Chapter II: Book ONE: Jörundgaard (2)

’Twas like going into the mountain-side, thought Kristin, when they mounted into the church forehall; it struck chill and dark in there. They went through a door, and were met by the stale, cold smell of incense and candles. Now Kristin was in a dark and vastly lofty place. She could not see where it ended, neither above nor to the sides, but lights burned upon an altar far in front. There stood a priest, and the echoes of his voice stole strangely round the great place, like breathings and whisperings. Her father signed the cross with holy-water upon himself and the child, and so they went forward; though he stepped warily, his spurs rang loudly on the stone floor. They passed by giant pillars, and betwixt the pillars it was like looking into coal-black holes.

Forward, nigh to the altar, the father bent his knee, and Kristin knelt beside him. She began to be able to make things out in the gloom—gold and silver glittered on altars in between the pillars, but upon that before them shone tapers which stood and burned on gilt candlesticks, while the light streamed back from the holy vessels and the big, beautiful picture-panel behind. Kristin was brought again to think of the mountain-folk’s hall—even so had she dreamed it must be, splendid like this, but maybe with yet more lights. And the dwarf-maid’s face came up before her—but then she raised her eyes and spied upon the wall above the altar, Christ himself, great and stern, lifted high upon the cross. Fear came upon her—he did not look mild and sorrowful as at home in their own snug timber-brown church, where he hung heavily, with pierced feet and hands, and bowed his blood-besprinkled head beneath the crown of thorns.

Here, he stood upon a footboard with stiff, outstretched arms and upright head; his gilded hair glittered; he was crowned with a crown of gold, and his face was upturned and harsh.

Then she tried to follow the priest’s words as he read and chanted, but his speech was too hurried and unclear. At home she was wont to understand each word, for Sira Eirik had the clearest speech, and had taught her what the holy words betokened in Norse, that she might the better keep her thoughts with God while she was in church.

But she could not do that here, for every moment she grew aware of something new in the darkness. There were windows high up in the walls, and these began to shimmer with the day. And near by where they knelt there was raised a wondrous scaffolding of timber, but beyond lay blocks of light-coloured stone; and there stood mortar-troughs and tools—and she heard folks coming tiptoeing about in there. But then again her eyes fell upon the stern Lord Christ upon the wall, and she strove to keep her thoughts fixed upon the service. The icy cold from the stone floor stiffened her legs right up to the thighs, and her knees gave her pain. At length everything began to sway about her, so weary was she.

Then her father rose; the mass was at an end. The priest came forward and greeted her father. While they spoke, Kristin sate herself down upon a step, for she saw the choirboy had done the like. He yawned—and so she too fell a yawning. When he marked that she looked at him, he set his tongue in his cheek and twisted his eyes at her. Thereupon he dug up a pouch from under his clothing and emptied upon the flags all that was in it—fish-hooks, lumps of lead, leather thongs and a pair of dice, and all the while he made signs to her. Kristin wondered mightily.

But now the priest and her father looked at the children. The priest laughed, and bade the boy be gone back to school, but Lavrans frowned and took Kristin by the hand.

It began to grow lighter in the church now. Kristin clung sleepily to Lavrans’ hand, while he and the priest walked beneath the pile of timber and talked of Bishop Ingjald’s building-work.

They wandered all about the church, and in the end went out into the forehall. Thence a stone stairway led to the western tower. Kristin tumbled wearily up the steps. The priest opened a door to a fair chapel, and her father said that Kristin should set herself without upon the steps and wait while he went to shrift; and thereafter she could come in and kiss St. Thomas’s shrine.

At that there came an old monk in an ash-brown frock from out the chapel. He stopped a moment, smiled at the child, and drew forth some sacks and wadmal cloths which had been stuck into a hole in the wall. These he spread upon the landing:

“Sit you here, and you will not be so cold,” said he, and passed down the steps upon his naked feet.

Kristin was sleeping when Canon Martein, as the priest was called, came out and waked her with a touch. Up from the church sounded the sweetest of song, and in the chapel candles burned upon the altar. The priest made sign that she should kneel by her father’s side, and then he took down a little golden shrine which stood above the communion-table. He whispered to her that in it was a piece of St. Thomas of Canterbury’s bloody garments, and he pointed at the saint’s figure on the shrine that Kristin might press her lips to his feet.

The lovely tones still streamed from the church as they came down the steps; Canon Martein said ’twas the organist practising his art and the school-boys singing; but they had not the time to stay and listen, for her father was hungry—he had come fasting for confession—and they were now bound for the guest-room of the canons’ close to take their food.

The morning sun without was gilding the steep shores on the further side of the great lake, and all the groves of yellowing leaf-trees shone like gold-dust amid the dark-blue pinewoods. The lake ran in waves with small dancing white caps of foam to their heads. The wind blew cold and fresh and the many-hued leaves drifted down upon the rimy hillsides.

A band of riders came forth from between the bishop’s palace and the house of the Brothers of Holy Cross. Lavrans stepped aside and bowed with a hand upon his breast, while he all but swept the sward with his hat, so Kristin could guess the nobleman in the fur cloak must be the bishop himself, and she curtsied to the ground.

