Thus it was not hard for Kristin to slip away unseen, but she dared not take a horse, so she went on foot. The road was a quagmire of snow-slush and withered leaves; there was a saddening breath of death and decay in the raw, chill air, and now and again there came a gust of wind driving the rain into her face. She drew her hood well down over her head and, holding her cloak about her with both hands, went quickly forward. She was a little afraid — the roar of the river sounded so hollow in the heavy air, and the clouds drove dark and ragged over the hillcrests. Now and again she halted and listened for Arne’s coming.
After a time she heard the splashing hoofs upon the slushy road behind her, and she stopped then where she was, for this was a somewhat lonely spot and she thought ’twas a good place for them to say their farewells in quiet. Almost at once, she saw the horseman coming, and Arne sprang from his horse and led it as he came to meet her.
“ ’Twas kindly done of you to come,” said he, “in this ugly weather.”
“ ’Tis worse for you who have so far to ride — and how is it you set out so late?” she asked.
“Jon has bidden me to lie the night at Loptsgaard,” answered Arne. “I thought ’twas easier for you to meet me at this time of day.”
They stood silent for a time. Kristin thought she had never seen before how fair a youth Arne was. He had on a smooth steel cap, and under that a brown woollen hood that sat tight about his face and spread out over his shoulders; under it, his narrow face showed bright and comely. His leather jerkin was old, spotted with rust and rubbed by the coat of mail which had been worn above it — Arne had taken it over from his father — but it fitted closely to his slim, lithe, and powerful body, and he had a sword at his side and in his hand a spear — his other weapons hung from his saddle. He was full-grown now and bore himself manfully.
She laid her hand upon his shoulder, and said:
“Mind you, Arne, you asked me once if I thought you as good a man as Simon Andressön? Now will I tell you one thing, before we part; ’tis that you seem to me as much above him in looks and bearing as he is reckoned above you in birth and riches by those who look most to such things.”
“Why do you tell me this?” asked Arne breathlessly.
“Because Brother Edvin told me to lay to heart, that we should thank God for His good gifts, and not be like the woman when St. Olav added to her meat, and she wept because she had not trenchers to put it in — so you should not grieve that He has not given you as much of riches as of bodily gifts —”
“Was it that you meant,” said Arne. And then, as she was silent, he said:
“I wondered if you meant that you would rather be wedded to me than to the other —”
“That I would, truly,” said she, in a low voice. “… I know you better —”
Arne threw his arms around her so that her feet were lifted from the ground. He kissed her face many times, and then set her down again:
“God help us, Kristin, what a child you are!”
She stood and hung her head, but left her hands upon his shoulders. He caught her wrists and held them tight:
“I see how ’tis with you, my sweeting: you little know how sore I am at heart to lose you. Kristin, you know we have grown up together like two apples on one branch; I loved you long before I began to understand that one day another would come and break you from me. As sure as God suffered death for us all — I know not how I can ever be happy in this world again after to-day —”
Kristin wept bitterly and lifted her face, so that he might kiss her.
“Do not talk so, my Arne,” she begged, and patted him on the shoulder.
“Kristin,” said Arne in a low voice, and took her into his arms again, “think you not that if you begged your father — Lavrans is so good a man, he would not force you against your will — if you begged them but to let you wait a few years — no one knows how fortune may turn for me — we are both of us so young —”
“Oh, I fear I must do as they wish at home,” she wept.
And now weeping came upon Arne too.
“You know not, Kristin, how dear you are to me.” He hid his face upon her shoulder. “If you did, and if you cared for me, for sure you would go to Lavrans and beg hard —”
“I cannot do it,” she sobbed. “I could never come to love any man so much as to go against my father and mother for his sake.” She groped with her hands for his face under the hood and the heavy steel cap. “Do not cry so, Arne, my dearest friend —”
“You must take this at least,” said he after a time, giving her a little brooch; “and think of me sometimes, for I shall never forget you nor my grief —”
It was all but dark when Kristin and Arne had said their last farewell. She stood and looked after him when at length he rode away. A streak of yellow light shone through a rift in the clouds, and was reflected in the footprints, where they had walked and stood in the slush on the road — it all looked so cold and sorrowful, she thought. She drew up her linen neckerchief and dried her tear-stained face, then turned and went homeward.
