“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 talkLatin 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—”
“Haveyoubeen 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 theheavens 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.
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 hermother 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 whenthe 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 andwent 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 prayso 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—notoften 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—believeyou 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—shehad 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—hewas sure that miracles could happen for every one. But Sira Eirik was not so sure about it, nor her parents either—and she wasused 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 tolook 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.
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:
“Mean you because I am parted from all that now?” She laughed quietly, and said: “I have had my happy time, Kristin, and I am not so foolish as to murmur, if now, since I have drunk up my wine and beer, I have to put up with skimmed milk and sour. Good days may last long ifone lives wisely and deals warily with what one has; all wise folk know that, and ’tis therefore, I trow, that wise folk must rest content with good days—for the best days of all cost very dear. In this world they call him a fool who wastes his heritage that he may make merry in the days of his youth. As to that each man may deem as he lists. But that man only do I call a fool and a very dolt who rues his bargain after it is made; and twice a simpleton and a fool of fools is he who thinks to see more of his boon-companions after his heritage is gone—”
“—Is there aught amiss with Ulvhild?” she called gently across to Ragnfrid, who had made a sharp movement where she sat by the child’s bed.
“Nay, she sleeps well,” said the child’s mother and came over to Lady Aashild and Kristin at the hearth. Her hands on the pole of the smoke-vent, she stood and looked down into Lady Aashild’s face.
“Kristin doth not understand such things,” she said.
“No,” answered the Lady. “But she learned her prayers, too, I doubt not, before she understood them. The times when we need prayers or counsel, we are little like to be in a mood to learn, nor yet to understand.”
Ragnfrid drew her dark eyebrows together thoughtfully. At such times her bright, deep-set eyes looked like barns below a dark-wooded hillside, so Kristin had often thought when she was little—or so she had heard others say. Lady Aashild looked at Ragnfrid with her little half-smile, and the mother seated herself upon the edge of the hearth, and taking a twig, stuck it into the embers.
“But he who has wasted his heritage upon the sorriest goods—and thereafter beholds a treasure he would gladly give his life to own—think you not he must rue bitterly his own folly?”
“No doing without some rueing, Ragnfrid,” said Lady Aashild. “And he who is willing to give his life, should make the venture and see what he can win—”
Ragnfrid plucked the burning twig from the fire, blew out the flame and bent her hand about the glowing end, so that it shone out blood-red from between her fingers.
“Oh! these are words, words, and only words, Lady Aashild.”
“Well,” said the other, “truly, Ragnfrid, there is not much that’s worth buying so dear as with one’s life.”
“Nay, but there is,” said Ragnfrid passionately, and she whispered so it could scarce be heard: “My husband.”
“Ragnfrid,” said Lady Aashild in a low voice: “So hath many a maid thought when she strove to bind a man to her and gave her maidenhood to do it. But have you not read of men and maids who gave to God all they owned, went into a cloister or naked into the wilds, and repented after. Aye, they are called fools in the godly books. And ’twould sure be sinful to think God cheatedthemover their bargain.”
Ragnfrid sat quite still a while. Then Lady Aashild said:
“You must come now, Kristin; ’tis time we went and gathered dew for Ulvhild’s morning wash.”
Outside the courtyard lay all black and white in the moonlight. Ragnfrid went with them, through the farm-yard, down to the gate of the cabbage garden. Kristin saw her mother’s thin, dark figure leaning there, while she was shaking the dew from the big, icy-cold cabbage leaves, and the folds of the lady’s-mantles, into her father’s silver goblet.
Lady Aashild walked silent at Kristin’s side. She was there only to watch over her, for it was not well to let a child go out alone on such a night. But the dew had more virtue if gathered by an innocent maid.
When they came back to the gate Ragnfrid was gone. Kristin was shaking with the cold as she gave the icy silver cup into Lady Aashild’s hands. She ran in her wet shoes over toward the loft-room, where she slept now with herfather. She had her foot upon the first step when Ragnfrid stepped out of the shadow of the balcony. In her hands she bore a steaming bowl.
“Here, I have warmed some beer for you, daughter,” said the mother.
Kristin thanked her mother gladly, and put the bowl to her lips. Then Ragnfrid asked:
“Kristin—the prayers and all the other things that Lady Aashild teaches you—you are sure there is naught sinful or ungodly in them?”
