must be stopped!"

"What must be stopped?"

"You'll find out before long."

Gertrude shrugged her shoulders.

"Good-bye, Gertrude!" he said in a choking voice. "And remember what I tell you. You will never join the Hellgumists!"

"What do you intend to do, Ingmar?" asked the girl, for she was beginning to feel uneasy.

"Good-bye, Gertrude, and think of what I have said!" Ingmar shouted back, for by that time he was halfway down the gravel walk.

Then he went on his way. "If I were only as wise as my father!" he mused. "But what can I do? I'm about to lose all that is dearest to me, and I see no way of preventing it." There was one thing, however, of which Ingmar was certain: if all this misery was to be forced upon him, Hellgum should not escape with his skin.

He went down to Strong Ingmar's but in the hope of meeting the preacher. When he got to the door, he caught the sound of loud and angry voices. There seemed to be a number of visitors inside, so he turned back at once. As he walked away he heard a man say in angry tones: "We are three brothers who have come a long way to call you to account, John Hellgum, for what has befallen our younger brother. Two years ago he went over to America, where he joined your community. The other day we received a letter telling us that he had gone out of his mind, brooding over your teaching."

Then Ingmar hurried away. Apparently there were others besides himself who had cause for complaint against Hellgum, and they were all of them equally helpless.

He went down to the sawmill, which had already been set going by
Strong Ingmar. Above the buzzing noise of the saws and the roar
of the rapids he heard a shriek; but he paid no special heed to it.
He had no thought for anything save his strong hatred of Hellgum.
He was going over in his mind all that this man had robbed him of:
Gertrude and Karin, his home and his business.

Again he seemed to hear a cry. It occurred to him that possibly a quarrel had arisen between Hellgum and the strangers. "There would be no harm done if they were to beat the life out of him," he thought.

Then he heard a loud shout for help. Ingmar dropped his work and went rushing up the hill. The nearer he approached the hut the plainer he heard Hellgum's cries of distress, and when he finally reached the cabin it seemed as if the very earth around it shook from the scuffling and struggling inside.

He cautiously opened the door and tiptoed in. Over against the wall stood Hellgum defending himself with an axe. The three strangers— all of them big, powerful men—were attacking him with clubs. They carried no guns, so it was evident that they had come simply to give Hellgum a sound thrashing. But because he had put up a good fight, they were so enraged that they went at him with intent to kill. They hardly noticed Ingmar; they regarded him as nothing but a lank gawk of a boy who had just happened in.

For a moment Ingmar stood quietly looking on. To him it was like a dream, wherein the thing one desires most suddenly appears without one's knowing whence or how it came about. Now and again Hellgum cried for help.

"Surely you can't think I'm such a fool as to help you!" Ingmar said in his mind.

Suddenly one of the men dealt Hellgum a terrific blow on the head that made him let go his hold on the axe and fall to the floor. Then the others threw down their clubs, drew their knives, and cast themselves upon him. Instantly a thought flashed across Ingmar's mind. There was an old saying about the folk of his family, to the effect that every one of them was destined at some time or other during his lifetime to commit a dastardly and wrong deed. Was it his turn now, he wondered?

All at once one of the assailants felt himself in the grip of a pair of strong arms that lifted him off his feet and threw him bodily out of the house; the second one had hardly time to think of rising before the same thing happened to him; and the third, who had managed to scramble to his feet, got a blow that sent him headlong after the others.

After Ingmar had thrown them all out, he went and stood in the doorway. "Don't you want to come back?" he challenged laughingly. He would not have minded their attacking him; testing his strength was good sport.

The three brothers seemed quite ready to renew the fight, when one of them shouted that they had better take to their heels he had seen a figure coming along the path behind the elms. They were furiously disappointed at not having finished Hellgum, and, as they turned to go, one of them ran back, pounced upon Ingmar, and stabbed him in the neck.

"That's for meddling with our affair!" he shouted.

Ingmar sank down, and the man ran off, with a taunting laugh.

A few minutes later Karin came along and found Ingmar sitting on the doorstep with a wound in his neck, and inside she discovered Hellgum, who by that time had got to his feet again and was now leaning against the wall, axe in hand and his face covered with blood. Karin had not seen the fleeing men; she supposed that Ingmar was the one who had attacked Hellgum and wounded him. She was so horrified that her knees shook. "No, no!" she thought, "it can't be possible that any one in our family is a murderer." Then she recalled the story of her mother. "That accounts for it," she muttered, and hurried past Ingmar over to Hellgum.

"Ingmar first!" cried Hellgum.

"The murderer should not be helped before his victim," said Karin.

"Ingmar first! Ingmar first!" Hellgum kept shouting. He was so excited that he raised his axe against her. "He has fought the would-be murderers and saved my life!" he said.

When Karin finally understood, and turned to help Ingmar, he was gone. She saw him stagger across the yard, and ran after him, calling, "Ingmar! Ingmar!"

Ingmar went on without even turning his head. But she soon caught up with him. Placing her hand on his arm, she said:

"Stop, Ingmar, and let me bind up your wound!"

He shook off her hand and went ahead like a blind man, following neither road nor bypath. The blood from his open wound trickled down underneath his clothes into one of his shoes. With every step that he made, blood was pressed out of the shoe, leaving a red track on the ground.

Karin followed him, wringing her hands. "Stop, Ingmar, stop!" she implored. "Where are you going? Stop, I say!"

Ingmar wandered on, straight into the wood, where there was no one to succor him. Karin kept her eyes fixed on his shoe, which was oozing blood. Every second the footprints were becoming redder and redder.