The bishop reined in his horse and gave back the greeting; he beckoned Lavrans to him and spoke with him a while. In a short space Lavrans came back to the priest and child and said:

“Now am I bidden to eat at the bishop’s palace—think you Canon Martein, that one of the serving-men of the canonry could go with this little maid of mine home to Fartein the shoemaker’s and bid my men send Halvdan to meet me here with Guldsveinen at the hour of nones.”

The priest answered, doubtless what he asked could be done. But on this the bare-footed monk who had spoken to Kristin on the tower stairs came forward and saluted them:

“There is a man here in our guest-house who has an errand of his own to the shoemaker’s; he can bear your bidding thither, Lavrans Björgulfsön, and your daughter can go with him or bide at the cloister with me till you yourself are for home. I shall see to it that she has her food there.”

Lavrans thanked him but said, “’Twere shame you should be troubled with the child, brother Edwin—”

“Brother Edwin draws to himself all the children he can lay hands upon,” said Canon Martein and laughed. “’Tis in this wise he gets someone to preach to—”

“Aye, before you learnéd lords here in Hamar I dare not proffer my poor discourses,” said the monk without anger, and smiling. “All I am fit for is to talk to children and peasants, but even so, ’tis not well, we know, to muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.”

Kristin looked up at her father beseechingly; she thought there was nothing she would like more than to go with brother Edwin. So Lavrans gave thanks again, and while her father and the priest went after the bishop’s train, Kristin laid her hand in the monk’s, and they went down towards the cloister, a cluster of wooden houses and a light-hued stone church far down by the lake-side.

Brother Edwin gave her hand a little squeeze, and as they looked at one another they had both to laugh. The monk was thin and tall, but very stoop-backed; the child thought him like an old crane in the head, for ’twas little, with a small, shining, bald pate above a shaggy, white rim of hair, and set upon a long, thin, wrinkled neck. His nose was large too, and pointed like a beak. But ’twas something which made her light of heart and glad, only to look up into the long, narrow, deep-lined face. The old, sea-blue eyes were red-rimmed and the lids brown and thin as flakes. A thousand wrinkles spread out from them; the wizened cheeks with the reddish network of veins were scored with furrows which ran down towards the thin-lipped mouth, but ’twas as though Brother Edwin had grown thus wrinkled only through smiling at mankind.—Kristin thought she had never seen anyone so blithe and gentle; it seemed he bore some bright and privy gladness within which she would get to know of when he began to speak.

They followed the fence of an apple-orchard where there still hung upon the trees a few red and golden fruit. Two Preaching Brothers in black and white gowns were raking together withered beanshaws in the garden.

The cloister was not much unlike any other farm steading, and the guest-house whither the monk led Kristin was most like a poor peasant’s house, though there were many bedsteads in it. In one of the beds lay an old man, and by the hearth sat a woman swathing a little child; two bigger children, boy and girl, stood beside her.

They murmured, both the man and the woman, that they had not been given their breakfast yet: “None will be at the pains to bear in food to us twice in the day, so we must e’en starve while you run about the town, Brother Edwin!”

“Nay, be not peevish, Steinulv,” said the monk, “—Come hither and make your greetings, Kristin—see this bonny, sweet little maid who is to stay and eat with us to-day.”

He told how Steinulv had fallen sick on the way home from a fair, and had got leave to lie here in the cloister guest-house, for he had a kinswoman dwelling in the spital and she was so curst he could not endure to be there with her.

“But I see well enough, they will soon be weary of having me here,” said the peasant. “When you set forth again, Brother Edwin, there will be none here that has time to tend me, and they will surely have me to the spital again.”

“Oh! you will be well and strong long before I am done with my work in the church,” said Brother Edwin. “Then your son will come and fetch you—” He took up a kettle of hot water from the hearth and let Kristin hold it while he tended Steinulv. Thereupon the old man grew somewhat easier, and soon after there came in a monk with food and drink for them.

Brother Edwin said grace over the meat, and set himself on the edge of the bed by Steinulv that he might help him to take his food. Kristin went and sat by the woman and gave the boy to eat, for he was so little he could not well reach up to the porridge-dish, and he spilled upon himself when he tried to dip into the beer-bowl. The woman was from Hadeland, and she was come hither with her man and her children to see her brother who was a monk here in the cloister. But he was away wandering among the country parishes, and she grumbled much that they must lie here and waste their time.

Brother Edwin spoke the woman fair: she must not say she wasted time when she was here in Bishopshamar. Here were all the brave churches, and the monks and canons held masses and sang the livelong day and night—and the city was fine, finer than Oslo even, though ’twas somewhat less; but here were gardens to almost every dwelling-place: “You should have seen it when I came hither in the spring—’twas white with blossom over all the town. And after, when the sweet-brier burst forth—”

“Aye, and much good is that to me now,” said the woman sourly. “And here are more of holy places than of holiness, methinks—”

The monk laughed a little and shook his head. Then he routed amidst the straw of his bed and brought forth a great handful of apples and pears which he shared amongst the children. Kristin had never tasted such good fruit. The juice ran out from the corners of her mouth every bite she took.

