get to be a bit queer and
morose, even if I don't become quite insane. God, God, take this
awful fear away from me!" she prayed. "I can see that my mother
and father think I'm not right in my head; and every one else must
think the same. Oh, dear Lord God, help me!" she cried.

When this fear condition was at its worst, it happened one night
that Gertrude had an extraordinary dream. She dreamed that she had
gone out, with her milk pail on her arm, to do the milking. The
cows were grazing in an enclosed meadow near the skirt of the
forest, a long way from home. She went by the narrow paths,
alongside the ditches and field drains. She had great difficulty in
walking, for she felt so weak and weary that she could hardly lift
her feet. "What can be the matter with me?" she asked herself, in
the dream. "Why is it so hard for me to walk?" And she also
answered herself. "You are tired because you carry about with you
this heavy burden of sorrow."

When she finally got to the pasturage, there were no cows in sight.
She became uneasy, and began to look for them in their usual
haunts--behind the brushwood, over by the brook, and under the
birches--but there was not a sign of them. While searching for the
cows she discovered a gap in the hedge, on the side fronting the
forest. She grew terribly alarmed, and stood wringing her hands. It
suddenly occurred to her that the cows must have cleared this
opening. "Tired as I am, must I now tramp the whole forest to find
them!" she whimpered, in her dream.

But she went straight on into the woods, slowly pushing her way
through fir brush and prickly juniper bushes. Presently she found
herself walking on a smooth and even road without knowing how she
had got there. The road was soft and rather slippery from the brown
fir needles that covered it. On either side stood great towering
pines, and on the yellow moss under the trees sunbeams were
playing. Here it was so lovely and so peaceful that she almost
forgot her fears.

Of a sudden, she caught sight of an old woman moving about in
among the trees. It was Finne-Marit, she who was famed as a witch.
"How dreadful that that wicked old woman is still alive," thought
Gertrude, "and that I should come upon her here in the forest!" She
tried to slip along very cautiously, so as not to be seen by the
witch. But before Gertrude could get past, the old woman looked up.

"Hi, there!" the old woman shouted. "Wait a bit, and you'll see
something!