Chapter XII: Book THREE: Lavrans Björgulfsön (3)

“It never came in question. I saw well enough that the boy held you dear—but he said nothing—and he was young—and I marked not ever that you had such thoughts towards him. You could scarce think I would _proffer_ my daughter to a man of no estate?” he smiled slightly. “But I loved the boy,” he said in a low voice; “and had I seen you pining for love of him—”

They stood still, gazing. Kristin felt that her father was looking at her—she strove hard to be calm of face, but she felt herself grow deadly white. Then her father came towards her, put both his arms around her and pressed her strongly to him. He bent her head backwards, looked down into his daughter’s face, and then hid it again on his shoulder.

“Jesus Kristus, little Kristin, are you _so_ unhappy—?”

“I think I shall die of it, father,” she said, her face pressed to him.

She burst into weeping. But she wept because she had felt in his caress and seen in his eyes that now he was so worn out with pain that he could not hold out against her any more. She had overcome him.

* * * * *

Far on in the night she was wakened in the dark by her father’s touch on her shoulder.

“Get up,” he said softly. “Do you hear—?”

She heard the singing of the wind round the house-corners—the deep, full note of the south-wind, heavy with wetness. Streams were pouring from the roof; there was the whisper of rain falling on soft melting snow.

Kristin flung her dress on her back and went after her father to the outer door. They stood together looking out into the twilight of the May night—warm wind and rain smote against them—the heavens were a welter of tangled drifting rain-clouds, the woods roared, the wind whistled between the houses, and from far up in the fells they heard the dull boom of snow-masses falling.

Kristin felt for her father’s hand and held it. He had called her that he might show her this. So had it been between them before, that he would have done this; and so it was now again.

When they went in to bed again, Lavrans said:

“The stranger serving-man that came last week brought me letters from Sir Munan Baardsön. He is minded to come up the Dale to our parts next summer to see his mother; and he asked if he might meet me and have speech with me.”

“What will you answer him, my father?” she whispered.

“That can I not tell you now,” said Lavrans. “But I will speak with him; and then must I order this matter so as I may deem I can answer it to God, my daughter.”

Kristin crept in again beside Ramborg, and Lavrans went and lay down by the side of his sleeping wife. He lay thinking that if the flood came over-sudden and strong there were few places in the parish that lay so much in its path as Jörundgaard. Folk said there was a prophecy that some day the river would carry it away.

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5

Spring came at a single bound. Only a few days after the sudden thaw the whole parish lay dark brown under the flooding rain. The waters rushed foaming down the hillsides, the river swelled up and lay in the valley-bottom, like a great leaden-grey lake, with lines of tree-tops floating on its waters and a treacherous bubbling furrow where the current ran. At Jörundgaard the water stood far up over the fields. But everywhere the mischief done was less than folk had feared.

Of necessity the spring work was thrown late, and the people sowed their scanty corn with prayers to God that He would save it from the night-frosts in autumn. And it looked as though He would hearken to them and a little ease their burdens. June came in with mild, growing weather, the summer was good, and folk set their faces forward in hope that the marks of the evil year might be wiped out in time.

* * * * *

The hay harvest had been got in, when one evening four men rode up to Jörundgaard. First came two knights, and behind them their serving-men; and the knights were Sir Munan Baardsön and Sir Baard Petersön of Hestnæs.

Ragnfrid and Lavrans had the board spread in the upper hall, and beds made ready in the guest-room over the store-house. But Lavrans begged the knights to tarry with their errand till the next day, when they should be rested from their journey.

Sir Munan led the talk throughout the meal; he turned much to Kristin in talking, and spoke as if he and she were well-acquainted. She saw that this was not to her father’s liking. Sir Munan was square-built, red-faced, ugly, talkative, and something of a buffoon in his bearing. People called him Dumpy Munan or Dance Munan. But for all his flighty bearing Lady Aashild’s son was a man of understanding and parts, who had been used by the Crown more than once in matters of trust, and was known to have a word in the counsels of them that guided the affairs of the kingdom. He held his mother’s heritage in the Skogheim Hundred; was exceeding rich, and had made a rich marriage. Lady Katrin, his wife, was hard-featured beyond the common, and seldom opened her mouth; but her husband ever spoke of her as if she were the wisest of dames, so that she was known in jest as Lady Katrin the Ready-witted, or the Silver-tongued. They seemed to live with each other well and lovingly, though Sir Munan was known all too well for the looseness of his life both before and after his marriage.

Sir Baard Petersön was a comely and a stately old man, even though now somewhat ample of girth and heavy-limbed. His hair and beard were faded now, but their hue was still as much yellow as ’twas white. Since King Magnus Haakonsön’s death he had lived retired, managing his great possessions in Nordmöre. He was a widower for the second time, and had many children, who, it was said, were all comely, well-nurtured and well-to-do.

