“Aye, you have ever had such mighty trust in Gissur,” said Eline, laughing softly. “But now the thing is this, Erlend now I am free. And if so be you will, you can keep the promise now you made me once.”
Erlend stood silent.
“Mind you,” asked Eline, “the night I bore your son? You promised then that you would wed me when Sigurd died.”
Erlend passed his hand up under his hair, that hung damp with sweat.
“Aye,—I remember,” he said.
“Will you keep that promise now?” asked Eline.
“No,” said Erlend.
Eline Ormsdatter looked across at Kristin—then smiled a little and nodded. Then she looked again at Erlend.
“It is ten years since, Eline,” said the man. “And since that time you and I have lived together year in year out like two damned souls in Hell.”
“But not only so, I trow!” said she with the same smile.
“It is years and years since aught else has been,” said Erlend dully. “The children would be none the better off. And you know—you know I can scarce bear to be in a room with you any more!” he almost screamed.
“I marked naught of that when you were at home in the summer,” said Eline with a meaning smile. “Then we were not unfriends—always.”
“If you deem that we were friends, have it as you will, for me,” said Erlend wearily.
“Will you stand here without end?” broke in Lady Aashild. She poured the porridge from the pot into two great wooden dishes and gave one to Kristin. The girl took it. “Bear it to the hall—and you, Ulv, take the other—and set them on the board; supper we must have, whether it be so, or so.”
Kristin and the man went out with the dishes. Lady Aashild said to the two others:
“Come now, you too; what boots it that you stand here barking at each other.”
“’Tis best that Eline and I have our talk out together now,” said Erlend.
Lady Aashild said no more, but went out and left them.
In the hall Kristin had laid the table and fetched ale from the cellar. She sat on the outer bench, straight as a wand and calm of face, but she ate nothing. Nor had the others much stomach to their food, neither Björn nor Erlend’s men. Only the man that had come with Eline and Björn’s hired man ate greedily. Lady Aashild sat herself down and ate a little of the porridge. No one spoke a word.
At length Eline Ormsdatter came in alone. Lady Aashild bade her sit between Kristin and herself; Eline sat down and ate a little. Now and again a gleam as of a hidden smile flitted across her face, and she stole a glance at Kristin.
A while after Lady Aashild went out to the kitchen-house.
The fire on the hearth was almost burnt out. Erlend sat by it on his stool, crouched together, his head down between his arms.
Lady Aashild went to him and laid her hand on his shoulder:
“God forgive you, Erlend, that you have brought things to this pass—”
Erlend turned up to her a face besmeared with wretchedness:
“She is with child,” he said, and shut his eyes.
Lady Aashild’s face flamed up, she gripped his shoulder hard:
“Which of them?” she asked, roughly and scornfully.
“My child it is not,” said Erlend, in the same dead voice. “But like enough you will not believe me—none will believe me—” he sank together again.
Lady Aashild sat down in front of him on the edge of the hearth:
“Now must you try to play the man, Erlend. ’Tis not so easy to believe you in this matter. Do you swear it is not yours?”
Erlend lifted his ravaged face:
“As surely as I needed God’s mercy—as surely as I hope—that God in Heaven has comforted mother for all she suffered here—I have not touched Eline since first I saw Kristin!” He cried out the words, so that Lady Aashild had to hush him.
“Then I see not that this is so great a misfortune. You must find out who the father is, and make it worth his while to wed her.”
“’Tis in my mind that it is Gissur Arnfinsön—my steward at Husaby,” said Erlend wearily. “We talked together last year—and since then too—Sigurd’s death has been looked for this long time past. He was willing to wed her, when she was a widow, if I would give her a fitting portion—”
“Well?” said Lady Aashild. Erlend went on:
“She swears with great oaths she will have none of him. She will name me as the father. And if I swear I am not—think you any will believe aught but that I am forsworn—?”
“You must sure be able to turn her purpose,” said Lady Aashild. “There is no other way now but that you go home with her to Husaby no later than to-morrow. And there must you harden your heart and stand firm till you have this marriage fixed between your steward and Eline.”