But now Brother Edwin must go to the church, he said, and Kristin should go with him. Their path went slantwise across the close, and, by a little side wicket, they passed into the choir.

They were still building at this church as well, so that here too there stood a tall scaffolding in the cross where nave and transepts met. Bishop Ingjald was bettering and adorning the choir, said Brother Edwin—the bishop had great wealth, and all his riches he used for the adornment of the churches here in the town; he was a noble bishop and a good man. The Preaching Friars in the Olav’s cloister were good men too, clean-living, learned and humble; ’twas a poor cloister, but they had made him most welcome—Brother Edwin had his home in the Minorite cloister at Oslo, but he had leave to spend a term here in Hamar diocese.

“But now come hither,” said he, and led Kristin forward to the foot of the scaffolding. First he climbed up a ladder and laid some boards straight up there, and then he came down again and helped the child up with him.

Upon the grey-stone wall above her Kristin saw wondrous fluttering flecks of light; red as blood and yellow as beer, blue and brown and green. She would have turned to look behind her, but the monk whispered: “Turn not about.” But when they stood together high upon the planking, he turned her gently round, and Kristin saw a sight so fair she almost lost her breath.

Right over against her on the nave’s south wall stood a picture and shone as if it were made of naught but gleaming precious stones. The many-hued flecks of light upon the wall came from rays which stood out from that picture; she herself and the monk stood in the midst of the glory; her hands were red as though dipped in wine; the monk’s visage seemed all golden, and his dark frock threw the picture’s colours softly back. She looked up at him questioningly, but he only nodded and smiled.

’Twas like standing far off and looking into the heavenly kingdom. Behind a network of black streaks, she made out little by little the Lord Christ himself in the most precious of red robes, the Virgin Mary in raiment blue as heaven, holy men and maidens in shining yellow and green and violet array. They stood below arches and pillars of glimmering houses, wound about with branches and twigs of strange bright leafage—

The monk drew her a little further out upon the staging:

“Stand here,” he whispered, “and ’twill shine right upon you from Christ’s own robe.”

From the church beneath there rose to them a faint odour of incense and the smell of cold stone. It was dim below, but the sun’s rays slanted in through a row of window-bays in the nave’s south wall. Kristin began to understand that the heavenly picture must be a sort of windowpane, for it filled just such an opening. The others were empty or filled with panes of horn set in wooden frames. A bird came, set itself upon a windowsill, twittered a little and flew away, and outside the wall of the choir they heard the clank of metal on stone. All else was still; only the wind came in small puffs, sighed a little round about the church walls and died away.

“Aye, aye,” said Brother Edwin and sighed. “No one here in the land can make the like—they paint on glass, ’tis true, in Nidaros, but not like this—But away in the lands of the south, Kristin, in the great minsters, there they have such picture-panes, big as the doors of the church here—”

Kristin thought of the pictures in the church at home. There was St. Olav’s altar and St. Thomas of Canterbury’s altar with pictures on their front panels and on the tabernacles behind—but those pictures seemed to her dull and lustreless as she thought of them now.

They went down the ladder and up into the choir. There stood the altar table, naked and bare, and on the stone slab were set many small boxes and cups of metal and wood and earthenware; strange little knives and irons, pens and brushes lay about. Brother Edwin said these were his gear; he plied the crafts of painting pictures and carving altar-tabernacles, and the fine panels which stood yonder by the choir-stalls were his work. They were for the altarpieces here in the Preaching Friars’ church.

Kristin watched how he mixed up coloured powders and stirred them into little cups of stoneware, and he let her help him bear the things away to a bench by the wall. While the monk went from one panel to another and painted fine red lines in the bright hair of the holy men and women so that one could see it curl and crinkle, Kristin kept close at his heels and gazed and questioned, and he explained to her what it was that he had limned.

On the one panel sat Christ in a chair of gold, and St. Nicholas and St. Clement stood beneath a roof by his side. And at the sides was painted St. Nicholas’ life and works. In one place he sat as a suckling child upon his mother’s knee; he turned away from the breast she reached him, for he was so holy that from the very cradle he would not suck more than once on Fridays. Alongside of that was a picture of him as he laid the money-purses before the door of the house where dwelt the three maids who were so poor they could not find husbands. She saw how he healed the Roman knight’s child, and saw the knight sailing in a boat with the false chalice in his hands. He had vowed the holy bishop a chalice of gold which had been in his house a thousand years, as guerdon for bringing his son back to health again. But he was minded to trick St. Nicholas and give him a false chalice instead; therefore the boy fell into the sea with the true beaker in his hands. But St. Nicholas led the child unhurt underneath the water and up on to the shore just as his father stood in St. Nicholas’ church and offered the false vessel. It all stood painted upon the panels in gold and the fairest colours.

On another panel sat the Virgin Mary with the Christ-child on her knee; he pressed his mother’s chin with the one hand and held an apple in the other. Beside them stood St. Sunniva and St. Christina. They bowed in lovely wise from their waists, their faces were the fairest red and white and they had golden hair and golden crowns.

