“Have I been that?” he asked.
“You know it well,” said Kristin. “And never will I forget you. But you, who are to go out into the world—maybe you will gain wealth and honor or ever you think—you will like enough forget me, long before I forget you—”
“You will never forget me?” said Arne, smiling. “And I will forget you ere you forget me?—you are naught but a child, Kristin.”
“You are not so old either,” she replied.
“I am as old as Simon Darre,” said he again. “And we bear helm and shield as well as the Dyfrin folk, but my folks have not had fortune with them—”
He had dried his hands on the grass tufts; and now he took Kristin’s ankle and pressed his cheek to the foot which showed from under her dress. She would have drawn away her foot, but Arne said:
“Your mother is at Laugarbru, and Lavrans has ridden forth—from the houses none can see us where we sit. Surely you can let me speak this once of what is in my heart.”
Kristin answered:
“We have known all our days, both you and I, that ’twas bootless for us to set our hearts on each other.”
“May I lay my head in your lap,” said Arne, and as she did not answer, he laid his head down and twined an arm about her waist. With his other hand he pulled at the plaits of her hair.
“How will you like it,” he asked in a little, “when Simon lies in your lap thus, and plays with your hair?”
Kristin did not answer. It seemed as though a heaviness fell upon her of a sudden—Arne’s words and Arne’s head on her knee—it seemed to her as though a door opened into a room, where many dark passages led into a greater darkness; sad, and heavy at heart, she faltered and would not look inside.
“Wedded folk do not use to do so,” said she of a sudden, quickly, as if eased of a weight. She tried to see Simon’s fat round face looking up into hers as Arne was looking now; she heard his voice—and she could not keep from laughing:
“I trow Simon will never lie on the ground to play with my shoes—not he!”
“No, for he can play with you in his bed,” said Arne. His voice made her feel sick and powerless all at once. She tried to push his head from off her lap, but he pressed it against her knee and said softly:
“But I would play with your shoes and your hair and your fingers, and follow you out and in the livelong day, Kristin, were you ever so much my wife and slept in my arms each single night.”
He half sat up, put his arm round her shoulder and gazed into her eyes.
“ ’Tis not well done of you to talk thus to me,” said Kristin bashfully, in a low voice.
“No,” said Arne. He rose and stood before her. “But tell me one thing—would you not rather it were I—?”
“Oh! I would rather—,” she sat still a while. “I would rather not have any man—not yet—”
Arne did not move, but said:
“Would you rather be given to the cloister then, as ’tis to be with Ulvhild, and be a maid all your days?”
Kristin pressed her folded hands down into her lap. A strange, sweet trembling seized her—and with a sudden shudder she seemed to understand how much her little sister was to be pitied—her eyes filled with tears of sorrow for Ulvhild’s sake.
“Kristin,” said Arne in a low voice.
At that moment a loud scream came from Ulvhild. Her crutch had caught between the stones, and she had fallen. Arne and Kristin ran to her, and Arne lifted her up into her sister’s arms. She had cut her mouth and much blood was flowing from the hurt.
Kristin sat down with her in the smithy door, and Arne fetched water in a wooden bowl. Together they set to washing and wiping her face. She had rubbed the skin off her knees, too. Kristin bent tenderly over the small, thin legs.
Ulvhild’s wailing soon grew less, but she wept silently and bitterly as children do who are used to suffering pain. Kristin held her head to her bosom and rocked her gently.
Then the bell began to ring for Vespers up at Olav’s Church.
Arne spoke to Kristin, but she sat bent over her sister as though she neither heard nor marked him, so that at last he grew afraid and asked if she thought there was danger in the hurt. Kristin shook her head, but looked not at him.
Soon after she got up and went towards the farmstead, bearing Ulvhild in her arms. Arne followed, silent and troubled—Kristin seemed so deep in thought, and her face was set and hard. As she walked, the bell went on ringing out over the meadows and the dale; it was still ringing as she went into the house.
She laid Ulvhild in the bed which the sisters had shared ever since Kristin had grown too big to sleep by her father and mother. She slipped her shoes off and lay down beside the little one—lay and listened for the ringing of the bell long after it was hushed and the child slept.
It had come to her as the bell began to ring, while she sat with Ulvhild’s little bleeding face in her hands, that maybe it was a sign to her. If she should go to convent in her sister’s stead—if she should vow herself to the service of God and the Virgin Mary—might not God give the child health and strength again?
She thought of Brother Edvin’s word: that nowadays ’twas only marred and crippled children and those for whom good husbands could not be found that their fathers and mothers gave to God. She knew her