The next day Lavrans and his guests went up to the upper hall for their parley. Lavrans would have had his wife be present with them, but she would not:

“This matter must be in your hands wholly. You know well ’twill be the heaviest of sorrows for our daughter if it should come to naught; but I see well that there are but too many things that may make against this marriage.”

Sir Munan brought forth a letter from Erlend Nikulaussön. Erlend’s proffer was that Lavrans should fix, himself, each and all of the conditions, if he would betroth his daughter Kristin to him. Erlend was willing to have all his possessions valued and his incomings appraised by impartial men, and to grant to Kristin such extra-gift and morning-gift, that she would possess a third of all his estate besides her own dowry and all such heritage as might come to her from her kin, should she be left a widow without living children. Further his proffer was to grant Kristin full power to deal at her pleasure with her share of the common estate, both what she had of her own kindred and what came to her from her husband. But if Lavrans wished for other terms of settlement, Erlend was most willing to hear his wishes and to follow them in all things. To one thing only he asked that Kristin’s kindred, on their side, should bind themselves: that, should the guardianship of his children and Kristin’s ever come to them, they would never try to set aside the gifts he had made to his children by Eline Ormsdatter, but would let all such gifts hold good, as having passed from his estate before his entry into wedlock with Kristin Lavransdatter. At the end of all Erlend made proffer to hold the wedding in all seemly state at Husaby.

Lavrans spoke in reply:

“This is a fair proffer. I see by it that your kinsman has it much at heart to come to terms with me. All the more is this plain to me by reason that he has moved you, Sir Munan, to come for the second time on such an errand to a man like me, who am of little weight beyond my own country-side; and that a knight like you, Sir Baard, hath been at the pains of making such a journey to further his cause. But concerning Erlend’s proffer I would say this: my daughter has not been bred up to deal herself with the ordering of goods and gear, but I have ever hoped to give her to such a man as that I could lay the maid’s welfare in his hands with an easy mind. I know not, indeed, whether Kristin be fit to be set in such authority, but I can scarce believe that ’twould be for her good. She is mild of mood and biddable—and ’twas one of the reasons I have had in mind in setting myself against this marriage, that ’tis known Erlend has shown want of understanding in more matters than one. Had she been a power-loving, bold and head-strong woman, then indeed the matter had taken on another face.”

Sir Munan burst out laughing:

“Dear Lavrans, lament you that the maid is not head-strong enough—?” and Sir Baard said with a little smile:

“Methinks your daughter has shown that she lacks not a will of her own—for two years now she has held to Erlend clean against your will.”

Lavrans said:

“I have not forgotten it; yet do I know well what I say. She has suffered sorely herself all this time she has stood against me; nor will she long be glad with a husband who cannot rule her.”

“Nay then the devil’s in it!” said Sir Munan. “Then must your daughter be far unlike all the women I have known; for I have never seen _one_ that was not fain to rule herself—and her man to boot!”

Lavrans shrugged his shoulders and made no answer.

Then said Baard Petersön:

“I can well believe, Lavrans Björgulfsön, that you have found this marriage between your daughter and my foster-son no more to your liking, since the woman who had lived with him came to the end we know of last year. But you must know it has come out now that the unhappy woman had let herself be led astray by another man, Erlend’s steward at Husaby. Erlend knew of this when he went with her down the Dale; he had proffered to portion her fittingly, if the man would wed her.”

“Are you well assured that this is so?” asked Lavrans. “And yet I know not,” he said again, “if the thing is anyway bettered thereby. Hard must it be for a woman come of good kindred to go into a house hand and hand with the master, and be led out by the serving-man.”

Munan Baardsön took the word:

“’Tis plain to me, Lavrans Björgulfsön, that what goes against my cousin most with you, is that he has had these hapless dealings with Sigurd Saksulvsön’s wife. And true it is that ’twas not well done of him. But in God’s name, man, you must remember this—here was this young boy dwelling in one house with a young and fair woman, and she had an old, cold, strengthless husband—and the night is a half-year long up there: methinks a man could scarce look for aught else to happen, unless Erlend had been a very saint. There is no denying it: Erlend had made at all times but a sorry monk; but methinks your young, fair daughter would give you little thanks, should you give her a monkish husband.—True it is that Erlend bore himself like a fool then, and a yet greater fool since—But the thing should not stand against him for ever—we his kinsmen have striven to help the boy to his feet again; the woman is dead; and Erlend has done all in his power to care for her body and her soul; the Bishop of Oslo himself hath absolved him of his sin, and now is he come home again made clean by the Holy Blood at Schwerin—would you be stricter than the Bishop of Oslo, and the Archbishop at Schwerin—or whoever it may be that hath charge of that precious blood—?