“Aye,” said Erlend. Then he threw himself forward again and groaned aloud:
“Can you not see—Moster—what think you Kristin will believe—?”
At night Erlend lay in the kitchen-house with the men. In the hall Kristin slept with Lady Aashild in the Lady’s bed, and Eline Ormsdatter in the other bed that was there. Björn went out and lay in the stable.
The next morning Kristin went out with Lady Aashild to the byre. While the lady went to the kitchen to make ready the breakfast, Kristin bore the milk up to the hall.
A candle stood burning on the table. Eline was sitting dressed on the edge of her bed. Kristin greeted her silently, then fetched a milk-pan and poured the milk into it.
“Will you give me a drink of milk?” asked Eline. Kristin took a wooden ladle, filled it and handed it to the other; she drank eagerly, looking at Kristin over the rim of the cup.
“So you are that Kristin Lavransdatter, that hath stolen from me Erlend’s love,” she said as she gave back the ladle.
“You should know best if there was any love to steal,” said the girl.
Eline bit her lip.
“What willyoudo,” she said, “if Erlend one day grow weary of you, and offer to wed you to his serving-man? Will you do his will in that as well?”
Kristin made no answer. Then the other laughed, and said:
“You do his will in all things now, I well believe. What think you, Kristin—shall we throw dice for our man, we two paramours of Erlend Nikulaussön?” When no answer came, she laughed again and said: “Are you so simple, that you deny not you are his paramour?”
“To you I care not to lie,” said Kristin.
“’Twould profit you but little if you did,” answered Eline, still laughing. “I know the boy too well. He flew at you like a black-cock, I trow, the second time you were together. ’Tis pity of you too, fair child that you are.”
Kristin’s cheeks grew white. Sick with loathing, she said low:
“I will not speak with you—”
“Think you he is like to deal with you better than withme,” went on Eline. Then Kristin answered sharply:
“No blame will I ever cast on Erlend, whatever he may do. I went astray of my own will—I shall not whimper or wail if the path lead out on to the rocks—”
Eline was silent for a while. Then she said unsteadily, flushing red:
“Iwas a maid too, when he came to me Kristin—even though I had been wife in name to the old man for seven years. But like enough you could never understand what the misery of that life was.”
Kristin began to tremble violently. Eline looked at her. Then from her travelling-case that stood by her on the step of the bed, she took a little horn. She broke the seal that was on its mouth and said softly:
“You are young and I am old, Kristin. I know well it boots not for me to strive against you—your time is now. Will you drink with me, Kristin?”
Kristin did not move. Then the other raised the horn to her own lips; but Kristin marked that she did not drink. Eline said:
“So much honour you sure can do me, to drink to me—and promise you will not be a hard step-mother to my children?”
Kristin took the horn. At that moment Erlend opened the door. He stood a moment, looking from one to the other of the women.
“What is this?” he asked.
Kristin answered, and her voice was wild and piercing:
“We are drinking to each other—we—your paramours—”
He gripped her wrist and took the horn from her.
“Be still,” he said, harshly. “You shall not drink with her.”
“Why not?” cried Kristin as before. “She was pure as I was, when you tempted her—”
“That hath she said so often, that I trow she is cometo believe it herself,” said Erlend. “Mind you, Eline, when you made me go to Sigurd with that tale, and he brought forth witness that he had caught you before with another man?”
White with loathing, Kristin turned away. Eline had flushed darkly—now she said, defiantly:
“Yet will it scarce bring leprosy on the girl, if she drink with me!”
Erlend turned on Eline in wrath—then of a sudden his face seemed to grow long and hard as stone, and he gasped with horror:
“Jesus!” he said below his breath. He gripped Eline by the arm:
“Drink toherthen,” he said in a harsh and quivering voice. “Drink you first; then she shall drink to you.”
Eline wrenched herself away with a groan. She fled backwards through the room, the man after her. “Drink,” he said. He snatched the dagger from his belt and held it as he followed. “Drink out the drink you have brewed for Kristin!” He seized Eline’s arm again and dragged her to the table, then forced her head forward toward the horn.