Brother Edwin steadied himself with the left hand on the right wrist, and painted leaves and roses on the crowns.

“The dragon is all too small, methinks,” said Kristin, looking at her holy namesake’s picture. “It looks not as though it could swallow up the maiden.”

“And that it could not either,” said Brother Edwin. “It was not bigger. Dragons and all such-like that serve the devil, seem great only so long as fear is in ourselves. But if a man seek God fervently and with all his soul so that his longing wins into his strength, then does the devil’s power suffer at once such great downfall that his tools become small and powerless—dragons and evil spirits sink down and become no bigger than sprites and cats and crows. You see that the whole mountain St. Sunniva was in is no larger than that she can wrap it within the skirt of her gown.”

“But were they not in the caves then,” asked Kristin, “St. Sunniva and the Selje-men? Is not that true?”

The monk twinkled at her and smiled again:

“’Tis both true and untrue. It seemed so to the folk who found the holy bodies. And true it is that it seemed so to Sunniva and the Selje-men, for they were humble and thought only that the world is stronger than all sinful mankind, and they thought not that they themselves were stronger than the world, because they loved it not. But had they but known it, they could have taken all the hills and slung them forth into the sea like so many pebbles. No one, nor anything, can harm us child, save what we fear or love.”

“But if a body doth not fear nor love God?” asked Kristin, affrighted.

The monk took her yellow hair in his hand, bent Kristin’s head back gently and looked down into her face; his eyes were wide open and blue.

“There is no man nor woman, Kristin, who does not love and fear God, but ’tis because our hearts are divided twixt love of God and fear of the devil and fondness for the world and the flesh, that we are unhappy in life and death. For if a man had not any yearning after God and God’s being, then should he thrive in hell, and ’twould be we alone who would not understand that there he had gotten what his heart desired. For there the fire would not burn him if he did not long for coolness, nor would he feel the torment of the serpents’ bite, if he knew not the yearning after peace.”

Kristin looked up in his face; she understood none of all this. Brother Edwin went on:

“’Twas God’s loving-kindness towards us that, seeing how our hearts are drawn asunder, He came down and dwelt among us, that He might taste in the flesh the lures of the devil when he decoys us with power and splendour, as well as the menace of the world when it offers us blows and scorn and sharp nails in hands and feet. In such wise did He show us the way and make manifest His love—”

He looked down upon the child’s grave, set face—then he laughed a little and said with quite another voice:

“Do you know who ’twas that first knew our Lord had caused himself to be born? ’Twas the cock; he saw the star and so he said—all the beasts could talk Latin in those days; he cried: ‘Christus natus est!’”

He crowed these last words so like a cock that Kristin fell to laughing heartily. And it did her good to laugh, for all the strange things Brother Edwin had just been saying had laid a burden of awe on her heart.

The monk laughed himself:

“Aye, and when the ox heard that, he began to low: ‘Ubi, ubi, ubi.’

“But the goat bleated and said: ‘Betlem, Betlem, Betlem!’

“And the sheep longed so to see Our Lady and her Son that she baa-ed out at once: ‘Eamus, eamus!’

“And the new-born calf that lay in the straw, raised itself and stood upon its feet. ‘Volo, volo, volo!’ it said.

“You never heard that before? No, I can believe it; I know that he is a worthy priest, that Sira Eirik that you have up in your parts, and learned; but he knows not this, I warrant; for a man does not learn it except he journey to Paris—”

“Have _you_ been to Paris then?” asked the child.

“God bless you, little Kristin, I have been in Paris and have travelled round elsewhere in the world as well; and you must not believe aught else than that I am afraid of the devil, and love and covet like any other fool. But I hold fast to the Cross with all my might—one must cling to it like a kitten to a lath when it has fallen in the sea—

“And you, Kristin—how would you like to offer up this bonny hair and serve Our Lady like these brides I have figured here?”

“We have no child at home but me,” answered Kristin. “So ’tis like that I must marry. And I trow mother has chests and lockers with my bridal gear standing ready even now.”

“Aye, aye,” said Brother Edwin, and stroked her forehead. “’Tis thus that folk deal with their children now. To God they give the daughters who are lame or purblind or ugly or blemished, or they let Him have back the children when they deem Him to have given them more than they need. And then they wonder that all who dwell in the cloisters are not holy men and maids—”

* * * * *

Brother Edwin took her into the sacristy and showed her the cloister books which stood there in a book-case; there were the fairest pictures in them. But when one of the monks came in, Brother Edwin made as though he were but seeking an ass’s head to copy. Afterward he shook his head at himself:

“Aye, there you see what fear does, Kristin—but they’re so fearful about their books in the house here. Had I the true faith and love, I would not stand here as I do and lie to Brother Aasulv—But then I could take these old fur mittens here and hang them upon yonder sunbeam—”

She was with the monk to dinner over in the guest-house, but for the rest she sat in the church the whole day and watched his work and chatted with him. And first when Lavrans came to fetch her, did either she or the monk remember the message that should have been sent to the shoemaker.