“Dear Lavrans, true it is that chastity is a fair thing indeed; but ’tis verily hard for a grown man to attain to it without a special gift of grace from God. By St. Olav—Aye, and you should remember too that the Holy King himself was not granted that gift till his life here below was drawing to an end—very like ’twas God’s will that he should first beget that doughty youth King Magnus, who smote down the heathen when they raged against the Nordlands. I wot well King Olav had that son by another than his Queen—yet doth he sit amidst the highest saints in the host of heaven. Aye, I can see in your face that you deem this unseemly talk—”

Sir Baard broke in:

“Lavrans Björgulfsön, I liked this matter no better than you, when first Erlend came to me and said he had set his heart on a maid that was handfast to another. But since then I have come to know that there is so great kindness between these two young folk, that ’twould be great pity to part their loves. Erlend was with me at the last Yule-tide feasting King Haakon held for his men—they met together there, and scarce had they seen each other when your daughter swooned away and lay a long while as one dead—and I saw in my foster-son’s face that he would rather lose his life than lose her.”

Lavrans sat still awhile before answering:

“Aye; all such things sound fair and fine when a man hears them told in a knightly saga of the Southlands. But we are not in Bretland here, and ’tis like you too would ask more in the man you would choose for son-in-law than that he had brought your daughter to swoon away for love in all folk’s sight—”

The two others were silent, and Lavrans went on:

“’Tis in my mind, good Sirs, that had Erlend Nikulaussön not made great waste both of his goods and of his fame, you would scarce be sitting here pleading so strongly with a man of my estate that I should give my daughter to him. But I would be loth it should be said of Kristin that ’twas an honour for her to wed a great estate and a man from amongst the highest in the land—after the man had so beshamed himself, that he could not look to make a better match, or keep undiminished the honour of his house.”

He rose in heat, and began walking to and fro.

But Sir Munan started up:

“Now, before God, Lavrans, if the talk is of shame, I would have you know you are over-proud in—”

Sir Baard broke in quickly, going up to Lavrans:

“Proud you are, Lavrans—you are like those udal farmers we have heard of in olden times, who would have naught to do with the titles the Kings would have given them, because their pride could not brook that folk should say they owed thanks to any but themselves. I tell you, that were Erlend still master of all the honour and riches the boy was born to, yet would I never deem that I demeaned him or myself in asking a well-born and wealthy man to give his daughter to my foster-son, if I knew that the two young creatures might break their hearts if they parted. And the rather,” he said in a low voice, laying his hand on Lavrans’ shoulder, “if so it were that ’twould be best for the souls of both they should wed each other.”

Lavrans drew away from the other’s hand; his face grew set and cold:

“I scarce believe I understand your meaning, Sir Knight?”

The two men looked at each other for a space; then Sir Baard said:

“I mean that Erlend has told me, they two have sworn troth to each other with the dearest oaths. Maybe you would say that you have power to loose your child from her oath, since she swore without your will. But Erlend you cannot loose.—And for aught I can see what most stands in the road is your pride—and the hate you bear to sin. But in that ’tis to me as though you were minded to be stricter than God himself, Lavrans Björgulfsön.”

Lavrans answered somewhat uncertainly:

“It may be there is truth in this that you say to me, Sir Baard. But what most has set me against this match is that I have deemed Erlend to be so unsure a man that I could not trust my daughter to his hands.”

“Methinks I can answer for my foster-son now,” said Baard quietly. “Kristin is so dear to him that I know, if you will give her to him, he will prove in the event such a son-in-law that you shall have no cause of grief.”

Lavrans did not answer at once. Then Sir Baard said earnestly, holding out his hand:

“In God’s name, Lavrans Björgulfsön, give your consent!”

Lavrans laid his hand in Sir Baard’s:

“In God’s name!”

* * * * *

Ragnfrid and Kristin were called to the upper hall, and Lavrans told them his will. Sir Baard greeted the two women in fair and courtly fashion; Sir Munan took Ragnfrid by the hand and spoke to her in seemly wise, but Kristin he greeted in the foreign fashion with a kiss, and he took time over his greeting. Kristin felt that her father looked at her while this was doing.

“How like you your new kinsman, Sir Munan?” he asked jestingly when he was alone with her for a moment late that evening.

Kristin looked beseechingly at him. Then he stroked her face a little and said no more.

* * * * *

When Sir Baard and Sir Munan went to their room, Munan broke out:

“Not a little would I give to see this Lavrans Björgulfsön’s face, should he come to know the truth about this precious daughter of his. Here have you and I had to beg on our knees to win for Erlend a woman he has had with him in Brynhild’s house many times—”

“Hold your peace—no word of that,” answered Sir Baard in wrath. “’Twas the worst deed Erlend ever did, to lure that child to such places—and see that Lavrans never hear aught of it; the best that can happen now for all is that those two should be friends.”

The feast for the drinking of the betrothal ale was appointed to be held that same autumn. Lavrans said he could not make the feast very great, the year before had been such a bad one in the Dale; but to make up he would bear the cost of the wedding himself, and hold it at Jörundgaard in all seemly state. He named the bad year again as the cause why he required that the time of betrothal should last a year.

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6

For more reasons than one the betrothal feast was put off; it was not held till the New Year; but Lavrans agreed that the bridal need not therefore be delayed; it was to be just after Michaelmas, as was fixed at first.