She was wet and cold, and walked quickly. After a time she heard some one coming along the road behind her. She was a little frightened; even on such a night as this there might be strange folk journeying on the highway, and she had a lonely stretch before her. A great black scree rose right up on one side, and on the other the ground fell steeply and there was fir-forest all the way down to the leaden-hued river in the bottom of the Dale. So she was glad when the man behind her called to her by name; and she stood still and waited.
The newcomer was a tall, thin man in a dark surcoat with lighter sleeves; as he came nearer she saw he was dressed as a priest and carried an empty wallet on his back. And now she knew him to be Bentein Priestson, as they called him — Sira Eirik’s daughter’s son. She saw at once that he was far gone in drink.
“Ay, one goes and another comes,” said he, laughing, when they had greeted one another. “I met Arne of Brekken even now — I see you are weeping. You might as well smile a little now I am come home — we have been friends, too, ever since we were children, have we not?”
“ ’Tis an ill exchange, methinks, getting you into the parish in his stead,” said Kristin bluntly. She had never liked Bentein. “And so, I fear, will many think. Your grandfather here has been so glad you were in Oslo making such a fair beginning.”
“Oh, ay,” said Bentein, with a nickering laugh. “So ’twas a fair beginning I was making, you think? I was even like a pig in a wheatfield, Kristin — and the end was the same, I was hunted out with cudgels and the hue and cry. Ay, ay! ay, ay! ’Tis no great thing, the gladness my grandfather gets from his offspring. But what a mighty hurry you are in!”
“I am cold,” said Kristin curtly.
“Not colder than I,” said the priest. “I have no more clothes on me than you see here — my cloak I had to sell for food and beer in little Hamar. Now, you should still have some heat in your body from making your farewells with Arne — methinks you should let me get under your fur with you —” and he caught her cloak, pulled it over his shoulders and gripped her round the waist with his wet arm.
Kristin was so amazed with his boldness it was a moment before she could gather her wits — then she strove to tear herself away, but he had a hold of her cloak, and it was fastened together by a strong silver clasp, Bentein got his arms about her again, and made to kiss her, his mouth nearly touching her chin. She tried to strike, but he held her fast by the upper arm.
“I trow you have lost your wits,” she hissed, as she struggled, “dare you to lay hands on me as I were a … dearly shall you rue this to-morrow, dastard that you are —”
“Nay, to-morrow you will not be so foolish,” says Bentein, putting his leg in front of her so that she half fell into the mud, and pressing one hand over her mouth.
Yet she had no thought of crying out. Now for the first time it flashed on her mind what he dared to want with her, but rage came upon her so wild and furious sh
e had scarce a thought of fear: she snarled like an animal at grips with another, and fought furiously with the man as he tried to hold her down, while the ice-cold snow-water soaked through her clothes on to her burning skin.
“To-morrow you will have wit enough to hold your tongue,” said Bentein, “… and if it cannot be hidden, you can put the blame on Arne — ’twill be believed the sooner —”
Just then one of his fingers got into her mouth, and at once she bit it with all her might, so that Bentein shrieked and let go his hold. Quick as lightning Kristin got one hand free, seized his face with it, and pressed her thumb with all her might against the ball of one of his eyes: he roared out and rose to his knees; like a cat she slipped from his grasp, threw herself upon him so that he fell upon his back, and, turning, rushed along the road with the mud splashing over her at every bound.
She ran and ran without looking back. She heard Bentein coming after, and she ran till her heart thumped in her throat, while she moaned softly and strained her eyes forward — should she never reach Laugarbru? At last she was out on the road where it passed through the fields; she saw the group of houses down on the hill-slope, and at the same moment she bethought her that she durst not run in there, where her mother was — in the state she was now in, plastered with clay and withered leaves from head to foot, and with her clothing torn to rags.
