Great marvels were about them at all times; in the winter were the stars; in winter often, too, the northern lights, a firmament of wings, a conflagration in the mansions of God.  Now and then, not often; not commonly, but now and then, they heard the thunder.  It came mostly in the autumn, and a dark and solemn thing it was for man and beast; the animals grazing near home would bunch together and stand waiting.  Bowing their heads—­what for?  Waiting for the end?  And man, what of man standing in the wilds with bowed head, waiting, when the thunder came?  Waiting for what?

The spring—­ay, with its haste and joy and madcap delight; but the autumn!  It called up a fear of darkness, drove one to an evening prayer; there were visions about, and warnings on the air.  Folks might go out one day in autumn seeking for something—­the man for a piece of timber to his work, the woman after cattle that ran wild now after mushroom growths:  they would come home with many secrets in their mind.  Did they tread unexpectedly upon an ant, crushing its hind part fast to the path, so the fore part could not free itself again?  Or step too near a white grouse nest, putting up a fluttering hissing mother to dash against them?  Even the big cow-mushrooms are not altogether meaningless; not a mere white emptiness in the eye.  The big mushroom does not flower, it does not move, but there is something overturning in the look of it; it is a monster, a thing like a lung standing there alive and naked—­a lung without a body.

Inger grew despondent at last, the wilds oppressed her, she turned religious.  How could she help it?  No one can help it in the wilds; life there is not all earthly toil and worldliness; there is piety and the fear of death and rich superstition.  Inger, maybe, felt that she had more reason than others to fear the judgment of Heaven, and it would not pass her by; she knew how God walked about in the evening time looking out over all His wilderness with fabulous eyes; ay, He would find her.  There was not so much in her daily life wherein she could improve; true, she might bury her gold ring deep in the bottom of a clothes chest, and she could write to Eleseus and tell him to be converted too; after that, there was nothing more she could find beyond doing her work well and not sparing herself.  Ay, one thing more; she could dress in humble things, only fastening a blue ribbon at her neck of Sundays.  False, unnecessary poverty—­but it was the expression of a kind of philosophy, self-humiliation, stoicism.  The blue ribbon was not new; it had been cut from a cap little Leopoldine had grown out of; it was faded here and there, and, to tell the truth, a little dirty—­Inger wore it now as a piece of modest finery on holy days.  Ay, it may be that she went beyond reason, feigning to be poor, striving falsely to imitate the wretched who live in hovels; but even so—­would her desert have been greater if that sorry finery had been her best?  Leave her in peace; she has a right to peace!