So Kristin sat now at Jörundgaard as Erlend’s betrothed in all men’s sight. Along with her mother she looked over all the goods and gear that had been gathered and saved up for her portion, and strove to add still more to the great piles of bedding and clothes; for when once Lavrans had given his daughter to the master of Husaby, it was his will that naught should be spared.

Kristin wondered herself at times that she did not feel more glad. But, spite of all the busyness, there was no true gladness at Jörundgaard.

Her father and mother missed Ulvhild sorely, that she saw. But she understood too that ’twas not that alone which made them so silent and so joyless. They were kind to her, but when they talked with her of her betrothed, she saw that they did but force themselves to it to please her and show her kindness; ’twas not that they themselves had a mind to speak of Erlend. They had not learned to take more joy in the marriage she was making, now they had come to know the man. Erlend, too, had kept himself quiet and withdrawn the short time he had been at Jörundgaard for the betrothal—and like enough this could not have been otherwise, thought Kristin; for he knew it was with no good will her father had given his consent.

She herself and Erlend had scarce had the chance to speak ten words alone together. And it had brought a strange unwonted feeling, to sit together thus in all folk’s sight; at such times they had little to say, by reason of the many things between them that could not be said. There arose in her a doubtful fear, vague and dim, but always present—perhaps ’twould make it hard for them in some way after they were wedded, that they had come all too near to each other at the first, and after had lived so long quite parted.

But she tried to thrust the fear away. It was meant that Erlend should visit them at Whitsuntide; he had asked Lavrans and Ragnfrid if they had aught against his coming, and Lavrans had laughed a little, and answered that Erlend might be sure his daughter’s bridegroom would be welcome.

At Whitsuntide they would be able to go out together; they would have a chance to speak together as in the old days, and then surely it would fade away, the shadow that had come between them in this long time apart, when each had gone about alone bearing a burden the other could not share.

* * * * *

At Easter Simon Andressön and his wife came to Formo. Kristin saw them in the church. Simon’s wife was standing not far off from her.

She must be much older than he, thought Kristin—nigh thirty years old. Lady Halfrid was little and slender and thin, but she had an exceeding gracious visage. The very hue of her pale-brown hair as it flowed in waves from under her linen coif, seemed, as it were, so gentle, and her eyes too were full of gentleness; they were great grey eyes flecked with tiny golden specks. Every feature of her face was fine and pure—but her skin was something dull and grey, and when she opened her mouth one saw that her teeth were not good. She looked not as though she were strong, and folks said indeed that she was sickly—she had miscarried more than once already, Kristin had heard. She wondered how it would fare with Simon with this wife.

The Jörundgaard folk and they of Formo had greeted each other across the church-green more than once, but had not spoken. But on Easter-day Simon was in the church without his wife. He went across to Lavrans, and they spoke together a while. Kristin heard Ulvhild’s name spoken. Afterwards he spoke with Ragnfrid. Ramborg, who was standing by her mother, called out aloud: “I mind you quite well—_I_ know who you are.” Simon lifted the child up a little and twirled her round: “’Tis well done of you, Ramborg, not to have forgotten me.” Kristin he only greeted from some way off; and her father and mother said no word afterward of the meeting.

But Kristin pondered much upon it. For all that had come and gone, it had been strange to see Simon Darre again as a wedded man. So much that was past came to life again at the sight; she remembered her own blind and all-yielding love for Erlend in those days. Now, she felt, there was some change in it. The thought came to her: how if Simon had told his wife how they had come to part, he and she—but she knew he had kept silence—“for my father’s sake,” she thought scoffingly. ’Twas a poor showing, and strange, that she should be still living here unwed, in her parents’ house. But at least they were betrothed; Simon could see that they had had their way in spite of all. Whatever else Erlend might have done, to _her_ he had held faithfully, and she had not been loose or wanton.

* * * * *

One evening in early spring Ragnfrid had to send down the valley to old Gunhild, the widow who sewed furs. The evening was so fair that Kristin asked if she might not go; at last they gave her leave, since all the men were busy.

It was after sunset, and a fine white frost-haze was rising toward the gold-green sky. Kristin heard at each hoof-stroke the brittle sound of the evening’s ice as it broke and flew outwards in tinkling splinters. But from all the roadside brakes there was a happy noise of birds singing, softly but full-throated with spring, into the twilight.

Kristin rode sharply downwards; she thought not much of anything, but felt only it was good to be abroad alone once more. She rode with her eyes fixed on the new moon sinking down toward the mountain ridge on the far side of the Dale; and she had near fallen from her horse when he suddenly swerved aside and reared.

She saw a dark body lying huddled together at the roadside—and at first she was afraid. The hateful fear that had passed into her blood—the fear of meeting people alone by the way—she could never quite be rid of. But she thought ’twas maybe a wayfaring man who had fallen sick; so when she had mastered her horse again, she turned and rode back, calling out to know who it was.

