“I know, I know,” broke in Lavrans impatiently. “All the more does it behove a man to guide warily the goods that have come down to him —”
But his wife went on:
“And this, too, is to be said: I see not that Kristin can be an uneven match for Erlend. In Sweden your kin sit among the best, and your father, and his father before him, bore the name of knights in this land of Norway. My forefathers were Barons* of shires, son after father, many hundred years, down to Ivar the Old; my father and my father’s father were Wardens.* True it is, neither you nor Trond have held titles or lands under the Crown. But, as for that, methinks it may be said that ’tis no otherwise with Erlend Nikulaussön than with you.”
“ ’Tis not the same,” said Lavrans hotly. “Power and the knightly name lay ready to Erlend’s hand, and he turned his back on them to go a-whoring. But I see, now, you are against me, too. Maybe you think, like Aasmund and Trond, ’tis an honour for me that these great folks would have my daughter for one of their kinsmen —”
Ragnfrid spoke in some heat: “I have told you, I see not that you need be so over-nice as to fear that Erlend’s kinsmen should think they stoop in these dealings. But see you not what all things betoken — a gentle and a biddable child to find courage to set herself up against us and turn away Simon Darre — have you not seen that Kristin is nowise herself since she came back from Oslo — see you not she goes around like one bewitched.… Will you not understand, she loves this man so sorely, that, if you yield not, a great misfortune may befall?”
“What mean you by that?” asked the father, looking up sharply.
“Many a man greets his son-in-law and knows not of it,” said Ragnfrid.
The man seemed to stiffen where he sat; his face grew slowly white:
“You that are her mother!” he said hoarsely. “Have you — have you seen — such sure tokens — that you dare charge your own daughter —”
“No, no,” said Ragnfrid quickly. “I meant it not as you think. But when things are thus, who can tell what has befallen, or what may befall? I have seen her heart; not one thought hath she left but her love for this man — ’twere no marvel if one day she showed us that he is dearer to her than her honour — or her life.”
Lavrans sprang up:
“Oh, you are mad! Can you think such things of our fair, good child? No harm, surely, can have come to her where she was — with the holy nuns. I wot well she is no byre-wench to go clipping behind walls and fences. Think but of it: ’tis not possible she can have seen this man or talked with him so many times — be sure it will pass away; it cannot be aught but a young maid’s fancy. God knows, ’tis a heavy sight enough for me to see her sorrow so; but be sure it must pass by in time.
“Life, you say, and honour.… At home here by my own hearthstone ’twill go hard if I cannot guard my own maiden. Nor do I deem that any maid come of good people and bred up Christianly in shamefastness will be so quick to throw away her honour — nor yet her life. Ay, such things are told of in songs and ballads, sure enough — but methinks ’tis so that when a man or a maid is tempted to do such a deed, they make up a song about it, and ease their hearts thereby — but the deed itself they forbear to do — .
“You yourself,” he said, stopping before his wife: “there was another man you would fain have wed, in those days when we were brought together. How think you it would have gone with you, had your father let you have your will on that score?”
It was Ragnfrid now that was grown deadly pale:
“Jesus, Maria! Who hath told —”
“Sigurd of Loptsgaard said somewhat … ’twas when we were just come hither to the Dale,” said Lavrans. “But answer me what I asked.… Think you your life had been gladder had Ivar given you to that man?”
His wife stood with head bowed low:
“That man,” she said — he could scarce hear the words: “ ’twas he would not have me.” A throb seemed to pass through her body — she struck out before her with her clenched hand.
The husband laid his hands softly on her shoulders:
“Is it that” he asked as if overcome, and a deep and sorrowful wonder sounded in his voice; “… is it that — through all these years — have you been sorrowing for him — Ragnfrid?”
She trembled much, but she said nothing.
“Ragnfrid?” he asked again. “Ay, but afterward — when Björgulf was dead — and afterward — when you — when you would have had me be to you as — as I could not be. Were you thinking then of that other?” He spoke low, in fear and bewilderment and pain.