"He's going into the forest to lie down and bleed to death!" thought Karin. "God bless you, Ingmar, for helping Hellgum!" she said gently. "It took a man's courage to do that, and a man's strength, too!"

Ingmar tramped straight ahead, paying no heed whatever to his sister. Then Karin ran past him and planted herself in his way. He stepped aside without so much as glancing at her. "Go and help Hellgum!" he muttered.

"Let me explain, Ingmar! Halvor and I were very sorry for what we said to you this morning, and I was just on' my way to Hellgum to let him know that, whichever way it turned out, you were to keep the sawmill."

"Now you can give it to Hellgum," was Ingmar's answer. He walked on, stumbling over stones and tree stumps.

Karin kept close behind, trying her best to conciliate him. "Can't you forgive me for my mistake of a moment in thinking you had fought with Hellgum? I could hardly have thought differently."

"You were very ready to believe your own brother a murderer," Ingmar retorted, without giving her a look. He still walked on. When the grass blades he had trampled down came up again, blood dripped from them. It was only after Karin had noticed the peculiar way in which Ingmar had spoken Hellgum's name, that she began to realize how he hated the preacher. At the same time she saw what a big thing he had done.

"Every one will be singing your praises for what you did to-day, Ingmar; it will be known far and wide," she said. "You don't want to die and miss all the honours, do you?"

Ingmar laughed scornfully. Then he turned toward her a face that was pale and haggard. "Why don't you go home, Karin?" he said. "I know well enough whom you would prefer to help." His steps became more and more uncertain, and now, where he had walked, there was a continuous streak of blood on the ground.

Karin was about beside herself at the sight of all this blood. The great love which she had always felt or Ingmar kindled with new ardour. Now she was proud of her brother, and thought him a stout branch of the good old family tree.

"Oh, Ingmar!" she cried, "you'll have to answer before God and your fellowmen if you go on spilling your life's blood in this way. You know, if there is anything I can do to make you want to live, you have only to speak."

Ingmar halted, and put his arm around the stem of a tree to hold himself up. Then, with a cynical laugh, he said: "Perhaps you'll send Hellgum back to America?"

Karin stood looking down at the pool of blood that was forming around Ingmar's left foot, pondering over the thing her brother wanted her to do. Could it be that he expected her to leave the beautiful Garden of Paradise where she had lived all winter, and go back to the wretched world of sin she had come out of?

Ingmar turned round squarely; his face was waxen, the skin across his temples was tightly drawn, and his nose was like that of a dead person; but his under lip protruded with a determination that he had never before shown, and the set look about the mouth was sharply defined. It was not likely that he would modify his demand.

"I don't think that Hellgum and I can live in the same parish," he said, "but it's plain enough that I must make way for him."

"No," cried Karin quickly, "if you will only let me care for you, so that your life may be spared to us, I promise you that I will see that Hellgum goes away. God will surely find us another shepherd," thought Karin, "but for the time being it seems best to let Ingmar have his way."

After she had staunched the wound, she helped Ingmar home and put him to bed. He was not badly wounded. All he needed was to rest quietly for a few days. He lay abed in a room upstairs, and Karin tended him and watched over him like a baby.

The first day Ingmar was delirious, and lived over all that had happened to him in the morning. Karin soon discovered that Hellgum and the sawmill were not the only things that had caused him anxiety. By evening his mind was clear and tranquil; then Karin said to him: "There is some one who wishes to speak to you."

Ingmar replied that he felt too tired to talk to any one.

"But I think this will do you good."

Directly afterward Gertrude came into the room. She looked quite solemn and troubled. Ingmar had been fond of Gertrude even in the old days, when she was full of fun, and provoking. But at that time something within him had always fought against his love. But now Gertrude had passed through a trying year of longing and unrest, which had wrought such a wonderful change in her that Ingmar felt an uncontrollable longing to win her. When Gertrude came over to the bed, Ingmar put his hand up to his eyes.

"Don't you want to see me?" she asked.

Ingmar shook his head. He was like a wilful child.

"I only want to say a few words to you," said Gertrude.

"I suppose you've come to tell me that you have joined the
Hellgumists?"

Then Gertrude knelt down beside the bed and lifted his hand from his eyes. "There is something which you don't know, Ingmar," she whispered.

He looked inquiringly at her, but did not speak. Gertrude blushed and hesitated. Finally she said:

"Last year, just as you were leaving us, I had begun to care for you in the right way."

Ingmar coloured to the roots of his hair, and a look of joy came into his eyes; but immediately he became grave and distrustful again.

"I have missed you so, Ingmar!" she murmured.

He smiled doubtingly, but patted her hand a little as thanks for her wanting to be kind to him.

"And you never once came back to see me," she said reproachfully.
"It was as if I no longer existed for you."

"I didn't want to see you again until I was a well-to-do man and could propose to you," said Ingmar, as if this were a self-evident matter.

"But I thought you had forgotten me!" Gertrude's eyes filled up. "You don't know what a terrible year it has been. Hellgum has been very kind, and has tried to comfort me. He said my heart would be at rest if I would give it wholly to God."

Ingmar now looked at her with a newborn hope in his gaze.

"I was so frightened when you came this morning," she confessed, "I felt that I couldn't resist you, and that the old struggle would begin anew."

Ingmar's face was beaming.

"But this evening, when I heard about your having helped the one man whom you hated, I couldn't hold out any longer." Gertrude grew scarlet. "I felt somehow that I had not the strength to do a thing that would part me from you." Then she bowed her head over Ingmar's hand, and kissed it.

And it seemed to Ingmar as if great bells were ringing in a holy day. Within reigned Sabbath peace and stillness, while love, honey sweet, rested upon his lips, filling his whole being with a blissful solace.