"Now she's going to do some conjuring," thought Gertrude. "Why, then it must be true that she is a witch!"

"Look down into the bowl!" said Finne-Marit, "and maybe you'll see something." When Gertrude glanced down, she gave a start.

Mirrored in the bowl, she saw plainly the face of Ingmar.

Immediately the old woman handed her a long needle. "See here," she said; "take this and pierce his eyes. Do this to him because he has played you false." Gertrude hesitated a little, but felt strongly tempted. "Why should he fare well, and be rich and happy, while you suffer?" said the old dame. With that Gertrude was seized by an uncontrollable desire to do the ogre's bidding, and lowered the needle. "Mind you stick him right in the eye!" said the witch.

Whereupon Gertrude quickly drove the needle, first into one and then into the other of Ingmar's eyes. In so doing, she noticed that the needle went far down-not as though it had come into contact with metal, but rather as if it had penetrated some soft substance.

When she drew it out, there was blood on it.

Gertrude, seeing blood on the needle, thought she had really put out Ingmar's eyes. Then she was so overcome by remorse for what she had done, and so frightened, that she woke up.

She lay for a long while, trembling and weeping, before she was able to convince herself that it was only a dream. "May G.o.d preserve me from any thought of vengeance!" she moaned.

She had barely quieted down and dropped off to sleep again, when the dream recurred.

Once more she wandered along the narrow paths toward the grazing ground. This time, too, the cows had strayed, and she went into the forest to look for them. Again she came to the beautiful road, and saw the sunbeams playing on the moss. Then she suddenly recalled all that had just happened to her in a dream, and grew terribly frightened lest she should meet the old witch again. Seeing nothing of her, she felt greatly relieved.

All at once she seemed to see the earth between a couple of moss tufts open. Suddenly a head appeared. Then she saw the body of a tiny little man work its way up out of the earth, and all the while the little man was making a buzzing and humming noise. By that she knew whom she had encountered. It was Humming Pete, of course, who was said to be a bit queer in his head. Sometimes he used to stay down in the village, but during the summer he always lived in a mud cave in the forest.

Then Gertrude recalled to memory what she had heard folks say of Pete: "Any one wanting to injure an enemy without risking discovery could avail himself of his services." He was suspected of having started a number of incendiary fires at the instigation of others.

Gertrude then went up to the man and asked him, half in fun, if he wouldn't like to set fire to the Ingmar Farm. She wished it done, she said, because Ingmar Ingmarsson thought more of the farm than of her.

To her horror, the half-witted dwarf was ready to act on her suggestion. Nodding gleefully, he started on a run toward the settlement. She hurried after, but could not seem to overtake him.

Her dress caught in the brushwood, her feet sank in the marsh, and she stumbled over stony ground. When she was almost out of the forest, what should she see through the trees but the glow from a fire. "He has done it, he has set fire to the farm!" she shrieked, again awakening from the horror of the dream.

Now Gertrude sat up in bed; tears ran down her cheeks. She dared not sink back on her pillow again for fear of dreaming further.

"Oh, Lord help me, Lord help me!" she cried. "I don't know how much evil there may be hidden in my heart, but G.o.d knows that never once during all this time have I thought of revenging myself on Ingmar.

O G.o.d, let me not fall into this sin!" she prayed. Wringing her hands in an agony of despair, she cried out:

"Grief is a menace, grief is a menace, grief is a menace!"

It was not very clear to her just what she meant by that; but she felt somehow that her poor heart was like a ravaged garden, in which all the flowers had been uprooted, and now Grief, as a gardener, moved about in there, planting thistles and poisonous herbs.

The whole forenoon of the following day, Gertrude thought that she was still dreaming. Her dream had seemed so real that she could not get it out of her mind. Remembering with what satisfaction she had plunged the needle into Ingmar's eyes, she shuddered. "How dreadful that I should have become so cruel and resentful! What shall I do to rid myself of this? I'm really getting to be a very wicked person!"

After dinner Gertrude went out to milk the cows. She drew her kerchief down over her face, as usual, and kept her eyes on the ground. Walking along the narrow paths where she had wandered in the dream, even the flowers by the wayside looked the same as in the dream. In her strange state of semi-wakefulness, she could hardly distinguish between what she actually saw and what she only seemed to see in fancy.

When she reached the pasturage, there were no cows to be seen. And she began to search for them, as she had done in the dream--looking down by the brook, under the birches, and behind the brushwood. She could not find them, yet she felt quite certain that they must be thereabout, and that she would probably see them were she only wide awake. Presently she came upon an opening in the hedge, and knew at once that the cows had made their escape through this.

Gertrude straightway started in search of the strayed cattle, following the track which their hoofs had made in the soft earth of the forest. It was plain that they had turned in on a road leading to a remote Sater. "Ah!" she said, "now I know where they are. I remember that the folks down at Luck Farm were going to drive their cattle to the Sater this morning. Our cows, on hearing the tinkle of their cowbells, must have broken loose and followed the others."

Gertrude's anxiety had for the moment made her wide awake. So she determined to go up to the Sater, and fetch the cows herself; otherwise there was no telling when they would come back. Now she walked briskly along the steep and rocky road.

After going uphill for a time there was an abrupt turn in the road, and she suddenly came upon smooth and even ground that was thick with pine needles. She recognized it as the road of her dream.

There stood the selfsame towering pines, and on the moss were the selfsame yellow sun spots.

At sight of the road Gertrude lapsed into the dreamy state in which she had been most of the day. She moved along, half expecting that something wonderful would happen to her. She looked under the fir trees to see if any of the mysterious beings who wander about in the depths of the forest would suddenly appear to her. However, none appeared. But in her mind new thoughts were awakened. "What if I should really take revenge on Ingmar, would that still my fears?