Eline shrieked once and buried her face on her arm. Erlend released her and stood trembling.
“A hell was mine with Sigurd,” shrieked Eline. “You—you promised—but you have been worst to me of all, Erlend!”
Then came Kristin forward and grasped the horn:
“One of us two must drink—both of us you cannot keep—”
Erlend wrenched the horn from her and flung her from him so that she reeled and fell near by Lady Aashild’s bed. Again he pushed the horn against Eline Ormsdatter’s mouth—with one knee on the bench he stood by her side, and with a hand round her head tried to force the drink between her teeth.
She reached out under his arm, snatched his dagger from the table, and struck hard at the man. The blow did but scratch his flesh through the clothes. Then she turned the point against her own breast, and the instant after sank sidelong down into his arms.
Kristin rose and came to them. Erlend was holding Eline, her head hanging back over his arm. The rattle came in her throat almost at once—blood welled up and ran out of her mouth. She spat some of it out and said:
“’Twas for you I meant—that drink—for all the times—you deceived me—”
“Bring Lady Aashild hither,” said Erlend in a low voice. Kristin stood immovable.
“She is dying,” said Erlend as before.
“Then is she better served than we,” said Kristen. Erlend looked at her—the despair in his eyes softened her. She left the room.
“What is it?” asked Lady Aashild, when Kristin called her out from the kitchen.
“We have killed Eline Ormsdatter,” said Kristin. “She is dying—”
Lady Aashild set off running to the hall. But Eline breathed her last as the Lady crossed the threshold.
Lady Aashild had laid out the dead woman on the bench, wiped the blood from her face and covered it with the linen of her coif. Erlend stood leaning against the wall, behind the body.
“Know you,” said Aashild, “that this was the worst thing that could befall?”
She had filled the fireplace with twigs and firewood; now she thrust the horn into the midst of them and blew them into a blaze.
“Can you trust your men?” asked the Lady again.
“Ulv and Haftor are trusty, methinks—of Jon and the man with Eline I know but little.”
“You know, belike,” said the lady, “should it come out that Kristin and you were together here, and that you two were alone with her when she died, ’twere as well for Kristin you had let her drink of Eline’s brew—And should there be talk of poison, all men will call to mind what once was laid tomycharge.—Had she any kindred or friends?”
“No,” said Erlend in a low voice. “She had none but me.”
“Yet,” said Lady Aashild again, “it may well be a hard matter to cover up this thing and hide the body away, without the ugliest of misthought falling on you.”
“She shall rest in hallowed ground,” said Erlend, “if it cost me Husaby. What say you Kristin?”
Kristin nodded.
Lady Aashild sat silent. The more she thought, the more hopeless it seemed to her to find any way out. In the kitchen-house were four men—even if Erlend could bribe them all to keep silence, even if some of them, if Eline’s man, could be bribed to leave the country—still, sure they could never be. And ’twas known at Jörundgaard that Kristin had been here—if Lavrans heard of this, she feared to think what he would do. And how to bear the dead woman hence. The mountain path to the west was not to be thought of now—there was the road to Romsdal, or over the hills to Trondheim, or south down the Dale. And should the truth come out, it would never be believed—even if folk let it pass for true.
“I must take counsel with Björn in this matter,” she said, and rose and went out to call him.
Björn Gunnarsön listened to his wife’s story without moving a muscle and without withdrawing his eyes from Erlend’s face.
“Björn,” said Aashild desperately. “There is naught for it but that one must swear he saw her lay hands upon herself.”
Björn’s dead eyes grew slowly dark, as life came into them; he looked at his wife, and his mouth drew aside into a crooked smile:
“And you mean that I should be the one?”
Lady Aashild crushed her hands together and lifted them towards him:
“Björn, you know well what it means for these two—”
“And you think that, whether or no, ’tis all over with me?” he said slowly. “Or think you there is so much left of the man I once was that I dare be forsworn to save that boy there from going down to ruin? I that was dragged down myself—all those years ago. Dragged down, I say,” he repeated.
