She had a long tramp ahead of her, for she was going down to the Ingmar Farm to a meeting of the Hellgumists.  Old Eva Gunnersdotter was one of the most zealous converts to Hellgum’s teachings.  “Ah, those were glorious times,” she mumbled to herself as she trudged on, “in the beginning when half the parish had gone over to Hellgum!  Who would have thought that so many were going to backslide, and that after five years there would be hardly more than a score of us left—­not counting the children, of course!”

Her thoughts went back to the time when she, who for many years had lived in solitude in the heart of the forest, forgotten by every one, all at once had found a lot of brothers and sisters who came to her in her loneliness, who never forgot to clear a path to her cabin after a big snowfall, and who always kept her little shed well filled with dry firewood—­and all without her having to ask for it.  She recalled to mind the time when Karin, daughter of Ingmar, and her sisters, and many more of the best people in the parish, used to come and hold love feasts in her little gray cabin.

“Alas, that so many should have abandoned the only true way of salvation!” she sighed.  “Now retribution will come upon us.  Next summer we must all perish because so few among us have heard the call, and because those who have heard it have not continued steadfast.”

The old woman then fell to pondering over Hellgum’s letters, those letters which the Hellgumists regarded as Apostolic writings and read aloud at all their meetings, as the Bible is read in the churches.  “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.