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 a while in the snow. White—the whole world; yet it was more than three weeks still to Advent. Clementsmass cold—’twas like winter had come in earnest already. Aye, aye; 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 milkpail and went towards the dwelling-house. She looked once again down over the valley.
Four black dots came out of the woods half-way up the hillside. Four men on horseback—and the moonlight glanced from a spear-head. 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 skins 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 trouvè!”
“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.
“Aye; 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.”
“Aye, 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?”
“Aye,” said Erlend. “I made suit for her in seemly and honourable wise, and Lavrans Björgulfsön answered with a churlish: no. Now see I 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 country-side, 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 a while:
“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?”
“Aye, 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.”
“Aye, 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.”
“Aye,” 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 beshaming 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 sat 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 Jon of Gerdarud joined 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 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 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.”
“Aye, 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.”
“Is it even so?” said Lady Aashild, slowly—“A heavy sin have you laid upon your soul, Erlend Nikulaussön. ’Twas well with Kristin at home with her father and mother—a good marriage was agreed for her with a comely and honourable man of good kindred—”
“Kristin hath told me herself how you said once that she and I would match well together. And that Simon Andressön was no husband for her—”
“Oh—I have said, and I have said!” Aashild broke in. “I have said so many things in my time—Neither can I understand at all that you can have gained your will with Kristin so lightly. So many times you cannot have met together. And never could I have thought that maid had been so light to win—”
“We met at Oslo,” said Erlend. “Afterward she was dwelling out at Gerdarud with her father’s brother. She came out and met me in the woods.” He looked down and spoke very low: “I had her alone to myself out there—”
Lady Aashild started up. Erlend bent his head yet lower.
“And after that—she still was friends with you?” she asked, unbelievingly.
“Aye,” Erlend smiled a weak, wavering smile. “We were friends still. And ’twas not so bitterly against her—but no blame lies on her. ’Twas then she would have had me take her away—she was loth to go back to her kin—”
“But you would not?”
“No. I was minded to try to win her for my wife with her father’s will.”
“Is it long since?” asked Lady Aashild.
“’Twas a year last Lawrencemass,” answered Erlend.
“You have not hasted overmuch with your wooing,” said the other.
“She was not free before from her first betrothal.”
“And since then you have not come nigh her?” asked Aashild.
“We managed so that we met once and again.” Once more the wavering smile flitted over the man’s face. “In a house in the town.”
“In God’s name!” said Lady Aashild.—“I will help you and her as best I may. I can see it well: not long could Kristin bear to live there with her father and mother, hiding such a thing as this.—Is there yet more?” she asked of a sudden.
“Not that I have heard,” said Erlend shortly.
“Have you bethought you,” asked the lady in a while, “that Kristin has friends and kinsmen dwelling all down the Dale?”
“We must journey as secretly as we can,” said Erlend. “And therefore it behooves us to make no delay in setting out, that we may be well on the way before her father comes home. You must lend us your sleigh, Moster.”
Aashild shrugged her shoulders:
“Then is there her uncle at Skog—what if he hear that you are holding your wedding with his brother’s daughter at Gerdarud?”
“Aasmund has spoken for me to Lavrans,” said Erlend. “He would not be privy to our counsels, but ’tis like he will wink an eye—we must come to the priest by night, and journey onward by night. And afterward, I trow well Aasmund will put it to Lavrans that it befits not a God-fearing man like him to part them that a priest has wedded—and that ’twill be best for him to give his consent, that we may be lawful wedded man and wife. And you must say the like to the man, Moster. He may set what terms he will for atonement between us, and ask all such amends as he deems just.”
“I trow Lavrans Björgulfsön will be no easy man to guide in this matter,” said Lady Aashild. “And God and St. Olav know, sister’s son, I like this business but ill. But I see well ’tis the last way left you to make good the harm you have wrought Kristin. To-morrow will I ride myself to Jörundgaard, if so be you will lend me one of your men, and I must get Ingrid of the croft above us here to see to my cattle.”
Lady Aashild came to Jörundgaard next evening just as the moonlight was struggling with the last gleams of day. She saw how pale and hollow-cheeked Kristin was, when the girl came out into the courtyard to meet her guest.
The Lady sat by the fireplace playing with the two children. Now and then she stole keen glances at Kristin, as she went about and set the supper-board. Thin she was truly, and still in her bearing. She had ever been still, but it was a stillness of another kind that was on the girl now. Lady Aashild guessed at all the straining and the stubborn defiance that lay behind.
“’Tis like you have heard,” said Kristin, coming over to her, “what befell here this last autumn.”
“Aye—that my sister’s son has made suit for you.”
“Mind you,” asked Kristin, “how you said once he and I would match well together? Only that he was too rich and great of kin for me?”
“I hear that Lavrans is of another mind,” said the lady drily.
There was a gleam in Kristin’s eyes, and she smiled a little. She will do, no question, thought Lady Aashild. Little as she liked it, she must hearken to Erlend, and give the helping hand he had asked.
