Jan would have liked to hear what she dreamed about him, for confident as he was of the ultimate realization of his great expectations, he nevertheless sought assurances from all quarters. But now Mad Ingeborg was wandering along her own thought-road and at such times it was not easy to stop her. She went very close to Jan, then, bending over him, her eyes shut tight, her head shaking, the words came pouring out of her mouth.
"Don't be so scared. Do you suppose I'd be standing here talking to you while you're threshing at Falla if I didn't know the master had gone up to the forest and the mistress was down at the village selling butter. 'Always keep them in mind,' says the catechism. I know enough for that and take good care not to come round when they can see me."
"Get out of the way, Ingeborg! Otherwise the flail might hit you."
"Think how you boys used to beat me when we were children!" she rattled on. "Even now I have to take thrashings. But when it came to catechism examinations, I could beat you all. 'No one can catch Ingeborg napping,' the dean used to say. 'She always knows her lessons.' And I'm good friends with the little misses at Lövdala Manor. I recite the catechism for them both questions and answers— from beginning to end. And what a memory I've got! I know the whole Bible by heart and the hymn book, too, and all the dean's sermons. Shall I recite something for you, or would you rather hear me sing?"
Jan said nothing whatever, but went to threshing again. Ingeborg, undaunted, seated herself on a sheaf of straw and struck up a chant of some twenty stanzas, then she repeated a couple of chapters from the Bible, whereupon she got up and went out. Jan thought she had gone for good, but in a little while she reappeared in the doorway of the barn.
"Hold still!" she whispered. "Hold still! Now we'll say nothing but what we were going to say. Only be still—still!"
Then up went her forefinger. Now she held her body rigid and her eyes open. "No other thoughts, no other thoughts!" she said. "We'll keep to the subject. Only hush your pounding!"
She waited till Jan minded her.
"You came to me last night in a dream—yes, that was it. You came to me and I says to you like this: 'Are you out for a walk, Jan of the Ashdales?' 'Yes,' says you, 'but now I'm Jan of the Vale of Longings.' 'Then, well met,' says I. 'There's where I have lived all my life.'"
Whereupon she disappeared again, and Jan, startled by her strange words, did not immediately resume his work, but stood pondering. In a moment or two she was there again.