“You say it because I am old now,” whispered Aashild.
Kristin burst out into such weeping that the piercing sound filled the room. She had sat in the corner by Aashild’s bed, stark and silent. Now she began weeping wildly and loud. It was as though Lady Aashild’s voice had torn her heart open. The voice had been heavy with the memories of the sweetness of love; it was as though its sound had made her understand for the first time what her love and Erlend’s had been. The memory of hot and passionate happiness swept over all else—swept away the hard despair and hatred of last night. All she knew of now was her love and her will to hold out.
They looked at her—all three. Then Sir Björn went across and lifted her chin with his hand and looked at her:
“Sayyou, Kristin, she did it herself?”
“Every word you have heard is true,” said Kristin firmly. “We threatened her till she did it.”
“She had meant Kristin should suffer a worst fate,” said Aashild.
Sir Björn let go the girl. He went over to the body, lifted it up into the bed where Eline had lain the nightbefore, and laid it close to the wall, drawing up the coverings well over it:
“Jon and the man you do not know you must send home to Husaby, with word that Eline is journeying south with you. Let them ride at midday. Say that the women are asleep in the hall; they must take their food in the kitchen. Afterward you must speak with Ulv and Haftor. Hath she threatened before to do this? So that you can bring witness to it, if such question should be asked?”
“Every soul that was at Husaby the last years we lived together there,” said Erlend wearily, “can witness that she threatened to take her own life—and mine too sometimes—when I spoke of parting from her.”
Björn laughed harshly:
“I thought as much. To-night we must clothe her in her riding-coats and set her in the sleigh. You must sit beside her—”
Erlend swayed on his feet where he stood:
“I cannot!”
“God knows how much manhood will be left inyouwhen you have gone your own gait twenty years more,” said Björn. “Think you, then, you can drive the sleigh? For then will I sit beside her. We must travel by night and by lonely paths, till we are come down to Fron. In this cold none can know how long she has been dead. We will drive in to the monk’s Hospice at Roaldstad. There will you and I bear witness that you two were together in the sleigh, and it came to bitter words betwixt you. There is witness enough that you would not live with her since the ban was taken off you, and that you have made suit for a maiden of birth that fits your own. Ulv and Haftor must hold themselves aloof the whole way, so they can swear, if need be, she was alive when last they saw her. You can bring them to do so much, I trow? At the monastery you can have the monks lay her in her coffin—and afterward you must bargain with the priests for grave-peacefor her and soul’s peace for yourself.—Aye, a fair deed it is not? But so as you have guided things, no fairer can it be. Stand not there like a breeding woman ready to swoon away. God help you, boy, a man can seeyouhave not proved before what ’tis to feel the knife-edge at your throat.”
A biting blast came rushing down from the mountains, driving a fine silvery smoke from the snow-wreaths up into the moon-blue air, as the men made ready to drive away.
Two horses were harnessed, one in front of the other. Erlend sat in the front of the sleigh. Kristin went up to him:
“This time, Erlend, you must try to send me word how this journey goes, and what becomes of you after.”
He crushed her hand till she thought the blood must be driven out from under the nails.
“Dare you still hold fast to me, Kristin?”
“Aye, still,” she said; and after a moment—: “Of this deed we are both guilty—I egged you on—for I willed her death.”
Lady Aashild and Kristin stood and looked after the sleigh, as it rose and dipped over the snow-drifts. It went down from sight into a hollow—then came forth again farther down on a snow-slope. And then the men passed into the shadow of a fell, and were gone from sight for good.
The two women sat by the fireplace, their backs to the empty bed, from which Aashild had borne away all the bedding and straw. Both could feel it standing there empty and gaping behind them.
“Would you rather that we should sleep in the kitchen-house to-night,” asked Lady Aashild at length.
“’Tis like it will be the same wherever we lie,” said Kristin.
Lady Aashild went out to look at the weather.
“Aye, should the wind get up or a thaw come on, they will not journey far before it comes out,” said Kristin.
“Here at Haugen it blows ever,” answered Lady Aashild. “’Tis no sign of a change of weather.”
