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The painter put the question a second time, and a third, but Ingmar stood there, dazed, as if he had not understood him. "Are they ready at last with their answer?" he wondered. "Is this a message from father to say that he wishes me to marry this year?" He was so overwhelmed by the thought that he hired the man on the spot. Then he went on with his plowing, deeply moved and almost happy.
Whereupon Strong Ingmar, without a word, went straight to the house. He passed through the living-room to the inner room, and stationed himself by the door, where he waited for an opportunity to deliver his message. The pastor was standing in the middle of the room talking to Karin and Halvor, who were sitting as stiff and motionless as a pair of mummies.
I'm only sorry for those on the outside, who are called children of the devil and are not allowed in the game. But, of course, you don't feel that way." Ingmar was thoroughly put out with the old man for speaking so disparagingly of Hellgum. "There used to be such peace and harmony in this parish!" the old man rattled on. "But that's all past and gone.
They had been up in the forest the whole winter cutting timber and making charcoal. And when Ingmar got back to the lowlands he fell like a bear that had just crawled out from its lair. He could hardly accustom himself to the glaring sunlight of an open sky, and blinked as if the light hurt him.
Ingmar replied that maybe he would, but that he must think it over first. "All winter I longed for you to come home and share our bliss," the sister went on, "for now we no longer live upon earth, but in 'The New Jerusalem which is come down from Heaven!" Ingmar said he was glad to hear that Hellgum was still in the neighbourhood.
He did not know whether it had sprung open or whether some one had opened it. Too sleepy to get up, he settled back in bed. And then he heard talking in the outer room. "Now tell me, Kaisa, what makes you think that Brita doesn't care for Ingmar." "From the very start folks have been saying that her parents made her take him," returned the old woman, evasively.
"It's your belief, then, that Big Ingmar would have approved of calling all persons who do not belong to Hellgum's band devils and anti-Christs, and that he would have refused to associate with his old friends because they held to their old faith?" "I hardly think that such people as Hellgum and Halvor and Karin would behave in that way," said Ingmar.
"I didn't want to see you again until I was a well-to-do man and could propose to you," said Ingmar, as if this were a self-evident matter. "But I thought you had forgotten me!" Gertrude's eyes filled up. "You don't know what a terrible year it has been. Hellgum has been very kind, and has tried to comfort me. He said my heart would be at rest if I would give it wholly to God."
When Storm's daughter heard that Ingmar was coming back, she pulled a long face. It seemed to her that if they must have a boy living with them, they might better have the judge's good-looking son, Bertil, or there was jolly Gabriel, the son of Hök Matts Ericsson. Gertrude liked both Gabriel and Bertil, but as for Ingmar, she couldn't exactly tell what her feelings were toward him.
The summer before the preacher had often dropped in at the mill to chat with Ingmar, and the two had become good friends. Ingmar thought him the finest chap he had ever met. Never had he come across any one who was so much of a man, so firm in his convictions, and so sure of himself.
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