“How can you have such thoughts?” she whispered, on the verge of weeping.
Lavrans pressed his forehead against hers and moved his head gently from side to side.
“I know not. You are so strange — and all you have said tonight. I was afraid, Ragnfrid. Like enough I understand not the hearts of women —”
Ragnfrid smiled palely and laid her arms about his neck.
“God knows, Lavrans — I was a beggar to you, because I loved you more than ’tis good that a human soul should love.… And I hated that other so that I felt the devil joyed in my hate.”
“I have held you dear, my wife,” said Lavrans, kissing her, “ay, with all my heart have I held you dear. You know that, surely? Methought always that we two were happy together — Ragnfrid?”
“You were the best husband to me,” said she with a little sob, and clung close to him.
He pressed her to him strongly:
“To-night I would fain sleep with you, Ragnfrid. And if you would be to me as you were in old days, I should not be — such a fool-”
The woman seemed to stiffen in his arms — she drew away a little:
“ ’Tis Fast-time.” She spoke low — in a strange, hard voice.
“It is so.” He laughed a little. “You and I, Ragnfrid — we have kept all the fasts, and striven to do God’s bidding in all things. And now almost I could think — maybe we had been happier had we more to repent —”
“Oh, speak not so — you,” she begged wildly, pressing her thin hands to his temples. “You know well I would not you should do aught but what you feel yourself is the right.”
He drew her to him closely once more — and groaned aloud: “God help her! God help us all, my Ragnfrid —”
Then: “I am weary,” he said, and let her go. “And ’tis time, too, for you to go to rest.”
He stood by the door waiting, while she quenched the embers on the hearth, blew out the little iron lamp by the loom, and pinched out the glowing wick. Together they went across through the rain to the hall.
Lavrans had set foot already on the loft-room stair, when he turned to his wife, who was still standing in the entry-door.
He crushed her in his arms again, for the last time, and kissed her in the dark. Then he made the sign of the cross over his wife’s face, and went up the stair.
Ragnfrid flung off her clothes and crept into bed. Awhile she lay and listened to her husband’s steps in the loft-room above; then she heard the bed creak, and all was still. Ragnfrid crossed her thin arms over her withered breasts.
Ay, God help her! What kind of woman was she, what kind of mother? She would soon be old now. Yet was she the same; though she no longer begged stormily for love, as when they were young and her passion had made this man shrink and grow cold when she would have had him be lover and not only husband. So had it been — and so, time after time, when she was with child, had she been humbled, beside herself with shame, that she had not been content with his lukewarm husband-love. And then, when things were so with her, and she needed goodness and tenderness — then he had so much to give; the man’s tireless, gentle thought for her, when she was sick and tormented, had fallen on her soul like dew. Gladly did he take up all she laid on him and bear it — but there was ever something of his own he would not give. She had loved her children, so that each time she lost one, ’twas as though the heart was torn from her. God! God! what woman was s
he then, that even then, in the midst of her torments, she could feel it as a drop of sweetness that he took her sorrow into his heart and laid it close beside his own.
Kristin — gladly would she have passed through the fire for her daughter; they believed it not, neither Lavrans nor the child — but ’twas so. Yet did she feel toward her now an anger that was near to hate — ’twas to forget his sorrow for the child’s sorrow that he had wished to-night that he could give himself up to his wife.…
Ragnfrid dared not rise, for she knew not but that Kristin might be lying awake in the other bed. But she raised herself noiselessly to her knees, and with forehead bent against the footboard of the bed she strove to pray. For her daughter, for her husband and for herself. While her body, little by little, grew stiff with the cold, she set out once more on one of the night-wanderings she knew so well, striving to break her way through to a home of peace for her heart.
