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 asti