“I saw you had your daughter with you,” she said when she had greeted them, “and methought I must needs have a sight of her. But you must take the cap from her head; they say she hath such bonny hair.”
Lavrans did as the woman asked him, and Kristin’s hair fell over her shoulders and hung down right to the saddle. It was thick and yellow like ripe wheat. The woman, Isrid, took some of it in her hand and said:
“Aye, now I see the word that has gone about concerning this little maid of yours was nowise too great—a lilyrose she is, and looks as should the child of a knightly man. Mild eyes hath she too—she favours you and not the Gjeslings. God grant you joy of her, Lavrans Björgulfsön! And you’re riding on Guldsveinen, as stiff and straight as a courtier,” she said, laughingly, as she held the bowl for Kristin to drink.
The child grew red with pleasure, for she knew well that her father was held to be the comeliest man far around; he looked like a knight, standing there among his men, though his dress was much of the farmer fashion, such as he wore at home for daily use. He wore a coat of green-dyed wadmal, somewhat wide and short, open at the throat, so that the shirt showed beneath. For the rest, his hose and shoes were of undyed leather, and on his head he had a broad-brimmed woollen hat of the ancient fashion. For ornaments he had only a smooth silver buckle to his belt, and a little silver brooch in his shirt-band; but some links of a golden neck-chain showed against his neck. Lavrans always wore this chain, and on it there hung a golden cross set with great rock-crystals; it was made to open, and inside there were shreds of the hair and the shroud of the holy Lady Elin of Skövde, for the Lagmandssons counted their descent from one of that blessed lady’s daughters. But when Lavrans was in the woods or out at his work he was used to thrust the cross in next his bare breast, so that he might not lose it.
Yet did he look in his coarse homely clothing more highborn than many a knight of the King’s household in his finest banqueting attire. He was stalwart of growth, tall, broad-shouldered, and small-waisted; his head was small and sat fairly on his neck, and he had comely features, somewhat long—cheeks of a seemly fullness, chin fairly rounded and mouth well shaped. His skin was light and his face fresh of hue, he had grey eyes and thick smooth silky-yellow hair.
He stood there and talked with Isrid of her affairs; and asked about Tordis too, a kinswoman of Isrid’s that was tending the Jörundgaard sæter this summer. Tordis had just had a child; Isrid was only waiting for the chance of a safe escort through the woods before taking the boy down to have him christened. Lavrans said that she had best come with them up to the sæter; he was coming down again the next evening, and ’twould be safer and better for her to have many men to go along with her and the heathen child.
Isrid thanked him: “To say truth, ’twas even this I was waiting for. We know well, we poor folk under the uplands here, that you will ever do us a kind turn if you can, when you come hither.” She ran up to the hut to fetch a bundle and a cloak.
It was indeed so that Lavrans liked well to come among these small folk who lived on clearings and lease-holdings high up on the outskirts of the parish; amongst them he was always glad and merry. He talked with them of the ways of the forest beasts and the reindeer of the upland wastes; and of all the uncanny things that are stirring in such places. And he stood by them and helped them with word and deed; saw to their sick cattle; helped them with their errands to the smith or to the carpenter; nay, would sometimes take hold himself and bend his great strength to the work, when the worst stones or roots were to be broken out of the earth. Therefore were these people ever glad to greet Lavrans Björgulfsön and Guldsveinen, the great red stallion that he rode upon. ’Twas a comely beast with a shining skin, white mane and tail and light eyes—strong and fiery, so that his fame was spread through all the country round; but with his master he was gentle as a lamb, and Lavrans used to say that the horse was dear to him as a younger brother.
Lavrans’ first errand was to see to the beacon on Heimhaugen. For in the hard and troubled times a hundred years or more gone by, the yeoman of the dales had built beacons here and there high up on the fells above them, like the seamarks in the roadsteads upon the coast. But these beacons in the uplands were not in the ward of the King’s levies, but were cared for by the yeomen-guilds, and the guild-brothers took turns at their tending.
When they were come to the first sæter, Lavrans turned out all but the packhorse to graze there; and now they took a steep footpath upwards. Before long the trees grew thin and scattered. Great firs stood dead and white as bones upon the marshy grounds—and now Kristin saw bare, grey-stone peaks rising to the sky on all hands. They climbed long stretches amid loose stones, and at times the becks ran in the track, so that her father must carry her. The