She marked that Bentein was gaining upon her; and on that she bent down and took up two great stones. She threw them when he came near enough; one struck him with such force it felled him to the ground. Then she ran on again and stayed not before she stood upon the bridge.
All trembling, she stood and clutched the railing of the bridge; a darkness came before her eyes, and she feared she would drop down in a swoon — but then she thought of Bentein; what if he should come and find her. Shaken with rage and shame she went onwards, though her legs would scarce bear her, and now she felt her face smart where fingernails had scarred it, and felt too she had hurts upon both back and arms. Her tears came hot as fire.
She wished Bentein might have been killed by the stone she had thrown; she wished she had gone back and made an end of him; she felt for her knife, but found that she must have lost it.
Then again came the thought, she must not be seen at home as she was; and so it came into her mind that she would go to Romundgaard. She would complain to Sira Eirik.
But the priest had not come back yet from Jörundgaard. In the kitchen-house she found Gunhild, Bentein’s mother; the woman was alone, and Kristin told her how her son had dealt with her. But that she had gone out to meet Arne she did not tell her. When she saw that Gunhild thought she had been at Laugarbru, she left her to think so.
Gunhild said little, but wept a great deal while she washed the mud off Kristin’s clothes and sewed up the worst rents. And the girl was so shaken she paid no heed to the covert glances Gunhild cast on her now and then.
When Kristin went, Gunhild took her cloak and went out with her, but took the way to the stables. Kristin asked her whither she was going.
“Surely I may have leave to ride down and look after my son,” answered the woman. “See whether you have killed him with that stone of yours, or how it fares with him.”
There seemed to be naught Kristin could answer to this, so she said only that Gunhild should see to it Bentein got out of the parish as soon as might be, and kept out of her sight, “… or I will speak of this to Lavrans, and you can guess, I trow, what would happen then.”
And indeed, Bentein went southward not more than a week later; he carried letters from Sira Eirik to the Bishop of Hamar begging the Bishop to find work for him or otherwise to help him.
7
ONE day at Yuletide Simon Andressön came riding to Jörundgaard, a quite unlooked-for guest. He craved pardon for coming thus, unbidden and alone, without his kinsfolk. But Sir Andres was in Sweden on the King’s business; he himself had been home at Dyfrin for a time, but only his young sisters and his mother, who lay ill abed, were there; so time had hung on his hands, and a great longing had taken him to look in upon them up here.
Ragnfrid and Lavrans thanked him much for having made this long journey in the depth of winter. The more they saw of Simon the more they liked him. He knew of all that had passed between Andres and Lavrans, and it was now fixed that his and Kristin’s betrothal ale should be drunk before the beginning of Lent if Sir Andres could be home by that time, but, if not, then as soon as Easter was past.
Kristin was quiet and downcast when with her betrothed; she found not much to talk of with him. One evening when they had all been sitting drinking, he asked her to go out with him a little into the cool. Then, as they stood on the balcony in front of the upper hall, he put his arm round her waist and kissed her. After that he did the same often when they were alone. It gave her no gladness, but she suffered him to do it, since she knew the betrothal was a thing that must come. She thought of her wedding now only as something which she must go through with, not as something she wished for. None the less she liked Simon well enough — most, though, when he talked with others and did not touch or talk to her.
She had been so unhappy through this whole autumn. It was of no use, however often she told herself Bentein had been able to do her no harm; none the less she felt herself soiled and shamed.