“That I can never believe,” answered the child. “There is Jesus’ name and the Virgin Mary’s, and the names of the Saints in them all—”
“What is it she teaches you,” asked her mother again.
“Oh!—about herbs—and charms to stop running blood and cure warts and sore eyes—and moth in clothes and mice in the store-room. And what herbs one should pluck in sunshine, and which have virtue in the rain—But the prayers I must not tell to anyone, for then they lose their power,” said she quickly.
Her mother took the empty bowl and put it upon the step. Then suddenly she threw her arms around her daughter, and pressed her tightly to her and kissed her.—Kristin felt that her mother’s cheeks were wet and hot:
“May God and Our Lady guard and shield you from all evil—we have naught else but you, your father and I, that has not been touched by our ill-fortune. Darling, darling—never forget that you are your father’s dearest joy—”
Ragnfrid went back to the winter-room, undressed and crept into bed beside Ulvhild. She put an arm about the child and laid her cheek close to the little one’s so that she felt the warmth of Ulvhild’s body and smelt the keen odour of her damp hair. Ulvhild slept heavily and soundly, as she ever did after Lady Aashild’s evening draught. The lady’s bedstraw, spread beneath the bedding, gave out adrowsy scent. None the less did Ragnfrid lie long sleepless, gazing at the little spot of light in the roof where the moon shone upon the smoke-hole’s pane of horn.
Over in the other bed lay Lady Aashild, but Ragnfrid never knew whether she slept or waked. The Lady never spoke of their having known each other in former days—this frightened Ragnfrid. And it seemed to her she had never known such bitter sorrow and such haunting dread as now—even though she knew that Lavrans would have his full health again—and that Ulvhild would live.
It seemed as though Lady Aashild took pleasure in talking to Kristin, and with each day that passed the maid became better friends with her. One day, when they had gone to gather herbs, they sat together high up the hillside on a little green, close under the tree. They could look down into the farm-place at Formo and see Arne Gyrdson’s red jerkin: he had ridden down the valley with them and was to look after their horses while they were up the hillside seeking herbs.
As they sat, Kristin told Lady Aashild of her meeting with the dwarf-maiden. She had not thought of it for many years, but now it rose before her. And while she spoke, the thought came to her strangely that there was some likeness betwixt Lady Aashild and the dwarf-lady—though she knew well all the time they were not really like. But when she had told all, Lady Aashild sat still a while and looked out down the Dale; at length she said:
“You were wise to fly, since you were only a child then. But have you never heard of folk who took the gold the dwarfs offered, and after bound the troll in stone?”
“I have heard such tales,” said Kristin, “but I would never dare to do it. And methinks it is not a fair deed.”
“’Tis well when one dares not do what one doth not think a fair deed,” said Lady Aashild, laughing a little. “But it is not so well when one thinks a thing to be no fair deedbecause one dares not do it.—You have grown much this summer,” the Lady said of a sudden. “Do you know yourself, I wonder, that you are like to be fair?”
“Aye,” said Kristin. “They say I am like my father.”
Lady Aashild laughed quietly.
“Aye ’twould be best for you if you took after Lavrans both in mind and body, too. Yet ’twould be pity were they to wed you up here in the Dale. Plainness and country ways let no man scorn, but they think, themselves, these big folk up here, they are so fine that their like is not to be found in Norway’s land. They wonder much, belike, that I can live and thrive though they bar their doors against me. But they are lazy and proud and will not learn new ways—and they put the blame on the old strife with the King in Sverre’s days. ’Tis all lies; your mother’s forefather made friends with King Sverre and received gifts from him; but were your mother’s brother to become one of our King’s men and wait upon his Court, he would have to trim himself up both without and within, and that Trond would not be at pains to do. But you, Kristin,—you should be wedded to a man bred in knightly ways andcourteisie—”
Kristin sat looking down into the Formo yard, at Arne’s red back. She scarce knew it herself, but when Lady Aashild talked of the world she had once moved in, Kristin ever thought of the knights and earls in Arne’s likeness. Before, when she was little, she had always seen them in her father’s shape.
