The little old man was the only one who moved about. First he closed the flue, then he went around and snuffed out the candles.
"No, no!" cried the womenfolk, "don"t put out the lights!"
"You must let me do what is best for all of us," said the old man.
One of the girls caught hold of his coat. "Is the mountain dog dangerous?" she asked.
"No, not he, but what comes after."
"And what comes after?"
Again the old man listened. Presently he said: "Now we must all be very still."
Instantly there was breathless silence. Once again the terrible howling seemed to circle the hut, but it grew less distinct as it went across the marsh and up the mountains on the other side of the valley. Then came an ominous stillness. Presently some man, who couldn"t hold in any longer, said that the _dog_ was gone.
Without a word Strong Ingmar raised his hand and dealt the man a blow across the mouth.
From far away at the top of Mount Flack came a piercing sound; it was like a howling wind, but it could also have been a blast from a horn. Now and again prolonged blare could be heard, then roaring and tramping and snorting.
All at once the thing came dashing down from the mountain with an awful roar. They could tell when it had reached the foot of the slope; they could tell when it swept the skirt of the forest; and when it was directly above them. It was like the rolling of thunder across the face of the earth; it was as if the whole mountain had come tumbling into the valley. When it seemed to be almost upon them, every head went down. "It will crush us," they all thought.
"It will surely crush us."
But what they felt was not so much the fear of death, as terror lest it might be the prince of darkness himself coming, with all his demons. What frightened them most were the shrieks and moans that could be heard above the other noises. There were wails and groans, laughter and bellowings, whines and hisses. When that which they had supposed was a big thunderstorm was right upon them, it seemed to be a mingling of groans and curses, of sobs and angry cries, of the blast of horns, of crackling fire, of the plaints of doomed spirits, of the mocking laughter of demons, of the flapping of huge wings.
They thought all the furies of the infernal regions had been let loose that night, and would overwhelm them. The ground trembled, and the hut swayed as if it were going to topple over. It was as if wild horses were prancing on the roof; as if howling ghosts rushed past the door, and as if owls and bats were beating their wings against the chimney.
While this was happening, some one put an arm around Gertrude"s waist and drew her to her knees. Then she heard Ingmar whisper: "We must kneel down, Gertrude, and ask G.o.d to help us."
Only the moment before Gertrude had imagined she was dying, so terrible was the fear that held her. "I don"t mind having to die,"
she thought; "the awful part of it is that the powers of evil are hovering over us."
But Gertrude had no sooner felt Ingmar"s protecting arm around her than her heart began to beat once more, and the feeling of numbness in her limbs was gone. She snuggled close to him. She was not frightened now. How wonderful! Ingmar must have felt afraid also, yet he was able to impart to her a sense of security and protection.
Finally the terrible noises died away; they heard only the faintest echoes of them in the distance. They seemed to have followed in the trail of the dog, down through the marsh and up into the mountain pa.s.ses beyond Olaf"s Peak.
And yet the silence in Strong Ingmar"s but was unbroken. No one moved, no one spoke; at times it was as if fear had extinguished all life there. Now and then through the stillness a deep sigh was heard. No one moved for a long, long time. Some of the people were standing up against the walls, others had sunk down on the benches, but most of them were kneeling upon the floor in anxious prayer.
All were motionless, stunned by fear.
Thus hour after hour pa.s.sed, and during that time there was many a one in that room who ransacked his soul and resolved to live a new life--nearer to G.o.d and farther away from His enemies, for each of those present thought: "It is something that _I_ have done which has brought this upon us. This has happened because of _my_ sins. I could hear how the fiends kept calling to me and threatening me, and shrieking my name, as they rushed by."
As for Gertrude, her only thought was: "I know now that I can never live without Ingmar; I must always be near him because of that feeling of confidence he gives one."
Then gradually the day began to break, the faint light of dawn came stealing into the hut, revealing the many blanched faces. The twitter of a bird was heard, then of another, and another. Strong Ingmar"s cow began to low for her breakfast, and his cat, who never slept in the house on nights when there was dancing, came to the door and mewed. But no one inside moved until the sun rolled up from behind the eastern hills. Then, one by one, they stole out without a word or even a good-bye.
Outside the house the departing guests beheld the signs of the night"s devastation. A huge pine, which had stood close to the gate, had been torn up by the roots and thrown down; branches and fence posts were littered over the ground; bats and owls had been crushed against the side walls of the hut.
Along the broad roadway leading to the top of Mount Klack all the trees had been blown down. No one could bear to look at this long, so they all hurried on toward the village.
It was Sunday, and most people were still in their beds, but a few persons were already out tending to their cattle. An old man had just emerged from his house with his Sunday coat, to brush and air it. From another house came father, mother, and children--all dressed up for a holiday outing. It was a great relief to see people quietly going about their business, unconscious of the awful things that had happened in the forest during the night.
At last they came to the riverside, where the houses were less scattered, and then to the village. They were glad to see the old church and everything else. It was comforting to see that everything down here looked natural: the sign-board in front of the shop creaked on its hinges as usual; the post-office horn was in its regular place; and the inn-keeper"s dog lay sleeping, as always, outside his kennel. It was also a gladsome surprise to them to see a little bird-berry bush that had blossomed overnight, and the green seats in the pastor"s garden, which must have been put out late in the evening. All this was decidedly rea.s.suring. But just the same no one ventured to speak until they had reached their several homes.
When Gertrude stood on the steps of the schoolhouse, she said to Ingmar: "I have danced my last dance, Ingmar."
"And I, too," Ingmar solemnly declared.
"And you"ll become a clergyman, won"t you, Ingmar? And if you can"t become a preacher, you must at least be a teacher. There is so much evil in the world one has to fight against."
Ingmar looked straight at Gertrude. "What did those voices say to you?" he asked.