* * * * *

Afterwards Kristin remembered these days in Hamar better than all else that befell her on the long journey. Oslo, indeed, was a greater town than Hamar, but now that she had seen a market town, it did not seem to her so notable. Nor did she deem it as fair at Skog as at Jörundgaard, though the houses were grander—but she was glad she was not to dwell there. The manor lay upon a hillside; below was the Botnfjord, grey, and sad with dark forest, and on the further shore and behind the houses the forest stood with the sky right down upon the tree-tops. There were no high, steep fells as at home, to hold the heavens high above one and to keep the sight sheltered and in bounds so that the world might seem neither too big nor too little.

The journey home was cold; it was nigh upon Advent; but, when they were come a little way up the Dale, snow was lying, and so they borrowed sleighs and drove most of the way.

With the affair of the estates it fell out so that Lavrans made Skog over to his brother Aasmund, keeping the right of redemption for himself and his heirs.

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3

THE spring after Kristin’s long journey, Ragnfrid bore her husband another daughter. Both father and mother had wished indeed that it might be a son, but they soon took comfort, and were filled with the tenderest love for little Ulvhild. She was a most fair child, healthy, good, happy and quiet. Ragnfrid doted so on this new baby that she went on suckling it during the second year of its life; wherefore, on Sira Eirik’s counsel, she left off somewhat her strict fasts and religious exercises while she had the child at the breast. On this account and by reason of her joy in Ulvhild, her bloom came back to her, and Lavrans thought he had never seen his wife so happy or so fair and kindly in all the years he had been wed.

Kristin, too, felt that great happiness had come to them with this tender little sister. That her mother’s heavy mood made a stillness about her home, had never come into her thought; she had deemed it was but as it should be that her mother should correct and chide her, while her father played and jested with her. But Ragnfrid was much gentler with her now and gave her more freedom; petted her more too; and so Kristin little heeded that her mother had much less time to tend her. She loved Ulvhild as much as the others, and was joyful when they let her carry or rock her sister, and in time there was still more sport with the little one when she began to creep and walk and talk and Kristin could play with her.

Thus there went by three good years for the Jörundgaard folk. They had fortune with them in many ways, and Lavrans built and bettered round about on the manor, for the buildings and cattlesheds were old and small when he came thither—the Gjeslings had had the place leased out for more lifetimes than one.

Now it fell out at Whitsuntide in the third year that Trond Ivarsön from Sundbu, with his wife Gudrid and his three small sons, were come to Jörundgaard to visit them. One morning the older folk were sitting talking in the balcony of the loft-room while the children played about in the courtyard below. In the yard Lavrans had begun a new dwelling-house, and the children were climbing and creeping about on the timber brought together for the building. One of the Gjesling boys had struck at Ulvhild and made her weep; and at that Trond came down and gave his son a buffet, and took Ulvhild up into his arms. She was the fairest and sweetest child a man’s eyes could see, and her uncle had much love for her, though else he cared not for children.

Just then there came a man across the court from the cattleyard, dragging at a great, black bull; but the bull was savage and unmanageable and broke away from the man. Trond sprang up upon the pile of timber, driving the bigger children up before him, but he had Ulvhild in his arms and his youngest son by the hand. Then a beam turned under his feet and Ulvhild slipped from his grasp and fell to the ground. The beam slipped after, rolled over on the child and lay across her back.

Lavrans was down from the balcony in the same instant; he ran up and was in act to lift the beam when the bull rushed at him. He tried to seize it by the horns, but was flung down and gored. But getting then a grip of its nostrils, he half raised himself from the ground and managed to hold the brute till Trond came to himself from his bewilderment and the farm servants, running from the houses, cast thongs about the beast and held it fast.

Ragnfrid was on her knees trying to lift the beam; and now Lavrans was able to ease it so far that she could draw the child from under and into her lap. The little one wailed piteously when they touched her, but her mother sobbed aloud:

“She lives, thank God, she lives!—”

It was great wonder the child had not been quite crushed; but the log had chanced to fall so that it rested with one end upon a stone in the grass. When Lavrans stood up again, blood was running from the corners of his mouth, and his clothes were all torn at the breast by the bull’s horns.

Tordis came running with a skin coverlet; warily she and Ragnfrid moved the child on to it, but it seemed as though she suffered unbearable pain at the lightest touch. Her mother and Tordis bore her into the winter-room.

Kristin stood upon the timber pile white and stock still, while the little boys clung round her weeping. All the house and farm folk were now huddled together in the courtyard, the women weeping and wailing. Lavrans bade them saddle Guldsveinen and another horse as well; but when Arne came with the horses, Lavrans fell to the ground when he tried to climb to the saddle. So he bade Arne ride for the priest, while Halvdan went southward for a leech-woman who dwelt by the meeting of the rivers.

Kristin saw that her father was ashy white in the face, and that he had bled till his light-blue garments were covered all over with red-brown stains. All at once he stood upright, snatched an axe from one of the men and went forward where some of the folk stood holding on to the bull. He smote the beast between the horns with the back of the axe—it dropped forward on its knees; but Lavrans ceased not striking till its blood and brains were scattered all about. Then a fit of coughing took him and he sank backwards on the ground. Trond and another man came to him and bore him within the house.

