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I should have been lost without it." "Ingmar," said Gertrude, blushing so that the little corner of her cheek that could be seen behind the kerchief showed crimson. "You remember, of course, that five years ago I was ready to join the Hellgumists. At that time I had given my heart to Christ. But I took it back, to give it to you.
Then Ingmar asked her if she had considered that the Hellgumists would not allow her to associate with persons who did not think as they did. Gertrude quietly answered that she had carefully considered this matter. "Have you the consent of your father and mother?" asked Ingmar. "No," she replied; "they know nothing as yet." "But, Gertrude " "Hush, Ingmar! I must do this to find peace.
All at once it became clear to Gertrude how she was to order her life; so that she might never again sink down into the darkness of fear, nor be tempted into doing anything mean or hateful, she would go with the Hellgumists to Jerusalem. This thought had come to her when the Christ passed by. She felt that it had come from Him; she had read it in His eyes.
Karin and Halvor came forward to greet her, looking even more gloomy and low spirited than the other Hellgumists. "It's plain they know now that the end is near," she thought. Eva Gunnersdotter, being the oldest person present, was placed at the head of the long table. In front of her lay an opened letter, with American stamps on the envelope.
"All the same, this will be a good way for you to show people what sort of stuff you're made of," the old man persisted. Ingmar turned away and set the saws going. He would have liked above everything to ask how Gertrude was getting along, and whether she had already joined the Hellgumists; but he was too proud to betray his fears. At eight o'clock he went home to his breakfast.
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.
God compels me." "No," he cried, "not God, but " Gertrude suddenly turned toward him. Then Ingmar told her that he would never join the Hellgumists. "If you go over to them, that will part us for ever." Gertrude looked at him as much as to say that she did not see how this could affect her. "Don't do it, Gertrude!" he implored.
The schoolmaster's wife, like many others, had come to love the old parish more than ever since the Hellgumists had called it a second Sodom and wanted to abandon it. She plucked a few of the tiny wild flowers that grew by the roadside, and gazed at them almost tenderly. "If we were as bad as they try to make us out," she mused, "it would be an easy matter for God to destroy us.
The Hellgumists looked quite dejected. They walked along, their eyes on the ground, as if weighed down by a terrible load of discouragement. They had all expected that the Celestial Kingdom would suddenly spread over the whole earth, and that they would live to see the day when the New Jerusalem should come down from the clouds of heaven.
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!
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