“Did she go?”

“Yes, Hellgum wouldn’t budge till the girl went along with them.  When Clementsson and his wife realized that she couldn’t resist Hellgum, they let her go.  Some folks are like that, you see.  In the morning the mother regretted it, and begged the father to drive down to the Ingmar Farm and get their daughter.  ‘No indeed!’ he said, ’I’ll do nothing of the sort, and what’s more, I never want to set eyes on her again unless she comes home of her own accord.’  Then Mrs. Clementsson hurried down to the school to see if Gertrude wouldn’t go and talk to Gunhild.”

“Did Gertrude go?”

“Yes; she tried to reason with Gunhild, but Gunhild wouldn’t listen.”

“I have not seen Gunhild at our house,” said Ingmar thoughtfully.

“No, for now she is back with her parents.  It seems that when Gertrude left Gunhild she met Hellgum.  ’There stands the one who is to blame for all this,’ she thought, and then she went straight up to him, and gave him a tongue lashing.  She wouldn’t have minded striking him.”

“Oh, Gertrude can talk all right,” said Ingmar approvingly.

“She told Hellgum that he had behaved like a heathen warrior and not as a Christian preacher, in skulking about like that in the night and abducting a young girl.”

“What did Hellgum say to that?”

“He stood quietly listening for a while; then he said as meek as you please that she was right, he had acted in haste.  And in the afternoon he took Gunhild back to her parents and made everything right again.”

Ingmar glanced up at the old man with a smile.  “Gertrude is splendid,” he said, “and Hellgum is a fine fellow, even if he is a little eccentric.”

“So that’s the way you take it, eh?  I thought you would wonder why Hellgum had given in like that to Gertrude.”

Ingmar did not reply to this.

After a moment’s reflection the old man began again.  “There are many in the village who want to know on which side you stand.”

“I don’t see as it matters which party I belong to.”

“Let me remind you of one thing,” said the old man:  “In this parish we are accustomed to having somebody that we can look up to as a leader.  But now that Big Ingmar is gone, and the schoolmaster has lost his power over the people, while the pastor, as you know, was never any good at ruling, they run after Hellgum, and they’re going to follow him just as long as you choose to remain in the background.”

Ingmar’s hands dropped; he looked quite worn out.  “But I don’t know who is in the right,” he protested.

“The people are looking to you for deliverance from Hellgum.  You may be sure that we were spared a lot of unpleasantness by being away from home all winter.  It must have been something dreadful in the beginning, before people had got used to this converting craze and to being called devils and hellhounds.  But the worst of all was when the converted children started in to preach!”