3
HAUGEN lay high up in the hills on the west side of the valley. This moonlight night the whole world was white. Billow after billow, the white fells lay domed under the pale blue heavens with their thin-strewn stars. Even the shadows that peaks and domes stretched forth over the snow-slopes seemed strangely thin and light, the moon was sailing so high.
Downward, toward the valley, the woods stood fleecy-white with snow and rime, round the white fields of crofts scrolled over with tiny huts and fences. But far down in the valley-bottom the shadows thickened into darkness.
Lady Aashild came out of the byre, shut the door after her, and stood awhile in the snow. White — the whole world; yet was it more than three weeks still to Advent. Clementsmass cold — ’twas like winter had come in earnest already. Ay, ay; in bad years it was often so.
The old woman sighed heavily in the desolate air. Winter again, and cold and loneliness.… Then she took up the milk-pail and went towards the dwelling-house. She looked once again down over the valley.
Four black dots come out of the woods half-way up the hillside. Four men on horseback — and the moonlight glanced from a spearhead. They were ploughing heavily upward — none had come that way since the snowfall. Were they coming hither?
Four armed men.…’Twas not like that any who had a lawful errand here would come so many in company. She thought of the chest with her goods and Björn’s in it. Should she hide in the outhouse?
She looked out again over the wintry waste about her. Then she went into the living-house. The two old hounds that lay before the smoky fireplace smote the floor-boards with their tails. The young dogs Björn had with him in the hills.
Aashild blew the embers of the fire into flame, and laid more wood on them; filled the iron pot with snow and set it on the fire; then poured the milk into a wooden bowl and bore it to the closet beside the outer room.
Then she doffed her dirty, undyed, wadmal gown, that smelt of the byre and of sweat, put on a dark-blue garment, and changed her tow-linen hood for a coif of fine white linen, which she smoothed down fairly round her head and neck. Her shaggy boots of skin she drew off, and put on silver-buckled shoes. Then she fell to setting her room in order — smoothed the pillows and the skin in the bed where Björn had lain that day, wiped the long-board clean, and laid the bench-cushions straight.
When the dogs set up their warning barking, she was standing by the fireplace, stirring the supper-porridge. She heard horses in the yard, and the tread of men in the outer room; some one knocked on the door with a spear-butt. Lady Aashild lifted the pot from the fire, settled her dress about her, and, with the dogs at her side, went forward to the door and opened.
Out in the moonlit yard were three young men holding four horses white with rime. A man that stood before her in the porch cried out joyfully:
“Moster* Aashild! come you yourself to open to us? Nay, then must I say Ben trouvé!”
“Sister’s son, is it you indeed? Then the same say I to you! Go into the room, while I show your men the stable.”
“Are you all alone on the farm?” asked Erlend. He followed her while she showed the men where to go.
“Ay; Sir Björn and our man are gone into the hills with the sleigh — they are to see and bring home some fodder we have stacked up there,” said Lady Aashild. “And serving-woman I have none,” she said, laughing.
A little while after, the four young men were sitting on the outer bench with their backs to the board, looking at the old lady, as, busily but quietly, she went about making ready their supper. She laid a cloth on the board, and set on it a lighted candle; then brought forth butter, cheese, a bear-ham and a high pile of thin slices of fine bread. She fetched ale and mead up from the cellar below the room, and then poured out the porridge into a dish of fine wood, and bade them sit in to the board and fall to.
“ ’Tis but little for you young folk,” she said, laughing. “I must boil another pot of porridge. To-morrow you shall fare better — but I shut up the kitchen-house in the winter, save when I bake or brew. We are few folks on the farm, and I begin to grow old, kinsman.”
Erlend laughed and shook his head. He had marked that his men behaved before the old woman seemly and modestly as he had scarce ever seen them bear themselves before.
“You are a strange woman, Moster. Mother was ten years younger than you, and she looked older when last we were in your house than you look to-day.”
“Ay, Magnhild’s youth left her full early,” said Lady Aashild softly. “Where are you come from, now?” she asked after a while.
