indignation had seized her. "Woe, woe!" she cried, in so loud a
voice that people in the street paused and looked round. "Yea, in
all these houses live such as have rejected the Gospel of Christ
and cling to the enemy's teaching. Why didn't they listen to the
call and turn away from their sins? On their account we must all
perish. God's hand strikes heavily. It strikes both the just and
the unjust."

When she had crossed the river she was overtaken by some of the
other Hellgumists. They were Corporal Felt and Bullet Gunner and
his wife, Brita. Shortly afterward, they were joined by Hoek Matts
Ericsson, his son Gabriel, and Gunhild, the daughter of Councilman
Clementsson.

All these people in their gayly coloured national costumes made a
pretty picture walking along the snow-covered road. But to the mind
of Eva Gunnersdotter, they were only doomed prisoners being led to
the place of execution, like cattle driven to slaughter.

The Hellgumists looked quite dejected. They walked along, their
eyes on the ground, as if weighed down by a terrible load of
discouragement. They had all expected that the Celestial Kingdom
would suddenly spread over the whole earth, and that they would
live to see the day when the New Jerusalem should come down from
the clouds of heaven. But now that they had become so few in
number, and could not help seeing that theirs was a forlorn hope,
it was as if something within them had snapped. They moved slowly
and with dragging steps. Now and then a sigh would escape them, but
they seemed to have nothing to say to each other. For this had been
a matter of supreme earnest with them. They had staked their all
upon it, and had lost.

"Why do they look so down-in-the-mouth?" wondered the old woman.
"They don't seem to believe the worst, and don't want to understand
what Hellgum writes. I've tried to explain his words to them, but
they won't even listen to me. Alas! those who live on the lowlands,
under an open sky, can never understand what it is to be afraid.
They don't think the same thoughts as do those of us who live in
the solitude of the dark forest."

She could see that the Hellgumists were uneasy because Halvor had
called them together on a week day. They feared that he was going
to tell them of more desertions from their ranks. They glanced
anxiously at one another, with a look of distrust in their eyes
that seemed to say: "How long will you hold out? And you--and you?"

"We might as well