rches. "There was a time when Hellgum was as milk and honey to
us," she reflected. "Then he commanded us to be kind and tolerant
toward the unconverted, and to show gentle forbearance toward those
who had fallen away; he taught the rich that in their works of
charity they must treat the just and the unjust alike. But lately
he has been as wormwood and gall. He writes about nothing but
trials and punishments."

The old woman had now reached the edge of the forest, from where
she could look down over the village. It was a lovely day in
February. The snow had spread its white purity over the whole
district; all the trees were deep in their winter sleep, and not a
breath of wind stirred. But she was thinking that all this
beautiful country, wrapped in peaceful slumber, would soon be
awakened only to be consumed by a rain of fire and brimstone.
Everything that was now lying under a cover of snow, she seemed to
see enveloped in flame.

"He hasn't put it into plain words," thought the old woman, "but
he keeps writing all the while about a _sore trial_. Mercy me! Who
could wonder at it if this parish were to be punished as was Sodom,
and overthrown like Babylon!"

As Eva Gunnersdotter wandered through the village, she could not
look up at a single house without picturing to herself how the
coming earthquake would shake it and crumble it into dust and
ashes. And when she met people along the way, she thought of how
the monsters of hell would soon hunt and devour them.

"Ah, here comes the schoolmaster's Gertrude!" she remarked to
herself as she saw a pretty young girl coming down the road. "Her
eyes sparkle like sunbeams on the snow. She feels happy now because
she expects to be married in the fall to young Ingmar Ingmarsson. I
see she has a bundle of thread tucked under her arm. She is going
to weave table covers and bed hangings for her new home. But before
that weaving is done, destruction will be upon us."

The old woman cast dark glances about her. She could see that the
village had grown and developed into an astonishing thing of
beauty, but she thought that all these pretty white-and-yellow
houses, with their fancy gables and their big bowed windows, would
collapse the same as her humble gray cabin, where moss grew in the
cracks between the logs, and the windows were only holes in the
wall. When she reached the heart of the town, she stopped short and
struck her cane hard against the pavement. A sudden feeling of