Nothing could be the same as it had been before, since a man had dared try to wreak such a will on her. She lay awake of nights and burned with shame and could not stop thinking of it. She felt Bentein’s body close against hers as when they fought, his hot, beery breath — she could not help thinking of what might have happened — and she thought, with a shudder through all her body, of what he had said: how Arne would get the blame if it could not be hidden. There rushed through her mind all that would have followed if such a calamity had befallen and then folk had heard of her meeting with Arne — what if her father and mother had believed such a thing of Arne — and Arne himself.… She saw him as she had seen him that last evening, and she felt as though she sank crushed before him at the very thought that she might have dragged him down with her into sorrow and disgrace. And then she had such ugly dreams. She had heard tell in church and in holy stories of fleshly lusts and the temptations of the body, but they had meant naught to her. Now it was become real to her that she herself and all mankind had a sinful, carnal body which enmeshed the soul and ate into it with hard bonds.
Then she would think out for herself how she might have killed or blinded Bentein. It was the only solace she could find — to sate herself with dreams of revenge upon the dark, hateful man who stood always in the way of her thoughts. But this did not help for long; she lay by Ulvhild’s side of nights and wept bitter tears at the thought of all this that had been brought upon her by brute force. Bentein had not failed altogether — he had wrought scathe to the maidenhood of her spirit.
The first work-day after Christmas all the women on Jörundgaard were busy in the kitchen-house; Ragnfrid and Kristin had been there, too, for most of the day. Late in the evening, while some of the women were clearing up after the baking, and others making ready the supper, the dairymaid came rushing in, shrieking and wringing her hands:
“Jesus, Jesus — did ever any hear such a dreadful thing — they are bringing Arne Gyrdsön home dead on a sleigh — God help Gyrd and Inga in this misery —”
A man who dwelt in a cottage a little way down the road came in with Halvdan. It was these two who had met the bier.
The women crowded round them. Outside the circle stood Kristin, white and shaking. Halvdan, Lavrans’ own body-servant, who had known Arne from his boyhood, wept aloud as he told the story:
It was Bentein Priestson who had killed Arne. On New Year’s eve the men of the Bishop’s household were sitting and drinking in the men’s hall, and Bentein had come in — he had been given a clerkship now with the Corpus Christi prebendary. The men did not want him amongst them at first, but he had put Arne in mind that they were both from the same parish, and Arn
e had let him sit by him, and they had drunk together. But presently they had quarrelled and fought, and Arne had fallen on so fiercely that Bentein had snatched a knife from the table and stabbed him in the throat and then more than once in the breast. Arne had died almost at once.
The Bishop had taken this mischance much to heart; he himself had cared for the laying-out of the corpse, and had it brought all the long way home by his own folk. Bentein he had thrown into irons, cast him out from the church, and if he were not already hanged, he was going to be.
Halvdan had to tell all this over again many times as fresh people streamed in. Lavrans and Simon came over to the kitchen too, when they marked all the stir and commotion about the place. Lavrans was much moved; he bade them saddle his horse, he would ride over to Brekken at once. As he was about to go, his eyes fell on Kristin’s white face.
“Maybe you would like to go with me?” he asked. Kristin faltered a little; she shuddered — but then she nodded, for she could not utter one word.
“Is’t not too cold for her?” said Ragnfrid. “Doubtless they will have the wake to-morrow, and then ’tis like we shall all go together —”
Lavrans looked at his wife; he marked Simon’s face too; and then he went and laid his arm round Kristin’s shoulders.
“She is his foster-sister, you must bear in mind,” said he. “Maybe, she would like to help Inga with the laying-out the body.”
And though Kristin’s heart was benumbed with despair and fear, she felt a glow of thankfulness to her father for his words.
Ragnfrid said then, that if Kristin was to go, they must eat their evening porridge before they started. She wished, too, to send gifts to Inga by them — a new linen sheet, wax-candles and fresh-baked bread; and she bade them say she would come up herself and help to prepare for the burial.
There was little eating, but much talking in the room while the food was on the table. One reminded the other of the trials that God had laid upon Gyrd and Inga. Their farm had been laid waste by stone-slips and floods; more than one of their elder children were dead, so that all Arne’s brothers and sisters were still but little ones. They had had fortune with them now for some years, since the Bishop placed Gyrd at Finsbrekken as his bailiff; and the children who were left to them were fair and full of promise. But his mother loved Arne more than all the rest.…