“My sister’s son, Erlend Nikulaussön of Husaby,hemight have been a fitting bridegroom for you—he has grown comely, has the boy. My sister Magnhild looked in on me last year as she passed through the Dale, and he with her. Aye ’tis not like you could get him, but I had gladly spread the coverlid over you two in the bridal bed—he is as dark-haired as you are fair, and he has goodly eyes.—But if I know my brother-in-law aright, he has bethought him alreadyfor sure of a better match for Erlend than you.”
“Am I not a good match then?” asked Kristin wondering. She had never thought of being hurt by anything Lady Aashild said, but she felt humbled and sad that the Lady should be in some way better than her own folks.
“Aye, you are a good match,” said the other. “Yet you could scarce look to come into my kindred. Your forefather in this land was an outlaw and a stranger, and the Gjeslings have sat and grown moulded on their farms so long that soon they’ll be forgotten outside the Dale. But I and my sister had for husbands the nephews of Queen Margret Skulesdatter.”
Kristin could not even pluck up heart to say it was not her forefather, but his brother, who had come to the land an outlaw. She sat and gazed at the dark hillsides across the dale, and she thought of the day many years gone by, when she had been up on the upland wastes and seen how many fells there were twixt her own valley and the outer world. Then Lady Aashild said they must go home now, and bade her call on Arne. So Kristin put her hands to her mouth, and hallooed and waved her kerchief, till she saw the red spot in the farm-place move and wave back.
Not long after this Lady Aashild went home, but through the autumn and the first part of the winter, she came often to Jörundgaard to spend some days with Ulvhild. The child was taken out of bed in the daytime now, and they tried to get her to stand, but her legs gave way beneath her when she put her feet to the ground. She was fretful, white and weary, and the laced jacket of horsehide and thin withes, which Lady Aashild had made for her, plagued her sorely, so that she would rather lie still in her mother’s lap. Ragnfrid had her sick daughter for ever in her arms, so that Tordis had the whole care of the house now, and at her mother’s bidding, Kristin went with Tordis to learn and to help.
Kristin longed for Lady Aashild between whiles, and sometimes the Lady would chat much with her, but at other times the child would wait in vain for a word beyond the other’s greeting when she came and when she went—Lady Aashild sat and talked with the grown-up folk only. That was always the way when she had her husband with her, for it happened now at times that Björn Gunnarsön came with his wife. Lavrans had ridden to Haugen one day in the autumn to take the Lady her leech’s fee—it was the very best silver tankard they had in the house, with a plate to match. He had slept there the night, and ever since he praised the farm mightily; it was fair and well ordered, and not so small as folks would have it, he said. And within the house all spoke of well-being and the customs of the house were seemly, following the ways of great folks’ houses in the South. What he thought of Björn, Lavrans said not, but he welcomed him fairly at all times when he came with his wife to Jörundgaard. But the Lady Aashild, Lavrans liked exceeding well, and he said he deemed most of the tales that had been told of her were lies. He said, too, ’twas most sure that twenty years since she could have had small need of witchcraft to bind a man to her—she was near the sixties now, yet she still looked young and had a most fair and winning bearing.
Kristin saw well that her mother liked all this but little. Of Lady Aashild, it is true, Ragnfrid said naught, but once she likened Björn to the yellow, flattened grass one sometimes finds growing under big stones, and Kristin thought this fitted him well. Björn looked strangely faded; he was somewhat fat, pale and sluggish, and a little bald, although he was not much older than Lavrans. Yet one saw he had once been a very comely man. Kristin never came to speech with him—he spoke little, and was wont to sit in the same place where he first settled down, from the time he stepped into the room till he went to bed. He drank hugely, but one marked it but little on him; he ate scarce any food, butgazed now and again at one or another in the room with a fixed, brooding look in his strange, pale eyes.
They had seen naught of their kinsfolk at Sundbu since the mishap befell, though Lavrans had been over at Vaage more times than one. But Sira Eirik came to Jörundgaard as before; and there he often met Lady Aashild, and they were good friends. Folk thought this was good of the priest, for he was himself a very skilful leech. That, too, was doubtless one cause why the folk of the great estates had not sought Lady Aashild’s counsel, at least not openly, as they held the priest to be skilful enough, nor was it easy for them to know how they should bear themselves toward two folks who had been cast off, in a manner, by their own kin and fellows. Sira Eirik said himself, they did not graze on one another’s meadows; and as to her witchcraft, he was not her parish priest—it might well be the lady knew more than was good for her soul’s health—yet one must not forget ignorant folk were all too ready to talk of witchcraft as soon as a woman was a bit wiser than her neighbours. Lady Aashild, on her side, praised the priest much and was diligent at church if it chanced she was at Jörundgaard on a holy day.