The bundle stirred a little, and a voice said:

“Methinks ’tis you yourself, Kristin Lavransdatter—?”

“Brother Edwin?” she asked softly. She came near to thinking this was some phantom or some deviltry sent to trick her. But she went nigh to him; it was the old monk himself, and he could not raise himself from the ground without help.

“My dear Father—are you wandering at this time of the year?” she said in wonder.

“Praise be to God, who sent you this way to-night,” said the monk. Kristin saw that his whole body was shaking. “I was coming north to you folks, but my legs would carry me no further this night. Almost I deemed ’twas God’s will that I should lie down and die on the roads I have been wandering about on all my life. But I was fain to see you once again, my daughter—”

Kristin helped the monk up on her horse; then led it homeward by the bridle, holding him on. And, all the time he was lamenting that now she would get her feet wet in the icy slush, she could hear him moaning softly with pain.

He told her that he had been at Eyabu since Yule. Some rich farmers of the parish had vowed in the bad year to beautify their church with new adornments. But the work had gone slowly; he had been sick the last of the winter—the evil was in his stomach—it could bear no food, and he vomited blood. He believed himself he had not long to live, and he longed now to be home in his cloister, for he was fain to die there among his own brethren. But he had a mind first to come north up the Dale one last time, and so he had set out, along with the monk who came from Hamar to be the new prior of the pilgrim hospice at Roaldstad. From Fron he had come on alone.

“I heard that you were betrothed,” he said, “to that man—and then such a longing came on me to see you. It seemed to me a sore thing that that should be our last meeting, that time in our church at Oslo. It has been a heavy burden on my heart, Kristin, that you had strayed away into the path where is no peace—”

Kristin kissed the monk’s hand:

“Truly I know not, Father, what I have done, or how deserved, that you show me such great love.”

The monk answered in a low voice:

“I have thought many a time, Kristin, that had it so befallen we had met more often, then might you have come to be as my daughter in the spirit.”

“Mean you that you would have brought me to turn my heart to the holy life of the cloister?” asked Kristin. Then, a little after, she said: “Sira Eirik laid a command on me that, should I not win my father’s consent and be wed with Erlend, then must I join with a godly sisterhood and make atonement for my sins—”

“I have prayed many a time that the longing for the holy life might come to you,” said Brother Edwin. “But not since you told me that you wot of—I would have had you come to God, wearing your garland, Kristin—”

* * * * *

When they came to Jörundgaard Brother Edwin had to be lifted down and borne in to his bed. They laid him in the old winter house, in the hearth-room, and cared for him most tenderly. He was very sick, and Sira Eirik came and tended him with medicines for the body and the soul. But the priest said the old man’s sickness was cancer, and it could not be that he had long to live. Brother Edwin himself said that when he had gained a little strength he would journey south again and try to come home to his own cloister. But Sira Eirik told the others he could not believe this was to be thought of.

It seemed to all at Jörundgaard that a great peace and gladness had come to them with the monk. Folks came and went in the hearth room all day long, and there was never any lack of watchers to sit at nights by the sick man. As many as had time flocked in to listen, when Sira Eirik came over and read to the dying man from godly books, and they talked much with Brother Edwin of spiritual things. And though much of what he said was dark and veiled, even as his speech was wont to be, it seemed to these folks that he strengthened and comforted their souls, because each and all could see that Brother Edwin was wholly filled with the love of God.

But the monk was fain to hear, too, of all kind of other things—asked the news of the parishes round, and had Lavrans tell him all the story of the evil year of drought. There were some folk who had betaken them to evil courses in that tribulation, turning to such helpers as Christian men should most abhor. Some way in over the ridges west of the Dale was a place in the mountains where were certain great white stones, of obscene shapes, and some men had fallen so low as to sacrifice boars and gib-cats before these abominations. So Sira Eirik moved some of the boldest, most God-fearing farmers to come with him one night and break the stones in pieces. Lavrans had been with them, and could bear witness that the stones were all besmeared with blood, and there lay bones and other refuse all around them—’Twas said that up in Heidal the people had had an old crone sit out on a great earth-fast rock three Thursday nights, chanting ancient spells.

* * * * *

One night Kristin sat alone by Brother Edwin. At midnight he woke up, and seemed to be suffering great pain. Then he bade Kristin take the book of Miracles of the Virgin Mary, which Sira Eirik had lent to Brother Edwin, and read to him.

Kristin was little used to read aloud, but she set herself down on the step of the bed and placed the candle by her side; she laid the book on her lap and read as well as she could.

In a little while she saw that the sick man was lying with teeth set tight, clenching his wasted hands as the fits of agony took him.

“You are suffering much, dear Father,” said Kristin sorrowfully.