They sat on as before.
“You should not forget,” said the Lady at last, “what fate she had meant for you two.”
Kristin answered low:
“I was thinking, maybe in her place I had willed the same.”
“Never would you have willed another should be a leper,” said Aashild, vehemently.
“Mind you, Moster, you said to me once that ’tis well when we dare not do a thing we think is not good and fair; but not so well when we think a thing not good and fair because we dare not do it?”
“You had not dared to do it, because ’twas sin,” said Lady Aashild.
“No, I believe not so,” said Kristin. “Much have I done already that I deemed once I dared not to do because ’twas sin. But I saw not till now what sin brings with it—that we must tread others underfoot.”
“Erlend would fain have made an end of his ill life long before he met you,” said Aashild eagerly. “All was over between those two.”
“I know it,” said Kristin. “But I trow she had never cause to deem Erlend’s purposes so firm that she could not shake them.”
“Kristin,” begged the lady fearfully, “surely you would not give up Erlend now? You cannot be saved now except you save each other.”
“So would a priest scorn counsel,” said Kristin, smiling coldly. “But well I know that never can I give up Erlend now—not if I should tread my own father underfoot.”
Lady Aashild rose:
“We had as well put our hands to some work as sit here thus,” she said. “Like enough ’twould be vain for us to try to sleep.”
She fetched the butter-churn from the closet, then bore in some pans of milk, filled the churn and made ready to begin churning.
“Let me do it,” Kristin asked. “My back is younger.”
They worked without speaking; Kristin stood by the closet-door churning, while Aashild carded wool by the hearth. At last, when Kristin had emptied the churn and was kneading the butter, the girl asked of a sudden:
“Moster Aashild—are you never afraid of the day when you must stand before God’s judgment?”
Lady Aashild rose, and came and stood before Kristin in the light:
“It may be I shall find courage to ask Him that hath made me as I am, if He will have mercy on me in His own good time. For I have never begged for His mercy when I broke His commands. And never have I begged God or man to forgive me a farthing of the price I have paid here in this mountain hut.”
A little while after she said softly:
“Munan, my eldest son, was twenty years old. He was not such an one then, as I know he is now. They were not such ones then, my children—”
Kristin answered low:
“But yet have you had Sir Björn by your side each day and each night in all these years.”
“Aye—that too have I had,” said Aashild.
In a little while after, Kristin was done with the butter-making. Lady Aashild said then that they must lie down and try to sleep a little.
Inside, in the dark bed, she laid her arm round Kristin’s shoulders, and drew the young head in to her breast. And it was not long before she heard by her even gentle breathing that Kristin was fallen asleep.
4
The frost held on. In every byre in the parish the half-starved beasts bellowed dolefully with hunger and cold. Already the farmers were skimping and saving on their fodder, every straw they could.
There was little visiting round at Yule this year; folks stayed quiet in their own homes.
During Yule-tide the cold grew greater—it was as though each day was colder than the last. Scarce anyone could call to mind so hard a winter—there came no more snow, not even up in the mountains; but the snow that had fallen at Clementsmass froze hard as a stone. The sun shone from a clear sky, now the days began to grow lighter. At night the northern lights flickered and flamed above the range to the north—they flamed over half the heaven, but they brought no change of weather; now and again would come a cloudy day, and a little dry snow would sprinkle down—and then came clear weather again and biting cold. The Laagen muttered and gurgled sluggishly under its ice-bridges.
Kristin thought each morning that she could bear no more, that she could never hold out to the day’s end. For each day she felt was as a duel between her and her father. Andcouldthey be against each other so, when every living being in the parish, man and beast, was suffering under one common trial?—But still, when the evening came, she had held out one day more.
It was not that her father was unfriendly. They spoke no word of what was between them, but she felt, behind all that he did not say, his firm unbending will to hold fast to his denial.
