“She is my mother’s sister. And I am Erlend Nikulaussön of Husaby.” He looked at her so strangely that she became still more abashed, but she mastered herself and said:
“ ’Tis true I should have thanked you with better words, Erlend Nikulaussön; but I know not what I can say to you—”
He bowed before her, and she felt that now she must bid him goodbye, though she would fain have spoken more with him. In the church-door she turned, and as she saw that Erlend still stood beside his horse, she waved her hand to him in farewell.
The convent was in a hubbub, and all within in great dismay. Haakon had sent word home by a horseman, while he himself went seeking the maids in the town; and folks had been sent from the convent to help him. The nuns had heard the wild beasts had killed and eaten up two children down in the town. This, to be sure, was a lie, and the pard—there was only one—had been caught before vespers by some men from the King’s palace.
Kristin stood with bent head and kept silence while the Abbess and Sister Potentia poured out their wrath upon the two maidens. She felt as though something were asleep within her. Ingebjörg wept and began to make excuse—they had gone out with Sister Potentia’s leave, with fitting attendance, and, sure, they were not to blame for what had happened after—
But Lady Groa said they might now stay in the church till the hour of midnight struck, that they might strive to turn their thoughts to the things of the spirit and might thank God who had saved their lives and honour. “God hath now manifested clearly to you the truth about the world,” said she; “wild beasts and the servants of the devil threaten his children there at every footstep, and there is no salvation except ye hold fast to him with prayer and supplication.”
She gave them each a lighted candle and bade them go with Sister Cecilia Baardsdatter, who was often alone in the church praying the whole night long.
Kristin put her candle upon St. Lawrence’s altar and knelt on the praying-stool. She fixed her gaze on the flame while she said over the Paternoster and the Ave Maria softly. The sheen of the candle seemed little by little to enfold her and to shut out all that was outside her and the light. She felt her heart open and overflow with thankfulness and praise and love of God and His gentle Mother—they came so near to her. She had always known They saw her, but tonight she felt that it was so. She saw the world as in a vision; a great dark room whereinto fell a sunbeam; the motes were dancing in and out between the darkness and the light, and she felt that now she had at last slipped into the sunbeam.
She felt she would gladly have stayed forever in this dark still church—with the few small spots of light like golden stars in the night, the sweet stale scent of incense and the warm smell of the burning wax. And she at rest within her own star.
It was as if some great joy were at an end, when Sister Cecilia came gliding to her and touched her shoulder. Bending before the altars, the three women went out of the little south door into the convent close.
Ingebjörg was so sleepy that she went to bed without a word. Kristin was glad—she had been loth to have her good thoughts broken in on. And she was glad, too, that they must keep on their shifts at night—Ingebjörg was so fat and had been so over-hot.
She lay awake long, but the deep flood of sweetness that she had felt lifting her up as she knelt in the church would not come again. Yet she felt the warmth of it within her still, she thanked God with all her heart, and thought she felt her spirit strengthened while she prayed for her father and mother and sisters and for Arne Gyrdsön’s soul.
Father, she thought—she longed so much for him, for all they had been to one another before Simon Darre came into their lives. There welled up in her a new tenderness for him—there was as it were a foretaste of mother’s love and care in her love for her father this night; dimly she felt that there was so much in life that he had missed. She called to mind the old, black wooden church at Gerdarud—she had seen there this last Easter the graves of her three little brothers and of her grandmother, her father’s own mother, Kristin Sigurdsdatter, who died when she brought him into the world—
What could Erlend Nikulaussön have to do at Gerdarud—she could not think.
She had no knowledge that she had thought much of him that evening, but the whole time the thought of his dark, narrow face and his quiet voice had hung somewhere in the dusk outside the glow of light that enfolded her spirit.
When she awoke the next morning, the sun was shining into the dormitory, and Ingebjörg told her how Lady Groa herself had bidden the lay-sisters not to wake them for matins. She had said that when they woke they might go over to the kitchen-house and get some food. Kristin grew warm with gladness at the Abbess’ kindness—it seemed as if the whole world had been good to her.
III
The farmers’ guild of Aker had St. Margaret for their patroness, and they began their festival each year on the twentieth of July, the day of St. Margaret’s Mass. On that day the guild-brothers and sisters, with their children, their guests and their serving-folk, gathered at Aker’s church and heard mass at St. Margaret’s altar there; after that they wended their way to the hall of the guild, which lay near the Hofvin hospital—there they were wont to hold a