At that, Kristin thought her father was surely dead; she screamed loudly and ran after, calling to him as if her heart were breaking.

In the winter-room Ulvhild had been laid on the great bed—all the pillows were thrown out upon the floor, so that the child lay flat. ’Twas as though already she lay stretched on the dead-straw. But she wailed loudly and without cease, and her mother lay bent over her, soothing and patting the child, wild with grief that she could do naught to help her.

Lavrans lay upon the other bed: he rose and staggered across the floor that he might comfort his wife. At that she started up and shrieked:

“Touch me not, touch me not! Jesus, Jesus,—’twere liker you should strike me dead—never will it end, the ill-fortune I bring upon you—”

“You?—Dear my wife, ’tis not you that have brought this on us,” said Lavrans, and laid a hand upon her shoulder. She shuddered at that, and her light-grey eyes shone in her lean, sallow face.

“Doubtless she means that ’twas my doing,” said Trond Ivarsön roughly. His sister looked at him with hate in her eyes, and answered:

“Trond knows what I mean.”

Kristin ran forward to her parents, but both thrust her away from them, and Tordis, coming in with a kettle of hot water, took her gently by the shoulder and said, “Go—go over to our house, Kristin; you are in the way here.”

Tordis was for seeing to Lavrans’ hurt—he had set himself down on the step before the bed—but he said there was little amiss with him:

“But is there naught you can do to ease Ulvhild’s pain a little—God help us! her crying would move the very stones in the mountain-side!”

“Nay; we dare not touch her ere the priest or Ingegjerd the leech-wife comes,” said Tordis.

Arne came just then with word that Sira Eirik was not at home. Ragnfrid stood a while wringing her hands. Then she said:

“Send to Lady Aashild of Haugen! Naught matters now, if only Ulvhild may be saved—”

No one gave heed to Kristin. She crept on to the bench behind the bed’s head, crouched down and laid her head upon her knees.

It seemed to her now as if stony hands were pressing on her heart. Lady Aashild was to be fetched! Her mother would not have them send for Lady Aashild, even when she herself was near death’s door at Ulvhild’s birth, nor yet when Kristin was so sick of the fever. She was a witch-wife, folk said—the bishop of Oslo and the chapter had held session on her; and she must have been put to death or even burned, had it not been that she was of such high birth and had been like a sister to Queen Ingebjörg—but folk said she had given her first husband poison, and him she now had, Sir Björn, she had drawn to her by witchcraft; he was young enough to be her son. She had children too, but they came never to see their mother, and these two highborn folk, Björn and Aashild, lived upon a petty farm in Dovre, and had lost all their wealth. None of the great folk in the Dale would have to do with them, but, privily, folk sought her counsel—nay, poor folk went openly to her with their troubles and hurts; they said she was kind, but they feared her too.

Kristin thought her mother, who else was wont to pray so much, should rather have called on God and the Virgin now. She tried to pray herself—to St. Olav most of all, for she knew he was so good and helped so many who suffered from sickness and wounds or broken bones. But she could not keep her thoughts together.

Her father and mother were alone in the room now. Lavrans had laid himself upon his bed again, and Ragnfrid sat bent over the sick child, passing, from time to time, a damp cloth over her forehead and hands, and wetting her lips with wine.

A long time went by. Tordis looked in between whiles, and would fain have helped, but Ragnfrid sent her out each time. Kristin wept silently and prayed to herself, but all the while she thought of the witch-wife and waited eagerly to see her come in.

Suddenly Ragnfrid asked in the silence:

“Are you sleeping, Lavrans?”

“No,” answered her husband. “I am listening to Ulvhild. God will surely help His innocent lamb, wife—we dare not doubt it. But ’tis weary lying here waiting—”

“God,” said Ragnfrid, hopelessly, “hates me for my sins. ’Tis well with my children, where they are, I doubt not that, and now ’tis like Ulvhild’s hour has come, too—but me he has cast off, for my heart is a viper’s nest, full of sin and sorrow—”

Then someone lifted the latch—Sira Eirik stepped in, straightened his huge frame where he stood and said in his clear, deep voice: “God help all in this house!”

The priest put the box with his medicines on the step before the bed and went to the open hearth and poured warm water over his hands. Then he took a cross from his bosom, struck out with it to all four corners of the room and mumbled something in Latin. Thereupon he opened the smoke-vent so that the light might stream into the room, and went and looked at Ulvhild.

Kristin grew afraid he might find her and send her out—not often did Sira Eirik’s eyes let much escape them. But the priest did not look round. He took a flask from the box, poured somewhat upon a wad of finely carded wool and laid it over Ulvhild’s mouth and nose.

“Now she will soon suffer less,” said the priest. He went to Lavrans and tended his wounds, while they told him how the mishap had come to pass. Lavrans had two ribs broken and had a wound in the lungs; but the priest thought that for him there was no great fear.

“And Ulvhild?” asked the father fearfully.