And her heart ached within her for the lack of his friendship. The ache was so dreadful in its keenness, because she knew how much else her father had on hisshoulders—and had things been as before, he would have talked with her of it all—It was indeed so, that at Jörundgaard they were in better case than most other places; but here, too, they felt the pinch of the year each day and each hour. Other years it had been Lavrans’ wont in the winters to handle and break in his young colts; but this year he had sent them all south in the autumn and sold them. And his daughter missed the sound of his voice out in the courtyard, and the sight of him struggling with the slender, ragged two-year-olds in the game he loved so well. Storehouses and barns and bins at Jörundgaard were not bare yet—there was store left from the harvest of the year before—but many folk came to ask for help—to buy, or to beg for gifts—and none ever asked in vain.
Late one evening came a huge old skin-clad man on ski. Lavrans talked with him out in the courtyard, and Halvdan bore food across to the hearth-room for him. None on the place who had seen him knew who he was—he might well be one of those wild folk who lived far in among the fells; like enough Lavrans had come upon him in there. But Lavrans said naught of the visitor, nor Halvdan either.
But one evening came a man whom Lavrans Björgulfsön had been at odds with for many years. Lavrans went to the storeroom with him. When he came back to the hall again he said:
“They come to me for help, every man of them. But here in my own house you are all against me. You, too, wife,” he said hotly.
The mother flamed up at Kristin:
“Hear you what your father says to me! No, I am not against you, Lavrans. I know—and I wot well you know it too, Kristin—what befell away south at Roaldstad late in the autumn, when he journeyed down the Dale with that other adulterer, his kinsman of Hauges—shetook her own life, the unhappy woman he had lured away from all her kin.”
Kristin stood with a hard, frozen face:
“I see that ’tis all one—you blame him as much for the years he has striven to free himself from sin, as for the years he lived in it.”
“Jesus, Maria!” cried Ragnfrid, clasping her hands together: “What is come to you! Has even this not availed to change your heart?”
“No,” said Kristin. “I have not changed.”
Then Lavrans looked up from the bench where he sat by Ulvhild:
“Neither have I changed, Kristin,” he said in a low voice.
But Kristin felt within her that in a manner she was changed, in thoughts if not in heart. She had had tidings of how it had fared with them on that dreadful journey. As things fell out it had gone off more easily than they looked it should. Whether the cold had got into the hurt or whatever the cause might be, the knife-wound in Erlend’s breast had festered, and constrained him to lie sick some while in the hospice at Roaldstad, Sir Björn tending him. But that Erlend was wounded made it easier to win belief for their tale of how that other thing had befallen.
When he was fit to journey on, he had taken the dead woman with him in a coffin all the way to Oslo. There, by Sira Jon’s help, he had won for her Christian burial in the churchyard of the old Church of St. Nikolaus that had been pulled down. Then had he made confession to the Bishop of Oslo himself, and the Bishop had laid on him as penance to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Blood at Schwerin. Now was he gone out of the land.
Shecould not make pilgrimage to any place on earth, and find absolution. For her there was naught but tosit here and wait and think, and strive to hold out in the struggle with her father and mother. A strange wintery-cold light fell on all her memories of meetings with Erlend. She thought of his vehemency—in love and in grief—and it was borne in on her that had she been able, like him, to take up all things of a sudden, and straightway rush forward with them, headlong, afterwards maybe they might have seemed less fearful and heavy to bear. At times, too, she would think: maybe Erlend will give me up. It seemed to her she must always have had a little, lurking fear that if things grew too hard for them he would fail her. But she would never givehimup, unless he himself loosed her from all vows.
So the winter dragged on toward its end. And Kristin could not cheat herself any more; she had to see that the hardest trial of all lay before them—that Ulvhild had not long to live. And in the midst of her bitter sorrow for her sister she saw with horror that truly her own soul was wildered and eaten away with sin. For, with the dying child and the parents’ unspeakable sorrow before her eyes, she was still brooding on this one thing—if Ulvhild dies, how can I bear to look at my father and not throw myself at his feet and confess all and beseech him to forgive me—and command me—.