Kristin made ready her parents’ bed for the guest, and Lady Aashild asked that the girl should sleep with her. After they had lain down and the house was silent, Lady Aashild brought forth her errand.
She grew strangely heavy at heart as she saw that this child seemed to think not at all on the sorrow she would bring on her father and mother. Yet I lived with Baard for more than twenty years in sorrow and torment, she thought. Well, maybe ’tis so with all of us. It seemed Kristin had not even seen how Ulvhild had fallen away this autumn—’tis little like, thought Aashild, that she will see her little sister any more. But she said naught of this—the longer Kristin could hold to this mood of wild and reckless gladness, the better would it be, no doubt.
Kristin rose up in the dark, and gathered together her ornaments in a little box which she took with her into the bed. Then Lady Aashild could not keep herself from saying:
“Yet methinks, Kristin, the best way of all would be that Erlend ride hither, when your father comes home—that he confess openly he hath done you a great wrong—and put himself in Lavrans’ hands.”
“I trow that, then, father would kill Erlend,” said Kristin.
“That would not Lavrans, if Erlend refuse to draw steel against his love’s father.”
“I have no mind that Erlend should be humbled in such wise,” said Kristin. “And I would not father should know that Erlend had touched me, before he asked for me in seemliness and honour.”
“Think you Lavrans will be less wroth,” asked Aashild, “when he hears that you have fled from his house with Erlend; and think you ’twill be a lighter sorrow for him to bear? So long as you live with Erlend, and your father has not given you to him, you can be naught but his paramour before the law.”
“’Tis another thing,” said Kristin, “if I be Erlend’s paramour after he has tried in vain to win me for his lawful wife.”
Lady Aashild was silent. She thought of her meeting with Lavrans Björgulfsön when he came home and learnt that his daughter had been stolen away.
Then Kristin said:
“I see well, Lady Aashild, I seem to you an evil, thankless child. But so has it been in this house ever since father came from the Haugathing, that every day has been a torment to him and to me. ’Tis best for all that there be an end of this matter.”
They rode from Jörundgaard betimes the next day, and came to Haugen a little after nones. Erlend met them in the courtyard, and Kristin threw herself into his arms, paying no heed to the man who was with her and Lady Aashild.
In the house she greeted Björn Gunnarsön; and then greeted Erlend’s two men, as though she knew them well already. Lady Aashild could see no sign in her of bashfulness or fear. And after, when they sat at the board, and Erlend set forth his plan, Kristin put her word in with the others and gave counsel about the journey: that they should ride forth from Haugen next evening so late that they should come to the gorge when the moon was setting, and should pass in the dark through Sil to beyond Loptsgaard, thence up along the Otta stream to the bridge, and from thence along the west side of the Otta and the Laagen over bypaths through the waste as far as the horses could bear them. They must lie resting through the day at one of the empty spring sæters on the hillside there; “for till we are out of the Holledis country there is ever fear that we may come upon folk that know me.”
“Have you thought of fodder for the horses?” said Aashild. “You cannot rob folks’ sæter in a year like this—even if so be there is fodder there—and you know none in all the Dale has fodder to sell this year.”
“I have thought of that,” answered Kristin. “You must lend us three days’ food and fodder. ’Tis a reason the more why we must not journey in so strong a troop.—Erlend must send Jon back to Husaby. The year has been better on the Trondheim side, and surely some loads can be got across the hills before the Yule-tide snows. There are some poor folk dwelling southward in the parish, Lady Aashild, that I would fain you should help with a gift of fodder for Erlend and me.”
Björn set up an uncanny, mirthless horse-laugh. Lady Aashild shook her head. But Erlend’s man Ulv lifted his keen, swarthy visage and looked at Kristin with his bold smile:
“At Husaby there is never abundance, Kristin Lavransdatter, neither in good years nor in bad. But maybe things will be changed when you come to be mistress there. By your speech a man would deem you are the housewife that Erlend needs.”
Kristin nodded to the man calmly, and went on. They must keep clear of the high-road as far as might be. And she deemed it not wise to take the way that led through Hamar. But, Erlend put in, Munan was there—and the letter to the Duchess they must have.
“Then Ulv must part from us at Fagaberg and ride to Sir Munan, while we hold on west of Mjösen and make our way by Land and the by-roads through Hadeland down to Hakedal. Thence there goes a waste way south to Magretadal, I have heard my uncle say. ’Twere not wise for us to pass through Raumarike in these days, when a great wedding-feast is toward at Dyfrin,” she said with a smile.
Erlend went round and laid his arm about her shoulders, and she leaned back to him, paying no heed to the others who sat by looking on. Lady Aashild said angrily:
“None would believe aught else than that you are well-used to running away”; and Sir Björn broke again into his horse-laugh.