“I will tell you when I have looked at her more nearly,” answered the priest; “but you must lie in the loft-room, so that there may be more quiet and room here for those who must tend her.” He laid Lavrans’ arm about his own shoulder, took firm hold under the man, and bore him out. Kristin would fain have gone with her father now, but she dared not show herself.

When Sira Eirik came back, he did not speak to Ragnfrid, but first cut the clothes off Ulvhild, who now moaned less and seemed half asleep. Then carefully he felt with his hands over the child’s body and limbs.

“Is it so ill with my child, Eirik, that you know not how to save her, since you say naught,” asked Ragnfrid under her breath.

The priest answered low:

“It seems as though her back were badly hurt, Ragnfrid; I see no better way than to leave all in God’s hands and St. Olav’s—much there is not that I can do.”

“Then must we pray,” cried the mother passionately: “—you know well that Lavrans and I will give you all you ask, and spare nothing if so be your prayers can win God to grant that Ulvhild may live.”

“’Twould seem to me a miracle,” said the priest, “were she to live and have her health again.”

“And is’t not of miracles that you preach late and early—believe you not that a miracle can happen with my child,” she said, as wildly as before.

“’Tis true,” replied the priest, “that miracles happen; but God does not grant the prayers of all—we know not His secret counsel. And think you not, it would be worst of all should this fair little maid grow up marred or crippled?”

Ragnfrid shook her head. She wailed softly:

“I have lost so many, priest: I cannot lose her too!”

“I will do all that I may,” answered the priest, “and pray with all my power. But you must strive, Ragnfrid, to bear the cross God lays upon you.”

The mother moaned low:

“None of my children have I loved like this little one—if she too be taken from me, full sure I am my heart will break.”

“God help you, Ragnfrid Ivarsdatter,” said Sira Eirik, and shook his head. “In all your praying and fasting, you have thought only to force your will upon God. Can you wonder that it has helped but little?”

Ragnfrid looked defiantly at the priest, and spoke:

“I have sent for the Lady Aashild even now.”

“Aye, you know her; I know her not,” replied the priest.

“I cannot live without Ulvhild,” said Ragnfrid as before. “If so be God will not help her, I will seek counsel of Lady Aashild, or e’en give myself to the devil if he will help!”

The priest looked as though he would answer sharply, but checked himself again. He bent and felt the limbs of the little sick girl once more:

“Her hands and feet are cold,” he said. “We must lay jars of hot water about her—and then you must touch her no more till Lady Aashild comes.”

Kristin let herself sink back noiselessly on the bench and lay as if asleep. Her heart beat hard with fear—she had understood but little of the talk between Sira Eirik and her mother, but it had frightened her terribly, and the child knew well that it had not been for her ears.

Her mother rose up to go for the hot water jars; and suddenly she burst out sobbing: “But yet pray for us, Sira Eirik.”

Soon after she came back with Tordis. Then the priest and the women busied themselves with Ulvhild, and soon Kristin was found and sent away.

The light dazzled the child as she stood without in the courtyard. She had thought that most of the day must have gone by while she sat in the dark winter-room, and yet the houses stood there light-grey, and the grass was shining like silk in the white midday sunshine. The river gleamed behind the dun and golden trellis-work of the alder-brakes—it filled the air with its gladsome rushing sound, for here by Jörundgaard it ran swiftly over a flat bed strewn with boulders. The mountain-walls rose into the thin blue haze, and the becks sprang down their sides through the melting snows. The sweet, strong springtide out of doors brought tears to her eyes, for sorrow at the helplessness she felt all about her.

There was no one in the courtyard, but she heard voices in the housecarls’ cottage. Fresh earth had been strewn over the spot where her father had killed the bull. She knew not what to do with herself—so she crept behind the wall of the new house—two log-courses had already been laid. Inside lay Ulvhild’s playthings and her own; she put them all together and laid them in a hole between the lowest log and the foundation wall. Of late Ulvhild had wanted all her toys; this had vexed her sometimes. Now she thought, if her sister got well, she would give her all she had. And this thought comforted her a little.

She thought of the monk in Hamar—_he_ was sure that miracles could happen for every one. But Sira Eirik was not so sure about it, nor her parents either—and she was used to think as they did. A heavy weight fell upon her as it came to her for the first time that folk could think so unlike about so many things—not only bad, ungodly men and good men, but such men as Brother Edwin and Sira Eirik,—even her mother and her father: she felt all at once that they too thought not alike about many things—

Tordis found her there in the corner, asleep, late in the day, and took her to her own house; the child had eaten nothing since the morning. Tordis watched with Ragnfrid over Ulvhild through the night, and Kristin lay in Tordis’ bed with Jon, Tordis’ husband, and Eivind and Orm, their little boys. The smell of their bodies, the man’s snoring and the children’s even breathing made Kristin weep silently. It was no longer ago than last evening that she had lain down, as each night of her life before, by her own father and mother and little Ulvhild—it was as though a nest had been riven asunder and scattered and she herself lay cast out from the shelter of the wings which had always kept her warm. At last she cried herself to sleep, alone and unhappy among these strange folk.