They were come far on in the long fast. Folks had begun slaughtering the small stock they had hoped to save alive, for fear they should die of themselves. And the people themselves sickened and pined from living on fish, with naught besides but a little wretched meal and flour. Sira Eirik gave leave to the whole parish to eat milk food if they would. But few of the folk could come by a drop of milk.
Ulvhild lay in bed. She lay alone in the sisters’ bed,and someone watched by her each night. It chanced sometimes that both Kristin and her father would be sitting by her. On such a night Lavrans said to his daughter:
“Mind you what Brother Edwin said that time about Ulvhild’s lot? Even then the thought came to me that maybe he meant this. But I thrust it from me then.”
Sometimes in these nights he would speak of this thing and that from the time when the children were small. Kristin sat there, white and desperate—she knew that behind the words her father was beseeching her.
One day Lavrans had gone with Kolbein to hunt out a bear’s winter lair in the wooded hills to the north. They came home with a she-bear on a sledge, and Lavrans brought with him a living bear-cub in the bosom of his coat. Ulvhild brightened a little when he showed it to her. But Ragnfrid said that was surely no time to rear up such a beast—what would he do with it at a time like this?
“I will rear it up and bind it before my daughters’ bower,” said Lavrans, laughing harshly.
But they could not get for the cub the rich milk it needed, and Lavrans had to kill it a few days after.
The sun had gained so much strength now that sometimes, at midday, the roofs would drip a little. The titmice clambered about, clinging on the sunny side of the timber walls, and pecked till the wood rang, digging for the flies sleeping in the cracks. Over the rolling fields around, the snow shone hard and bright as silver.
At last one evening clouds began to draw together over the moon. And the next morning the folks at Jörundgaard woke in the midst of a whirling world of snow that shut in their sight on every hand.
That day they knew that Ulvhild was dying.
All the house-folk were indoors, and Sira Eirik cameover to them. Many candles were burning in the hall. Early in the evening Ulvhild passed away, quietly and peacefully, in her mother’s arms.
Ragnfrid bore it better than any had thought possible. The father and mother sat together; both were weeping very quietly. All in the room were weeping. When Kristin went across to her father, he laid his arm round her shoulders. He felt how she shook and trembled, and he drew her close in to him. But to her it seemed that he must feel as if she were further from him far than the dead child in the bed.
She understood not how it was that she still held out. She scarce remembered herself what it was she held out for; but, lulled and dumb with grief as she was, she held herself up and did not yield—
—A few planks were torn up from the church floor in front of St. Thomas’s shrine, and a grave was hewn in the stone-hard ground beneath for Ulvhild Lavransdatter.
It was snowing thick and silently all through those days, while the child lay in the dead-straw; it was snowing still when she was borne to the grave; and it went on snowing, almost without cease, till a whole month was out.
To the folk of the Dale, waiting and waiting for the spring to deliver them, it seemed as though it would never come. The days grew long and light, and the steam-cloud from the melting snow lay on all the valley as long as the sun shone. But the cold still held the air, and there was no strength in the heat to overcome it. By night it froze hard—there was loud cracking from the ice, there were booming sounds from the distant fells; and the wolves howled and the fox barked down among the farms as at midwinter. Men stripped the bark from the trees for their cattle, but they dropped down dead in their stalls by scores. None could tell how all this was to end.
Kristin went out on such a day, when water was trickling in the ruts and the snow on the fields around glistened like silver. The snow-wreaths had been eaten away hollow on the side toward the sun, so that the fine ice-trellis of the snow-crust edges broke with a silver tinkle when her foot touched them. But everywhere, where the smallest shadow fell, the sharp cold held the air and the snow was hard.
She went upward towards the church—she knew not herself what she went to do, but something drew her there. Her father was there—some of the free-holders, guild-brothers, were to meet in the cloister-way, she knew.
Half-way up the hill she met the troop of farmers, coming down. Sira Eirik was with them. The men were all on foot; they walked stoopingly in a dark, shaggy knot, and spoke no word together. They gave back her greeting sullenly, as she went by them.
