as at hand.

"How you talk!" said Katrina. "The Last Judgment indeed! Why,
you've got fever, man, and you're out of your head."

Then Jan turned to the seine-maker. "Can't you see either that the
firmament is sinking and sinking?"

The latter did not give him any reply, but turned instead to
Katrina, saying:

"This is pretty serious. I think we'll have to try the remedy we
talked of on the way. I may as well go down to Falla at once."

"But Lars will never consent to it."

"Why you know that Lars has gone down to the tavern. I'm sure the
old mistress of Falla will have the courage--"

Jan cut him short. He could not bear to hear them speak of
commonplace matters when such momentous things were in the air.

"Stop talking," he said. "Don't you hear the last trump? Don't you
hear the rumbling up in the mountains?"

They paused a moment and listened, just to please Jan. And then
they, too, heard a strange noise.

"There's a wagon rattling along in the woods," said Katrina. "What
on earth can that mean?"

As the rumbling noise grew more and more distinct, their
astonishment increased.

"And it's Sunday, too!" observed Katrina. "Now if this were a
weekday you could understand it; but who can it be that's out
driving in the woods on a Sunday night?"

She listened again. Then she heard the scraping of wheels against
stones and the clatter of hoofs along the steep forest road.

"Do you hear?" asked Jan. "Do you hear?"

"Yes, I hear," said Katrina. "But no matter who comes I've got to
get the bed ready for you at once. It's that I have to think of."

"And I'm going down to Falla," said the seine-maker. "That's more
important than anything else. Good-bye for the present."

The old man hurried away while Katrina went in to prepare the bed;
she was hardly inside the door when the rattling noise, which she
and the seine-maker believed was caused by a common wagon, sounded
as if it were almost upon them. To Jan it was the rumble of heavy
war chariots, at whose approach the whole earth trembled. He called
in a loud voice to Katrina, who came out immediately.

"Dear heart, don't be so scared!" she said reassuringly. "I can see
the horse now. It's the old bay from Falla. Sit up and you'll see
it, too." Slipping her hand under Jan's neck she raised him to a
sitting posture. Through the elder bushes at the edge of the road a
horse could be seen running wildly in the direction of Ruffluck.
"Don't you see it's only La