“It seems so to me, now. But I know ’tis but that God has made me a little child again and is tossing me about, up and down—

“I mind me one time when I was little—four winters old I was then—I had run away from home into the woods. I lost myself, and wandered about many days and nights—My mother was with the folks that found me, and when she caught me up in her arms, I mind me well, she bit me in my neck. I thought it was that she was angry with me—but afterward I knew better—

“I long, myself, now, to be home out of this forest. It is written: forsake ye all things and follow me—but there has been all too much in this world that I had no mind to forsake—”

“_You_, Father?” said Kristin. “Ever have I heard all men say that you have been a pattern for pure life and poverty and humbleness—”

The monk laughed slily.

“Aye, a young child like you thinks, maybe, there are no other lures in the world than pleasure and riches and power. But I say to you, these are small things men find by the wayside; and I—I have loved the ways themselves—not the small things of the world did I love, but the _whole_ world. God gave me grace to love Lady Poverty and Lady Chastity from my youth up, and thus methought with these playfellows it was safe to wander, and so I have roved and wandered, and would have been fain to roam over all the ways of the earth. And my heart and my thoughts have roamed and wandered too—I fear me I have often gone astray in my thoughts on the most hidden things. But now ’tis all over, little Kristin; I will home now to my house and lay aside all my own thoughts, and hearken to the clear words of the Gardian telling what I should believe and think concerning my sin and the mercy of God—”

A little while after he dropped asleep. Kristin went and sat by the hearth tending the fire. But well on in the morning, when she was nigh dozing off herself, of a sudden Brother Edwin spoke from the bed:

“Glad am I, Kristin, that this matter of you and Erlend Nikulaussön is brought to a good end.”

Kristin burst out weeping:

“We have done so much wrong before we came so far. And what gnaws at my heart most is that I have brought my father so much sorrow. He has no joy in this wedding either. And even so he knows not—did he know all—I trow he would take his kindness quite from me.”

“Kristin,” said Brother Edwin gently, “see you not, child, that ’tis therefore you must keep it from him, and ’tis therefore you must give him no more cause of sorrow—because he never will call on you to pay the penalty. Nothing you could do could turn your father’s heart from you.”

* * * * *

A few days later Brother Edwin was grown so much better that he would fain set out on his journey southward. Since his heart was set on this, Lavrans had a kind of litter made, to be slung between two horses, and on this he brought the sick man as far south as to Lidstad; there they gave him fresh horses and men to tend him on his way, and in this wise was he brought as far as Hamar. There he died in the cloister of the Preaching Friars, and was buried in their church. Afterward the Barefoot Friars claimed that his body should be delivered to them; for that many folks all about in the parishes held him to be a holy man, and spoke of him by the name of Saint Evan. The peasants of the Uplands and the Dales, all the way north to Trondheim, prayed to him as a saint. So it came about that there was a long dispute between the two Orders about his body.

Kristin heard naught of this till long after. But she grieved sorely at parting from the monk. It seemed to her that he alone knew all her life—he had known the innocent child as she was in her father’s keeping, and he had known her secret life with Erlend; so that he was, as it were, a link, binding together all that had first been dear to her with all that now filled her heart and mind. Now was she quite cut off from herself as she had been in the time when she was yet a maid.

* * * * *

“Aye,” said Ragnfrid, feeling with her hand the lukewarm brew in the vats, “methinks ’tis cool enough now to mix in the barm.”

Kristin had been sitting in the brew-house doorway spinning, while she waited for the brew to cool. She laid down the spindle on the threshold, unwrapped the rug from the pail of risen yeast, and began measuring out.

“Shut the door first,” bade her mother, “so the draught may not come in—you seem walking in your sleep, Kristin,” she said testily.

Kristin poured the yeast in to the vats, while Ragnfrid stirred.

—Geirhild Drivsdatter called on Hatt, but he was Odin. So he came and helped her with the brewing; and he craved for his wage that which was between the vat and her—’Twas a saga that Lavrans had once told when she was little. That which was between the vat and her—

Kristin felt dizzy and sick with the heat and the sweet spicy-smelling steam that filled the dark close-shut brew-house.

Out in the farm-place Ramborg and a band of children were dancing in a ring, singing:

“The eagle sits on the topmost hill-crag
Crooking his golden claws....”

Kristin followed her mother through the little outer room where lay empty ale-kegs and all kinds of brewing gear. A door led from it out to a strip of ground between the back wall of the brew-house and the fence round the barley-field. A herd of pigs jostled each other, and bit and squealed as they fought over the lukewarm grains thrown out to them.

Kristin shaded her eyes against the blinding midday sunlight. The mother looked at the pigs and said:

“With less than eighteen reindeer we shall never win through.”

“Think you we shall need so many?” said her daughter, absently.

“Aye, for we must have game to serve up with the pork each day,” answered Ragnfrid. “And of wild-fowl and hare we shall scarce have more than will serve for the table in the upper hall. Remember, ’twill be well on toward two hundred people we shall have on the place—counting serving-folk and children—and the poor that have to be fed. And even should you and Erlend set forth on the fifth day, some of the guests, I trow, will stay out the week—at the least.”

“You must stay here and look to the ale, Kristin,” she went on. “’Tis time for me to get dinner for your father and the reapers.”