"They said that I had been caught in the toils of sin, and that the devil would come and take me, because I was so fond of dancing."
"Now I must tell you what I heard," said Ingmar. "It seemed to me that all the old Ingmarssons were threatening and cursing me because I wanted to be something more than a peasant, and to do something besides just tilling the soil and working in the forest."
h.e.l.lGUM
The night of the dance at Strong Ingmar"s, Tims Halvor was away from home, and his wife, Karin, slept alone in the little chamber off the living-room. In the night Karin had a frightful dream. She dreamt that Elof was alive and was holding a big revel. She could hear him in the next room clinking gla.s.ses, laughing loudly, and singing ribald songs. She thought, in the dream, that Elof and his boon companions were getting noisier and noisier, and at last it sounded as though they were trying to break up both tables and chairs. Then Karin became so frightened that she awoke. But even after she had awakened the noise continued. The earth shook, the windows rattled, the tiles on the roof were loosened, and the old pear trees at the gables lashed the house with their stout branches. It was as if Judgment Day had come.
Just when the noise was at its height a window pane was sprung, and the shattered gla.s.s fell jingling against the floor. A violent gust of wind rushed through the room, and then Karin thought she heard a laugh quite close to her ear--the same kind of laugh that she had heard in the dream. She fancied she was about to die. Never had she felt such a sense of terror; her heart stopped, and her whole body became numb and cold as ice.
All at once the noise died down, and Karin, as it were, came back to life. The raw night wind came sweeping into the room; so after a little Karin decided to get up and stuff something into the broken window pane. As she stepped out of the bed, her legs gave way, and she found that she could not walk. She did not cry for help, but quietly laid down again. "I"ll surely be able to walk when I feel more composed," she thought. In a few moments she made another attempt. This time, too, her legs failed her, and she fell p.r.o.ne on the floor beside the bed.
In the morning, when people were astir in the house, the doctor was called in. He was at a loss to understand what had come over Karin.
She did not appear to be ill, nor was she paralyzed. He was of the opinion that her trouble had been brought on by fright.
"You"ll soon be all right again," he a.s.sured her. Karin listened to the doctor, but said nothing. She felt certain that Elof had been in the room during the night, and that he was the cause of her trouble. She also had the feeling that she would never recover from this shock.
All that morning she sat up in bed, and brooded. She tried to reason out why G.o.d had let this trial come upon her. She examined her conscience thoroughly, but could not discover that she had committed any special sin that merited such a terrible punishment.
"G.o.d is unjust to me," she thought.
In the afternoon she was taken to Storm"s mission house, where at that time a lay preacher named Dagson led the meetings. She hoped that he could tell her why she had been punished in this way.
Dagson was a popular speaker, and never had he had so many hearers as on that afternoon. My, but what a gathering of people down at the mission house! And no one talked of anything but what had happened in the night at Strong Ingmar"s hut. The whole community was in a state of terror, and had turned out in full force, in order to hear the Word of G.o.d preached with a force that would annihilate their fears. Hardly a quarter of the people could get inside; but windows and doors were wide open, and Dagson had such a powerful voice that he could be heard even by those on the outside.
Of course he knew what had occurred, and what the people wanted to hear. He opened his address with a terror-striking word picture of h.e.l.l and the prince of darkness. He reminded them of the evil one who skulks about in the dark to capture souls, who lays the snares of sin and sets the traps of vice. The people shuddered. They seemed to see a world full of devils, tempting and enticing them to destruction. Everything was a sin and a danger. They were wandering among pitfalls, hunted and tormented like the wild beasts of the forest. When Dagson talked in this strain, his voice pierced the room like a blasting wind, and his words were like tongues of fire.
All who heard Dagson"s sermon likened it to a roaring torrent of flame. With all this talk about demons and fire and smoke, they had the same feeling as when trapped in a burning forest--when the fire creeps along the moss upon which you are treading, and smoke clouds fill the air you breathe, and the heat singes your hair, while the roar of the fire fills your ears, and flying sparks set fire to your clothing.
Thus did Dagson drive the people through flame and smoke and desolation. They had fire in front of them, fire behind them, and fire to left and right of them, and saw only destruction ahead of them. Yet, after taking them through all these horrors, he finally led them to a green spot in the forest, where it was peaceful and cool and safe. In the centre of a flowery meadow sat Jesus, with His arms outstretched toward the fleeing and hunted men and women who cast themselves at His feet. Now all danger was past, and they suffered no further distress nor persecution.
Dagson spoke as he himself felt. If he could only lay himself down at Jesus" feet, a sense of great peace and serenity would come to him, and he had no more fear of the snares of the world.
After the service there was great emotional excitement. Many persons rushed up to the speaker and thanked him, with tears streaming down their faces. They told him that his words had awakened them to a true faith in G.o.d. But all this time Karin sat unmoved. When Dagson had finished speaking, she raised her heavy eyelids and looked up at him, as if reproaching him for not having given her anything. Just then some one outside cried in a voice loud enough to be heard by the entire congregation:
"Woe, woe, woe to those who give stones for bread! Woe, woe, woe to those who give stones for bread!"
Whereupon everybody rushed out, curious to see who it was that had spoken those words, and Karin was left sitting there in her helplessness. Presently members of her own household came back, and told her that the person who had cried out like that was a tall, dark stranger. He and a pretty, fair-haired woman had been seen coming down the road, in a cart, during the service. They had stopped to listen, and just as they were about to drive on, the man had risen up and spoken. Some folks thought they knew the woman.
They said she was one of Strong Ingmar"s daughters--one of those who had gone to America and married there. The man was evidently her husband. Of course it is not so easy to recognize a person whom one has known as a young girl in the ordinary peasant costume, when she comes back a grown woman dressed up in city clothes.