The same day towards evening, she left Bergen and started for the country; she did not know where to, but she would go where she was not known. She went in a carriole, the driver boy sitting on her trunk strapped on behind. It rained fast, she sat crouched together under a great rain hat, and looked uneasily at the mountain above her, and then at the precipice below. The forest before her was a dense mass of fog, teeming with spectres; the next moment she would enter it, but the fog was parting at every step she took towards it. A mighty rumbling that grew stronger and stronger increased the feeling that she was entering upon an unknown region, where everything had its own meaning and some dark and mysterious connection, where man was only a nervous traveller, who had yet to discover whether or not he could get further. The rumbling came from several waterfalls, that in the wet weather had grown up to battle, and now hurled themselves precipitately from rock to rock with a terrific crash. Now and then they passed over narrow bridges; she could see the water boiling and seething in the hollows below. Soon the road began to bend and wind down the mountain; here and there lay a cultivated field, and a few turf houses stood together; then again it turned up towards the forest and rumbling. She was wet through, and shivered, but still she would go further, as long as the day lasted,--further also the next day, ever deeper in, till she came to a place she dare trust herself to. Thereto He Himself would help her, the Almighty, who now led them through the darkness and the storm. CHAPTER VIII. AT THE RURAL DEAN'S.