“I have been for a season at a farmstead up north in Lesja,” said Erlend. “I had hired me lodging there. I know not if you can guess what errand has brought me to this countryside?”
“You would ask: know I that you have had suit made to Lavrans Björgulfsön of Jörundgaard for his daughter?”
“Ay,” said Erlend. “I made suit for her in seemly and honourable wise, and Lavrans Björgulfsön answered with a churlish: No. Now I see no better way, since Kristin and I will not be forced apart, than that I bear her off by the strong hand. I have — I have had a spy in this countryside, and I know that her mother was to be at Sundbu at Clementsmass and for a while after, and Lavrans is gone to Romsdal with the other men to fetch across the winter stores to Sil.”
Lady Aashild sat silent awhile.
“That counsel, Erlend, you had best let be,” said she. “I deem not either that the maid will go with you willingly; and I trow you would not use force?”
“Ay, but she will. We have spoken of it many times — she has prayed me herself many times to bear her away.”
“Kristin has — ?” said Lady Aashild. Then she laughed. “None the less I would not have you make too sure that the maid will follow when you come to take her at her word.”
“Ay, but she will,” said Erlend. “And, Moster, my thought was this: that you send word to Jörundgaard and bid Kristin come and be your guest — a week or so, while her father and mother are from home. Then could we be at Hamar before any knew she was gone,” he added.
Lady Aashild answered, still smiling:
“And had you thought as well what we should answer, Sir Björn and I, when Lavrans comes and calls us to account for his daughter?”
“Ay,” said Erlend. “We were four well-armed men, and the maid was willing.”
“I will not help you in this,” said the lady hotly. “Lavrans has been a trusty man to us for many a year — he and his wife are honourable folk, and I will not be art or part in deceiving them or be-shaming their child. Leave the maid in peace, Erlend. ’Twill soon be high time, too, that your kin should hear of other deeds of yours than running in and out of the land with stolen women.”
“I must speak with you alone, lady,” said Erlend shortly.
Lady Aashild took a candle, led him to the closet, and shut the door behind them. She sate herself down on a corn-bin; Erlend stood with his hands thrust into his belt, looking down at her.
“You may say this, too, to Lavrans Björgulfsön: that Sira John of Gerdarud j
oined us in wedlock ere we went on our way to Lady Ingebjörg Haakonsdatter in Sweden.”
“Say you so?” said Lady Aashild. “Are you well assured that Lady Ingebjörg will welcome you, when you are come thither?”
“I spoke with her at Tunsberg,” said Erlend. “She greeted me as her dear kinsman, and thanked me when I proffered her my service either here or in Sweden. And Munan hath promised me letters to her.”
“And know you not,” said Aashild, “that even should you find a priest that will wed you, yet will Kristin have cast away all right to the heritage of her father’s lands and goods? Nor can her children be your lawful heirs. Much I doubt if she will be counted as your lawfully wedded wife.”
“Not in this land, maybe. ’Tis therefore we fly to Sweden. Her forefather, Laurentius Lagmand, was never wed to the Lady-Bengta in any other sort — they could never win her brother’s consent. Yet was she counted as a wedded lady —”
“There were no children,” said Lady Aashild. “Think you my sons will hold their hands from your heritage if Kristin be left a widow with children and their lawful birth can be cast in dispute?”
“You do Munan wrong,” said Erlend. “I know but little of your other children — I know indeed that you have little cause to judge them kindly. But Munan has ever been my trusty kinsman. He is fain to have me wed; ’twas he went to Lavrans with my wooing.… Besides, afterwards, by course of law, I can assure our children their heritage and rights.”
“Ay, and thereby mark their mother as your concubine,” said Lady Aashild. “But ’tis past my understanding how that meek and holy man, Jon Helgesön, will dare to brave his Bishop by wedding you against the law.”
“I confessed — all — to him last summer,” said Erlend, in a low voice. “He promised then to wed us, if all other ways should fail.”