* * * * *

Next morning as soon as she was up, she heard that her mother’s brother and all his party had left the place—in anger; Trond had called his sister a foolish, crazy woman, and his brother-in-law a soft simpleton who had never known how to rule his wife. Kristin grew hot with wrath, but she was ashamed too—she understood well enough that a most unseemly thing had befallen in that her mother had driven her nearest kin from the house. And for the first time she dimly felt that there was something about her mother that was not as it should be—that she was not the same as other women.

While she stood brooding on this, a serving-maid came and said she was to go up to the loft-room to her father.

But when she was come into the room Kristin forgot to look at him, for right opposite the open door, with the light full upon her face, sat a little woman who she guessed must be the witch-wife. And yet Kristin had never thought that she would look like this.

She seemed small as a child and slightly made, as she sat in the great high-backed arm-chair which had been brought up thither. A table had been set before her too, covered with Ragnfrid’s finest, fringed, linen tablecloth. Bacon and fowl were set out upon the silver platter; there was wine in a mazer bowl, and she had Lavrans’ own silver goblet to drink from. She had finished eating and was busy drying her small and slender hands on one of Ragnfrid’s best hand-towels. Ragnfrid herself stood in front of her and held for her a brass basin with water.

Lady Aashild let the hand-towel sink into her lap; she smiled to the child, and said in a clear and lovely voice:

“Come hither to me, child!” Then to the mother: “Fair children are these you have, Ragnfrid.”

Her face was greatly wrinkled, but as clear white and pink as a child’s, and it looked as though her skin must be just as soft and fine to the touch. Her mouth was as red and fresh as a young woman’s, and her large, hazel eyes shone bright. A fine, white, linen headdress lay close about her face and was fastened under her chin with a golden clasp; over it she had a veil of soft, dark-blue wool; it fell over her shoulders and far down upon her dark, well-fitting dress. She was upright as a wand, and Kristin felt more than thought that she had never seen a woman so fair and so mannerly as was this old witch-wife, with whom the great folk of the valley would have naught to do.

Lady Aashild held Kristin’s hand in her old, soft one; and spoke to her with kindly jesting; but Kristin could not answer a word. Then said Lady Aashild with a little laugh:

“Is she afraid of me, think you?”

“Nay, nay,” Kristin all but shouted. And then Lady Aashild laughed still more, and said to the mother:

“She has wise eyes, this daughter of yours, and good strong hands, nor is she used to be idle, I can see. You will need one by-and-by to help you tend Ulvhild, when I am gone. ’Twere well, therefore, you let Kristin be by me and help while yet I am here—she is old enough for that; eleven years is she not?”

Thereupon the Lady Aashild went out, and Kristin would have followed her, but Lavrans called to her from his bed. He lay flat upon his back with the pillows stuffed beneath his updrawn knees; Lady Aashild had bidden that he should lie so, that the hurt in his breast might the sooner heal.

“Now surely you will soon be well, sir father, will you not?” asked Kristin.

Lavrans looked up at her—the child had never said “sir” to him before. Then he said gravely:

“For me there is naught to fear;—’tis worse with your sister.”

“Aye,” said Kristin, and sighed.

She stood yet a little while by his bed. Her father said no more, and Kristin found naught to say. And when Lavrans after a while said she should go down to her mother and Lady Aashild, Kristin hastened out and ran across the courtyard down into the winter-room.

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4

Lady Aashild stayed on at Jörundgaard most of the summer. Thus it fell out that folk came thither seeking her counsel.—Kristin heard Sira Eirik fling at this now and then, and it came into her mind that her father and mother, too, were not pleased. But she put all thoughts of such things from her, nor did she ponder over what she thought of Lady Aashild, but was with her ever, and tired not of listening to the lady and of watching her.

Ulvhild still lay stretched upon her back in the great bed. Her little face was white to the lips, and dark rings had come about her eyes. Her lovely yellow hair had a stale smell, it had been unwashed for so long, and it had grown dark and lost all gloss and curl, so that it looked like old, burnt-up hay. She looked tired and suffering and patient; but she smiled faintly and wanly at her sister when Kristin sat down on the bed-side by her and chattered and showed the child all the fine gifts there were for her from her father and mother and from their friends and kinsfolk from far around. There were dolls and wooden birds and beasts, and a little draught-board, trinkets and velvet caps and coloured ribbons; Kristin kept them all together in a box for her—and Ulvhild looked at them all with her grave eyes, and, sighing, dropped the treasures from her weary hands.

But when Lady Aashild came nigh, Ulvhild’s face lit up with gladness. Eagerly she drank the quenching and sleepy drinks Lady Aashild brewed for her; when Lady Aashild tended her hurts she made no plaint, and lay happy listening when the Lady played on Lavrans’ harp and sang—she had great store of ballads strange to the folk of the Dale.

Often she sang to Kristin when Ulvhild lay asleep. And then at times she would tell of her youth, when she dwelt in the South at the courts of King Magnus and King Eirik and their Queens.

Once as they sat thus and Lady Aashild told of these things, there slipped from Kristin’s lips a thought she had often had in mind:

“Methinks it is strange you can be so glad at all times, you who have been used to—” she broke off and grew red.

Lady Aashild looked down at the child with a smile: