nsciousness of
the sin that has been committed in thoughts, words, and actions of our
past life, be unfolded to us. When once the conscience is awakened, it
springs up in the heart spontaneously, and God awakens the
conscience when we least expect it. Then we can find no excuse for
ourselves; the deed is there and bears witness against us. The
thoughts seem to become words, and to sound far out into the world. We
are horrified at the thought of what we have carried within us, and at
the consciousness that we have not overcome the evil which has its
origin in thoughtlessness and pride. The heart conceals within
itself the vices as well as the virtues, and they grow in the
shallowest ground. Anne Lisbeth now experienced in thought what we
have clothed in words. She was overpowered by them, and sank down
and crept along for some distance on the ground. "A grave! dig me a
grave!" sounded again in her ears, and she would have gladly buried
herself, if in the grave she could have found forgetfulness of her
actions.

It was the first hour of her awakening, full of anguish and
horror. Superstition made her alternately shudder with cold or burn
with the heat of fever. Many things, of which she had feared even to
speak, came into her mind. Silently, as the cloud-shadows in the
moonshine, a spectral apparition flitted by her; she had heard of it
before. Close by her galloped four snorting steeds, with fire flashing
from their eyes and nostrils. They dragged a burning coach, and within
it sat the wicked lord of the manor, who had ruled there a hundred
years before. The legend says that every night, at twelve o'clock,
he drove into his castleyard and out again. He was not as pale as dead
men are, but black as a coal. He nodded, and pointed to Anne
Lisbeth, crying out, "Hold fast! hold fast! and then you may ride
again in a nobleman's carriage, and forget your child."

She gathered herself up, and hastened to the churchyard; but black
crosses and black ravens danced before her eyes, and she could not
distinguish one from the other. The ravens croaked as the raven had
done which she saw in the daytime, but now she understood what they
said. "I am the raven-mother; I am the raven-mother," each raven
croaked, and Anne Lisbeth felt that the name also applied to her;
and she fancied she should be transformed into a black bird, and
have to cry as they cried, if she did not dig the grave. And she threw
herself upon