* * * * *

Kristin fetched her spinning gear and sat herself down there in the back doorway. She put the distaff with the bunch of wool up under her arm-pit, but her hands, with the spindle in them, sank into her lap.

Beyond the fence the ears of barley gleamed silvery and silken in the sunshine. Above the song of the river she heard now and again from the meadows on the river-island the ring of a scythe—sometimes the iron would strike upon a stone. Her father and the house-folk were hard at work on the hay-making, to get it off their hands. For there was much to get through and to make ready against her wedding.

The scent of the lukewarm grains, and the rank smell of the swine—she grew qualmish again. And the midday heat made her so dizzy and faint. White and stiffly upright she sat and waited for it to pass over—she _would_ not to be sick again—

Never before had she felt what now she felt. ’Twas of no avail to try to tell herself for comfort: it was not certain yet—she might be wrong——That which was between the vat and her—

Eighteen reindeer. Well on toward two hundred wedding-guests—Folk would have a rare jest to laugh at when ’twas known that all this hubbub had but been about a breeding woman they had to see and get married before—

Oh no. She threw her spinning from her and started up as the sickness overcame her again—Oh no, it was sure enough!—

They were to be wedded the second Sunday after Michaelmas, and the bridal was to last for five days. There were more than two months still to wait; they would be sure to see it on her—her mother and the other housewives of the parish. They were ever wise in such things—knew them months before Kristin could understand how they saw them. “Poor thing, she grows so pale”—Impatiently Kristin rubbed her hands against her cheeks; she felt that they were white and bloodless.

Before, she had so often thought: this must happen soon or late. And she had not feared it so terribly. But ’twould not have been the same then, when they could not—were forbidden to come together in lawful wise. It was counted—aye, a shame in a manner, and a sin too—but if ’twere two young things who _would not_ let themselves be forced apart, folk remembered that ’twas so, and spoke of them with forbearance. _She_ would not have been ashamed. But when such things happened between a betrothed pair—there was naught for them but laughter and gross jesting. She saw it herself—one could not but laugh: here was brewing and mixing of wine, slaughtering and baking and cooking for a wedding that should be noised far abroad in the land—and she, the bride, grew qualmish if she but smelt food, and crept in a cold sweat behind the out-houses to be sick.

Erlend. She set her teeth hard in anger. He should have spared her this. For she had not been willing. He should have remembered that before, when all had been so unsure for her, when she had had naught to trust to but his love, she had ever, ever gladly been his. He should have let her be now, when she tried to deny him because she thought ’twas not well of them to take aught by stealth, after her father had joined their hands together in the sight of Erlend’s kinsmen and hers. But he had taken her to him, half by force, with laughter and caresses; so that she had not had strength enough to show him she was in earnest in her denial.

She went in and saw to the beer in the vats, then came back again and stood leaning on the fence. The standing grain moved gently in shining ripples before a breath of wind. She could not remember any year when she had seen the corn-fields bear such thick and abundant growth.—The river glittered far off, and she heard her father’s voice shouting—she could not catch the words, but she could hear the reapers on the island laughing.

Should she go to her father and tell him: ’Twould be best to let be all this weary bustle and let Erlend and her come together quietly without church-wedding or splendid feasts—now that the one thing needful was that she should bear the name of wife before ’twas plain to all men that she bore Erlend’s child under her heart already?

_He_ would be a laughing-stock, Erlend too, as much as she—or even more, for he was no green boy any longer. But it was he who would have this wedding; he had set his heart on seeing her stand as his bride in silk and velvets and tall golden crown—_that_ was his will, and it had been his will, too, to possess her in those sweet secret hours of last spring. She had yielded to him in that. And she must do his will too in this other thing.

But in the end ’twas like he would be forced to see—no one could have it both ways in such things. He had talked so much of the great Yule-tide feast he would hold at Husaby the first year she sat there as mistress of his house—how he would show forth to all his kinsmen and friends and all the folks from far around the fair wife he had won. Kristin smiled scornfully. A seemly thing ’twould be this Yule-tide, such a home-coming feast!

Her time would be at St. Gregory’s Mass or thereabout. Thoughts seemed to swarm and jostle in her mind when she said to herself that at Gregory’s Mass she was to bear a child. There was some fear among the thoughts—she remembered how her mother’s cries had rung all round the farm-place for two whole days, the time that Ulvhild was born. At Ulvsvold two young wives had died in childbirth, one after the other—and Sigurd of Loptsgaard’s first wives too. And her own father’s mother, whose name she bore—

But fear was not uppermost in her mind. She had often thought, when after that first time she saw no sign that she was with child—maybe this was to be their punishment—hers and Erlend’s. She would always be barren. They would wait and wait in vain for what they had feared before, would hope as vainly as of old they had feared needlessly—till at last they would know that one day they should be borne forth from the home of his fathers and be as though they had never been—for his brother was a priest, and the children he had could inherit naught from him. Dumpy Munan and his sons would come in and sit in their seats, and Erlend would be blotted out from the line of his kindred.