Would I then escape the horrors of insanity? If he were to suffer what I am suffering, would that be any relief to me?"

The beautiful road seemed interminably long. She walked there a whole hour, astonished that nothing unusual had happened. The road finally ended in a forest meadow. It was a lovely spot, covered with fresh green gra.s.s and many wild flowers. On one side rose a steep mountain; the other sides were covered with high trees--mostly mountain ash, with thick cl.u.s.ters of white blossoms, and here and there was a group of birches and alders. A rather broad stream gushed down the mountainside and wound its way through the meadow, then went hurling down into a gap that was covered with dwarfed trees and bushes.

Gertrude stood stock still; she knew the place at once. That stream was Blackwater Brook, and strange tales were told of it. Sometimes, when crossing this stream, people had clear visions of events that were taking place elsewhere. A little lad, in crossing, once saw a bridal procession which happened just then to be moving toward the church far down in the village, and a charcoal burner once saw a king, with crown and sceptre, ride to his coronation.

Gertrude's heart was in her mouth "G.o.d have mercy on me for what I may see here!" she gasped, half tempted to turn back. "Poor little me!" she wailed, feeling sorry for herself. "But I must--I must cross here to fetch my cows."

"Dear Lord, don't let me see anything dreadful or bad!" she prayed, her hands tightly clasped, and shaking from fright. "And don't let me fall into temptation."

There was no doubt in her mind that she would see something; she was so sure of it, in fact, that she hardly dared venture out upon the stones that led across the brook. Yet something made her do it.

When halfway over, all at once she saw something moving in among the trees on the other side of the brook. It was no bridal procession, however, but a solitary man, who was slowly coming toward the meadow.

The man was tall and young, and was dressed in a long black garment that came to his feet. His head was uncovered, and his hair hung in long black locks over his shoulders. He had a slender and very beautiful face. He was coming straight toward Gertrude. In his eyes, which were clear and radiant, there was a wonderful light; and when his gaze fell upon Gertrude, she felt that he could read all her sorrowful thoughts, and she saw that he pitied her whose mind was haunted by fears of the paltry things of earth, whose soul had become darkened by thoughts of revenge, and whose heart had been sown with the thistles and poison flowers of Grief.

As he drew nigh, there came over Gertrude such a blissful sense of ever growing peace and serenity! And when he had pa.s.sed by, there was no longer any fear or resentment in her thought. All that was not good had vanished like a sickness of which one has been healed.

Gertrude stood rapt for a long while. The vision faded away, but she was still held by the beauty of it, and the impression of what she had seen stayed with her. Clasping her hands she raised them in ecstasy.

"I have seen the Christ!" she cried out with joy. "I have seen the Christ! He has freed me from my sorrow, and I love Him. Now I can never again love anyone else in the world."

The trials of life had suddenly dwindled into mere nothings, and life's long years appeared as but a moment in the Gla.s.s of Time, while earthly joys seemed trivial and shallow and meaningless. All at once it became clear to Gertrude how she was to order her life; so that she might never again sink down into the darkness of fear, nor be tempted into doing anything mean or hateful, she would go with the h.e.l.lgumists to Jerusalem. This thought had come to her when the Christ pa.s.sed by. She felt that it had come from Him; she had read it in His eyes.

On the beautiful June day when the daughter of Berger Sven Persson was given in marriage to Ingmar Ingmarsson, a tall, slender young woman stopped at the Ingmar Farm early in the morning, and asked if she might speak to the bridegroom. She wore her kerchief so far down over her face that nothing could be seen of it save a creamy cheek and a pair of rosy lips. On her arm was a basket that held little bundles of handmade tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, a few hair chains, and hair bracelets.

She gave her message to an old maidservant, whom she met in the yard, and who went in and told the housewife. The housewife answered sharply:

"Go straight back and tell her that Ingmar Ingmarsson is just going to drive to church; he has no time to talk with her."

As soon as the young woman received this curt dismissal, she went her way. When the bridal party had returned from the church, she came back, and again asked if she might speak to Ingmar Ingmarsson.

This time she approached one of the menservants who was hanging round the stable door; he went in and told the master.

"Tell her that Ingmar Ingmarsson is about to sit down to the wedding feast," said the master. "He has no time to talk to her."

On receiving this answer, she sighed and went her way. When she came again it was late in the evening, as the sun was setting. This time she gave her message to a child that was swinging on the gate.

The child ran straight to the house and told the bride.

"Tell her that Ingmar Ingmarsson is dancing with his wife," said the bride. "He has no time to talk to anyone else."

When the child came back and repeated what had been told her, the young woman smiled indulgently, and said: "Now you are telling something that isn't true. Ingmar Ingmarsson is not dancing with his bride."

This time she did not go away, but remained standing at the gate.

The bride, meanwhile, thought to herself: "I have told a lie on my wedding day!" Sorry for what she had done, she went up to Ingmar, and told him that there was a stranger outside who wished to speak with him. Ingmar went out, and found Gertrude standing at the gate, waiting.

When Gertrude saw him coming, she started down the road, Ingmar following. They walked along in silence till they were some distance away from the house.

As to Ingmar, it could be truthfully said of him that he had aged in the short time of a few weeks. At any rate, there was something about his face that showed added shrewdness and caution. He also stooped more, and looked more subdued, now that he had acquired riches, than was the case when he had nothing.

Indeed, he was anything but glad to see Gertrude! Every day since the auction he had been trying to persuade himself into the belief that he was satisfied with his bargain. "In fact, we Ingmarssons care for little else than to plow and to sow the fields on the Ingmar Farm," was what he had said to himself.