In a little while Lady Aashild stood up to go to the kitchen-house and see to the food. She had made up the kitchen fire so that Erlend’s men could sleep there at night. She bade Kristin go with her: “for I must be able to swear to Lavrans Björgulfsön that you were never a moment alone together in my house,” she said wrathfully.
Kristin laughed and went with the Lady. Soon after, Erlend came strolling in after them, drew a stool forward to the hearth, and sat there hindering the women in their work. He caught hold of Kristin every time she came nigh him, as she hurried about her work. At last he drew her down on his knee:
“’Tis even as Ulv said, I trow; you are the housewife I need.”
“Aye, aye,” said Aashild, with a vexed laugh. “She will serve your turn well enough. ’Tis she that stakes all in this adventure—you hazard not much.”
“You speak truth,” said Erlend. “But I wot well I have shown I had the will to come to her by the right road. Be not so angry, Moster Aashild.”
“I do well to be angry,” said the lady. “Scarce have you set your house in order, but you must needs guide things so that you have to run from it all again with a woman.”
“You must bear in mind, kinswoman—so hath it ever been, that ’twas not the worst men who fell into trouble for a woman’s sake—all sagas tell us that.”
“Oh, God help us all!” said Aashild. Her face grew young and soft. “That tale have I heard before, Erlend,” she laid her hand on his head and gave his hair a little tug.
At that moment Ulv Haldorson tore open the door, and shut it quickly behind him:
“Here is come yet another guest, Erlend—the one you are least fain to see, I trow.”
“Is it Lavrans Björgulfsön?” said Erlend starting up.
“Well if it were,” said the man. “’Tis Eline Ormsdatter.”
The door was opened from without; the woman who came in thrust Ulv aside and came forward into the light. Kristin looked at Erlend; at first he seemed to shrivel and shrink together; then he drew himself up, with a dark flush on his face:
“In the devil’s name, where come you from—what would you here?”
Lady Aashild stepped forward and spoke:
“You must come with us to the hall, Eline Ormsdatter. So much manners at least we have in this house, that we welcome not our guests in the kitchen.”
“I look not, Lady Aashild,” said the other, “to be welcomed as a guest by Erlend’s kinsfolk—Asked you from whence I came?—I come from Husaby, as you might know, I bear you greetings from Orm and Margret; they are well.”
Erlend made no answer.
“When I heard that you had had Gissur Arnfinsön raise money for you, and that you were for the south again,” she went on, “I thought ’twas like you would bide a while this time with your kinsfolk in Gudbrandsdal. I knew that you had made suit for the daughter of a neighbour of theirs.”
She looked across at Kristin for the first time, and met the girl’s eyes. Kristin was very pale, but she looked calmly and keenly at the other.
She was stony-calm. She had known it from the moment she heard who was come—this was the thought she had been fleeing from always; this thought it was she had tried to smother under impatience, restlessness and defiance; the whole time she had been striving not to think whether Erlend had freed himself wholly and fully from his former paramour. Now she was overtaken—useless to struggle any more. But she begged not nor beseeched for herself.
She saw that Eline Ormsdatter was fair. She was young no longer; but she was fair—once she must have been exceeding fair. She had thrown back her hood; her head was round as a ball, and hard; the cheekbones stood out—but none the less it was plain to see—once she had been very fair. Her coif covered but the back part of her head; while she was speaking, her hands kept smoothing the waving, bright-gold front-hair beneath the linen. Kristin had never seen a woman with such great eyes; they were dark brown, round and hard; but under the narrow coal-black eyebrows and the long lashes they were strangely beautiful against her golden hair. The skin of her cheeks and lips was chafed and raw from her ride in the cold, but it could not spoil her much; she was too fair for that. The heavy riding-dress covered up her form, but she bore herself in it as does only a woman most proud and secure in the glory of a fair body. She was scarce as tall as Kristin; but she held herself so well that she seemed yet taller than the slender, spare-limbed girl.
“Hath she been with you at Husaby the whole time?” asked Kristin in a low voice.
“I have not been at Husaby,” said Erlend curtly, flushing red again. “I have dwelt at Hestnæs the most of the summer.”
“Here now are the tidings I came to bring you, Erlend,” said Eline. “You need not any longer take shelter with your kinsfolk and try their hospitality for that I am keeping your house. Since this autumn I have been a widow.” Erlend stood motionless.
“It was not I that bade you come to Husaby last year, to keep my house,” said he with effort.
“I heard that all things were going to waste there,” said Eline. “I had so much kindness left for you from old days Erlend, that methought I should lend a hand to help you—although God knows you have not dealt well with our children or with me.”
“For the children I have done what I could,” said Erlend. “And well you know, ’twas for their sake I suffered you to live on at Husaby. That you profited them or me by it you scarce can think yourself, I trow,” he added, smiling scornfully. “Gissur could guide things well enough without your help.”
“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 will you do,” 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 with me,” 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:
“I was 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 come to 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 to her then,” 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 to my charge.—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:
“Say you, 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 night before, 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 in you when 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-peace for 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 see you have 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.