She pressed her hand hard to her body. It was there—between the fence and her—between the vat and her. ’Twas between her and all the world—Erlend’s own son. She had made the trial already that she had once heard Lady Aashild speak of; with blood from her right arm and her left. ’Twas a son that was coming to her—whatever fate he was to bring—She remembered her dead little brothers, her parents’ sorrowful faces when they spoke of them; she remembered all the times she had seen them both in despair for Ulvhild’s sake—and the night when Ulvhild died. And she thought of all the sorrow she herself had brought them, of her father’s grief-worn face—and the end was not yet of the sorrows she was to bring on her father and mother.

And yet—and yet. Kristin laid her head on the arm that rested on the fence; the other hand she still held to her body. Even if it brought her new sorrows, even if it led her feet down to death—she would rather die in bearing Erlend a son than that they should both die one day, and leave their houses standing empty, and the corn on their lands should wave for strangers—

She heard a footstep in the room behind her. The ale! thought Kristin—I should have seen to it long ago. She stood up and turned—and Erlend came stooping through the doorway and stepped out into the sunlight—his face shining with gladness.

“Is this where you are?” he asked. “And not a step will you come to meet me, even?” he said; and came and threw his arms about her.

“Dearest; are you come hither?” she said in wonder.

It was plain he was just alighted from his horse—his cloak still hung from his shoulder, and his sword at his side—he was unshaven, travel-soiled and covered with dust. He was clad in a red surcoat that hung in folds from its collar and was open up the sides almost to the armpits. As they passed through the brew-house and across the courtyard, the coat swung and flapped about him so that his thighs showed right up to the waist. His legs bent a little outwards when he walked—it was strange she had never marked it before—she had only seen that he had long slender legs, with fine ankles and small well-shaped feet.

Erlend had come well-attended—with five men and four led-horses. He told Ragnfrid that he was come to fetch Kristin’s goods—’twould be more homely for her, he thought, to find the things awaiting her at Husaby when she came thither. And so late in the autumn as the wedding was to be, it might be harder then to have the goods brought across the hills—besides they might easily be spoiled by the sea-water on ship-board. Now the Abbot of Nidarholm had proffered to give him leave to send them by the Laurentius galleass—’twas meant she should sail from Veöy about Assumption Day. So he was come to have the goods carted over to Romsdal and down to Næs.

He sat in the doorway of the kitchen-house, drinking ale and talking while Ragnfrid and Kristin plucked the wild-duck Lavrans had brought home the day before. Mother and daughter were alone on the place; all the women were busy raking in the meadows. He looked so glad and happy—he was pleased with himself for coming on such a wise and prudent errand.

Ragnfrid went out, and Kristin stayed minding the spit with the roasting birds. Through the open door she could catch a glimpse of Erlend’s men lying in the shadow on the other side of the courtyard, with the ale-bowl circling among them. Erlend himself sat on the threshold, chatting and laughing—the sun shone right down on his uncovered coal-black hair; she spied some white threads in it. Aye, he must be near thirty-two years old—but he bore himself like a mischievous boy. She knew she would not be able to tell him of her trouble—time enough when he saw it for himself. Laughing tenderness streamed through her heart, over the hard little spot of anger at its core, like a glittering river flowing over stones.

She loved him above all on earth—her soul was filled with her love, though all the time she saw and remembered all those other things. How ill this gallant in the fine red surcoat, with silver spurs on heel and belt adorned with gold, suited with the busy harvest-time of Jörundgaard.—She marked well, too, that her father came not up to the farm, though her mother had sent Ramborg down to the river to bear him word of the guest that was come.

Erlend stood beside her and passed his arm around her shoulders:

“Can you believe it!” he said joyfully, “Seems it not marvellous to you—that ’tis for our wedding, all this toil and bustle?”

Kristin gave him a kiss and thrust him aside—then turned to basting the birds and bade him stand out of the way. No, she would not say it—

* * * * *

It was not till supper-time that Lavrans came back to the farm—along with the other harvesters. He was clad much like his workmen, in an undyed wadmal coat cut off at the knees and loose breeches reaching to the ankles; he walked barefoot, with his scythe over his shoulder. There was naught in his dress to mark him off from the serving-men, save the leathern shoulder-piece that made a perch for the hawk he bore on his left shoulder. He led Ramborg by the hand.

He greeted his son-in-law heartily enough, begging him to forgive that he had not come before—’twas that they must push on with the farm work as hard as they could, for he himself had a journey to make to the market town between the hay and the corn harvests. But when Erlend told the errand he had come on, as they sat at the supper-board, Lavrans grew something out of humour.

’Twas impossible he should spare carts and horses for such work at this time. Erlend answered: he had brought four pack-horses with him. But Lavrans said there would be three cartloads at the least. Besides, the maid must have her wearing apparel with her here. And the bed-furniture that Kristin was to have with her, they would need here too for the wedding, so many guests as they would have in the house.