Yule-tide was sorrowful that year; Ulvhild could not yet put her feet to the ground, and they neither heard nor saw aught of the Sundbu folk. Kristin knew that it was talked of in the parish and that her father took it to heart. But her mother seemed to care naught; and Kristin thought this wrong of her.
But one evening, toward the end of Yule-tide, came Sira Sigurd, Trond Gjesling’s house-priest, driving in a great sledge, and his chief errand was to bid them all to a feast at Sundbu.
Sira Sigurd was ill-liked in the parishes about, for it was he who really managed Trond’s estates—or at the least, he got the blame for Trond’s hard and unjust dealings,and there was no denying Trond was something of a plague to his tenants. His priest was most learned in writing and reckoning, versed in the law, and a skilful leech—if not quite so skilful as he deemed himself. But from his ways, no one would have thought him over-wise; he often said foolish things. Ragnfrid and Lavrans had never liked him, but the Sundbu folk, as was but reason, set great store by their priest, and both they and he felt very bitter that he had not been called in to Ulvhild.
Now by ill-fortune it fell out that when Sira Sigurd came to Jörundgaard, Lady Aashild and Sir Björn were there already, besides Sira Eirik, Gyrd and Inga of Finsbrekken, Arne’s parents, old Jon from Loptsgaard, and a Preaching Friar from Hamar, Brother Aasgaut.
While Ragnfrid had the tables spread anew with Christmas fare, and Lavrans looked into the letters brought by Sira Sigurd, the priest wished to look at Ulvhild. She was already abed for the night and sleeping, but Sira Sigurd woke her, felt her back and limbs, and asked her many questions, at first gently enough, but then roughly and impatiently as the child grew frightened—Sigurd was a little man, all but a dwarf, with a great, flaming, red face. As he made to lift her out upon the floor to test her feet, she began screaming loudly. On this Lady Aashild rose, went to the bed, and covered Ulvhild with the skins, saying the child was so sleepy she could not have stood upon the floor even had her legs been strong.
The priest began then to speak loudly; he too was reckoned to know somewhat of leech-craft. But Lady Aashild took him by the hand, brought him forward to the high-seat and fell to telling him what she had done for Ulvhild, and asking his judgment on each and every matter. On this he grew somewhat milder of mood, and ate and drank of Ragnfrid’s good cheer.
But as the beer and wine began to mount to his head, Sira Sigurd’s humour changed again and he grew quarrelsomeand hotheaded—he knew well enough there was no one in the room who liked him. First he turned on Gyrd—he was the bishop of Hamar’s bailiff in Vaage and Sil, and there had been many quarrels twixt the bishop’s see and Trond Ivarsön. Gyrd said not much, but Inga was a fiery woman, and then Brother Aasgaut joined in and spoke:
“You should not forget, Sira Sigurd, our reverend Father Ingjald is your overlord, too—we know enough of you in Hamar. You wallow in all good things at Sundbu, never thinking that you are vowed to other work than to do Trond eyeservice, helping him in all wrong and injustice, to the peril of his soul and the minishing of the rights of Holy Church. Have you never heard how it fares with the false and unruly priests who hatch out devices against their spiritual fathers and those in authority? Wot you not of that time when the angels took St. Thomas of Canterbury to the door of Hell and let him peep in? He wondered much that he saw none of the priests who had set themselves up against him, as you have set yourself against your bishop. He was about to praise God’s mercy, for the holy man begrudged not salvation to all sinners—but at that the angel bade the devil lift his tail a little, and out there came, with a great bang and a foul smell of sulphur, all the priests and learned men who had wrought against the good of the church. Thus did he come to know whithertheyhad gone.”
“Thereyou lie, monk,” said the priest. “I have heard that tale too; only they were not priests, but beggar-monks, who came from the rear of the devil like wasps out of a wasp-nest.”