Kristin thought how far away the time was when every soul in the parish had been her friend. Like enough all men knew now that she was a bad daughter. Perhaps they knew yet more about her. It might well be that all believed now there had been some truth in the old talk about her and Arne and Bentein. It might be that she had fallen into the worst ill-fame. She held her head high and passed on toward the church.
The door stood ajar. It was cold in the church, yet was it as though a mild warmth streamed into her heart from the brown dusky hall with the high, upspringing pillars holding up the darkness under the roof-beams. There was no light on the altars, but a ray of sun shone in through a chink of the door and gleamed faintly back from the pictures and the holy vessels.
Far in before the altar of St. Thomas she saw her father kneeling with head bent forward on his folded hands, which held his cap crushed to his breast.
Shrinking back in fear and sadness, Kristin stole out andstood in the cloister-way, with her hands about two of its small pillars. Framed in the arch between them she saw Jörundgaard lying below, and behind her home the pale-blue haze that filled the valley. Where the river lay stretched through the country-side its ice and water sent out white sparkles in the sunshine. But the alder thickets along its bed were yellow-brown with blossom, even the pine-wood up by the church was tinged with spring green, and there was a piping and twittering and whistling of little birds in the grove near by. Aye, there had been bird-song like this each evening after the sun was down.
And she felt that the longing she thought must have been racked out of her long since, the longing in her body and her blood, was stirring now again, faintly and feebly, as about to waken from a winter sleep.
Lavrans Björgulfsön came out and locked the church-door behind him. He came and stood by his daughter, looking out through the arch next to her. She saw how the winter gone by had harrowed her father’s face. She understood not herself how she could touch now on what was between them, but the words seemed to rush out of themselves:
“Is it true, what mother told me the other day—that you said to her: had it been Arne Gyrdsön you would have given me my will?”
“Aye,” said Lavrans, not looking at her.
“You said not so while yet Arne lived,” said Kristin.
“It never came in question. I saw well enough that the boy held you dear—but he said nothing—and he was young—and I marked not ever that you had such thoughts towards him. You could scarce think I wouldproffermy daughter to a man of no estate?” he smiled slightly. “But I loved the boy,” he said in a low voice; “and had I seen you pining for love of him—”
They stood still, gazing. Kristin felt that her father waslooking at her—she strove hard to be calm of face, but she felt herself grow deadly white. Then her father came towards her, put both his arms around her and pressed her strongly to him. He bent her head backwards, looked down into his daughter’s face, and then hid it again on his shoulder.
“Jesus Kristus, little Kristin, are yousounhappy—?”
“I think I shall die of it, father,” she said, her face pressed to him.
She burst into weeping. But she wept because she had felt in his caress and seen in his eyes that now he was so worn out with pain that he could not hold out against her any more. She had overcome him.
Far on in the night she was wakened in the dark by her father’s touch on her shoulder.
“Get up,” he said softly. “Do you hear—?”
She heard the singing of the wind round the house-corners—the deep, full note of the south-wind, heavy with wetness. Streams were pouring from the roof; there was the whisper of rain falling on soft melting snow.
Kristin flung her dress on her back and went after her father to the outer door. They stood together looking out into the twilight of the May night—warm wind and rain smote against them—the heavens were a welter of tangled drifting rain-clouds, the woods roared, the wind whistled between the houses, and from far up in the fells they heard the dull boom of snow-masses falling.
Kristin felt for her father’s hand and held it. He had called her that he might show her this. So had it been between them before, that he would have done this; and so it was now again.
When they went in to bed again, Lavrans said:
“The stranger serving-man that came last week brought me letters from Sir Munan Baardsön. He is minded to come up the Dale to our parts next summer to see hismother; and he asked if he might meet me and have speech with me.”
“What will you answer him, my father?” she whispered.
“That can I not tell you now,” said Lavrans. “But I will speak with him; and then must I order this matter so as I may deem I can answer it to God, my daughter.”
Kristin crept in again beside Ramborg, and Lavrans went and lay down by the side of his sleeping wife. He lay thinking that if the flood came over-sudden and strong there were few places in the parish that lay so much in its path as Jörundgaard. Folk said there was a prophecy that some day the river would carry it away.