“—Is there aught amiss with Ulvhild?” she called gently across to Ragnfrid, who had made a sharp movement where she sat by the child’s bed.
“Nay, she sleeps well,” said the child’s mother and came over to Lady Aashild and Kristin at the hearth. Her hands on the pole of the smoke-vent, she stood and looked down into Lady Aashild’s face.
“Kristin doth not understand such things,” she said.
“No,” answered the Lady. “But she learned her prayers, too, I doubt not, before she understood them. The times when we need prayers or counsel, we are little like to be in a mood to learn, nor yet to understand.”
Ragnfrid drew her dark eyebrows together thoughtfully. At such times her bright, deep-set eyes looked like barns below a dark-wooded hillside, so Kristin had often thought when she was little—or so she had heard others say. Lady Aashild looked at Ragnfrid with her little half-smile, and the mother seated herself upon the edge of the hearth, and taking a twig, stuck it into the embers.
“But he who has wasted his heritage upon the sorriest goods—and thereafter beholds a treasure he would gladly give his life to own—think you not he must rue bitterly his own folly?”
“No doing without some rueing, Ragnfrid,” said Lady Aashild. “And he who is willing to give his life, should make the venture and see what he can win—”
Ragnfrid plucked the burning twig from the fire, blew out the flame and bent her hand about the glowing end, so that it shone out bloodred from between her fingers.
“Oh! these are words, words, and only words, Lady Aashild.”
“Well,” said the other, “truly, Ragnfrid, there is not much that’s worth buying so dear as with one’s life.”
“Nay, but there is,” said Ragnfrid passionately, and she whispered so it could scarce be heard: “My husband.”
“Ragnfrid,” said Lady Aashild in a low voice: “So hath many a maid thought when she strove to bind a man to her and gave her maidenhood to do it. But have you not read of men and maids who gave to God all they owned, went into a cloister or naked into the wilds, and repented after. Aye, they are called fools in the godly books. And ’twould sure be sinful to think God cheated them over their bargain.”
Ragnfrid sat quite still a while. Then Lady Aashild said:
“You must come now, Kristin; ’tis time we went and gathered dew for Ulvhild’s morning wash.”
Outside the courtyard lay all black and white in the moonlight. Ragnfrid went with them, through the farmyard, down to the gate of the cabbage garden. Kristin saw her mother’s thin, dark figure leaning there, while she was shaking the dew from the big, icy-cold cabbage leaves, and the folds of the lady’s-mantles, into her father’s silver goblet.
Lady Aashild walked silent at Kristin’s side. She was there only to watch over her, for it was not well to let a child go out alone on such a night. But the dew had more virtue if gathered by an innocent maid.
When they came back to the gate Ragnfrid was gone. Kristin was shaking with the cold as she gave the icy silver cup into Lady Aashild’s hands. She ran in her wet shoes over toward the loft-room, where she slept now with her father. She had her foot upon the first step when Ragnfrid stepped out of the shadow of the balcony. In her hands she bore a steaming bowl.
“Here, I have warmed some beer for you, daughter,” said the mother.
Kristin thanked her mother gladly, and put the bowl to her lips. Then Ragnfrid asked:
“Kristin—the prayers and all the other things that Lady Aashild teaches you—you are sure there is naught sinful or ungodly in them?”
“That I can never believe,” answered the child. “There is Jesus’ name and the Virgin Mary’s, and the names of the Saints in them all—”
“What is it she teaches you,” asked her mother again.
“Oh!—about herbs—and charms to stop running blood and cure warts and sore eyes—and moth in clothes and mice in the storeroom. And what herbs one should pluck in sunshine, and which have virtue in the rain—But the prayers I must not tell to anyone, for then they lose their power,” said she quickly.
Her mother took the empty bowl and put it upon the step. Then suddenly she threw her arms around her daughter, and pressed her tightly to her and kissed her.—Kristin felt that her mother’s cheeks were wet and hot:
“May God and Our Lady guard and shield you from all evil—we have naught else but you, your father and I, that has not been touched by our ill-fortune. Darling, darling—never forget that you are your father’s dearest joy—”
Ragnfrid went back to the winter-room, undressed and crept into bed beside Ulvhild. She put an arm about the child and laid her cheek close to the little one’s so that she felt the warmth of Ulvhild’s body and smelt the keen odour of her damp hair. Ulvhild slept heavily and soundly, as she ever did after Lady Aashild’s evening draught. The lady’s bedstraw, spread beneath the bedding, gave out a drowsy scent. None the less did Ragnfrid lie long sleepless, gazing at the little spot of light in the roof where the moon shone upon the smoke-hole’s pane of horn.
Over in the other bed lay Lady Aashild, but Ragnfrid never knew whether she slept or waked. The Lady never spoke of their having known each other in former days—this frightened Ragnfrid. And it seemed to her she had never known such bitter sorrow and such haunting dread as now—even though she knew that Lavrans would have his full health again—and that Ulvhild would live.
It seemed as though Lady Aashild took pleasure in talking to Kristin, and with each day that passed the maid became better friends with her. One day, when they had gone to gather herbs,