Old Jon laughed louder than all the serving-folk, and roared:
“There were both sorts, I’ll be bound—”
“Then the devil must have a fine broad tail,” said Björn Gunnarsön, and Lady Aashild smiled and said:
“Aye, have you not heard that all evil drags a long tail behind it?”
“Be still, Lady Aashild,” cried Sira Sigurd, “do not you talk of the long tail evil drags after it. You sit here as thoughyouwere mistress in the house, and not Ragnfrid. But ’tis strange you could not help her child—have you no more of that strong water you dealt in once, which could make whole the sheep already boiling in the pot, and turn women to maids in the bridal bed? Think you I know not of the wedding in this very parish where you made a bath for the bride that was no maid—”
Sira Eirik sprang up, gripped the other priest by the shoulder and thigh, and flung him right over the table, so that the jugs and tankards were overturned and food and drink ran upon the cloths and floor, while Sira Sigurd lay his length upon the ground with torn garments. Eirik leaped over the board, and would have struck him again, roaring above the tumult:
“Hold your filthy mouth, priest of Hell that you are—” Lavrans strove to part them, but Ragnfrid stood, white as death, by the board, and wrung her hands. Then Lady Aashild ran and helped Sira Sigurd to his feet, and wiped the blood from his face. She poured a beaker of mead down his throat, saying:
“You must not be so strict, Sira Eirik, that you cannot bear to listen to jesting so far on in a drinking bout. Seat yourselves now and you shall hear of that wedding. ’Twas not here in the Dale at all, nor had I the good fortune to be the one that knew of that water—could I have brewed it I trow we would not be sitting now on a hill-croft in the wilds. I might have been a rich woman and had lands in the great, rich parishes—nigh to town and cloisters and bishop and chapter,” and she smiled at the three churchmen. “But ’tis said sure enough, that the art was known in the olden days.”
And the Lady told a merry tale of a misadventure that befellin King Inga’s time when the magic wash was used by mistake by the wrong woman and of what followed thereon.
Great was the laughter in the room, and both Gyrd and Jon shouted for more such tales from Lady Aashild. But the Lady said no: “Here sit two priests and Brother Aasgaut and young lads and serving maids; ’tis best we cease before the talk grows unseemly and gross; let us bear in mind ’tis a holy day.”
The men made an outcry, but the women held with Lady Aashild. No one saw that Ragnfrid had left the room. Soon after it was time that Kristin, who sat lowest on the women’s bench among the serving maids, should go to bed—she was sleeping in Tordis’ house, there were so many guests at the manor.
It was biting cold, and the northern-lights flamed and flickered over the brows of the fells to the north. The snow crackled under Kristin’s feet as she ran over the courtyard shivering, her arms crossed on her breast.
Then she was aware of a woman in the shadow of the old loft walking hurriedly to and fro in the snow, throwing her arms about, wringing her hands, and wailing aloud. Kristin saw it was her mother, and ran to her affrighted, asking if she were ill.
“No, no,” burst out Ragnfrid. “But I could not stay within—go you to bed, child.”
As Kristin turned away her mother called her softly:
“Go back to the room and lie beside your father and Ulvhild—take her in your arms so that he may not roll upon her by mischance; he sleeps so heavily when he has drunk deep. I am going up to sleep in the old loft-room to-night.”
“Jesus, mother,” said Kristin, “you will freeze to death if you lie there—alone, too. And what think you father will say if you come not to bed to-night?”
“He will not mark it,” answered her mother, “he wasall but asleep when I left, and to-morrow he will waken late. Go and do as I have said.”
“’Twill be so cold for you,” said Kristin, whimpering, but her mother sent her away, a little more kindly, and shut herself into the loft-room.
Within it was as cold as without, and it was pitch-dark. Ragnfrid groped her way to the bed, pulled off her headdress, undid her shoes, and crept in among the skins. They chilled her to the bone; it was like sinking into a snowdrift. She pulled the skins over her head, and drew her knees up to her chin, and thrust her hands into her bosom—so she lay and wept; now quite low, with flowing tears; now crying aloud and grinding her teeth. But in time she had warmed the bed around her so much that she grew drowsy, and at last wept herself to sleep.