And now they were close below the highest round bare top and saw the great pile of timber against the sky, with the watch-house under the lee of a crag.
As they came up over the brow the wind rushed against them and buffeted their clothing—it seemed to Kristin as though something living, that dwelt up here, met and greeted them. It blew gustily around her and Arne as they went forward over the mosses, till they sat them down far out on a jutting point, and Kristin gazed with great eyes—never before had she dreamed that the world was so big and wide.
Forest-shagged ranges lay below her on all sides; the valley was but a cleft betwixt the huge fells, and the side-glens still lesser clefts; there were many such, yet was there little of dale and much of fell. All around grey peaks, flaming with golden lichen, rose above the sea of forest, and far off, on the very brink of heaven, stood blue crests flashing here and there with snow, and melting, before their eyes, into the grey-blue and pure white summer-clouds. But northeastwards, nearer by—just beyond the sæter woods—lay a cluster of mighty slate-coloured domes with streaks of new-fallen snow down their slopes. These Kristin guessed to be the Boar Fells she had heard tell of, for they were indeed like naught but a herd of heavy boar wending inland that had just turned their backs upon the parish. Yet Arne told her ’twas a half-day’s ride to get even so far.
Kristin had ever thought that could she but win over the top of the home-fells she would look down upon another parish like their own, with tilled farms and dwellings, and ’twas great wonder to her now to see how far it was betwixt the places where folks dwelt. She saw the small yellow and green flecks down below in the dale-bottom, and the tiny clearings with their grey dots of houses amid the hill forests; she began to take tale of them, but when she had reckoned three times twelve, she could keep count of them no longer. Yet the human dwelling-places were as nothing in that waste.
She knew that in the wild woods wolves and bears lorded it, and that under every stone there dwelt trolls and goblins and elfinfolk, and she was afraid, for no one knew the number of them, but there must be many times more of them than of Christian men and women. Then she called aloud on her father, but he could not hear, for the blowing of the wind—he and his men were busy rolling heavy stones up the bare mountain top to pile round the timbers of the beacon.
But Isrid came to the children and showed Kristin where the fell west of Vaage lay. And Arne pointed out the Grayfell, where folk from the parish took reindeer in pits, and where the King’s falcon-catchers lay in stone huts. That was a trade Arne thought to take to some day—but if he did he would learn as well to train the birds for the chase—and he held his arms aloft as though to cast a hawk.
Isrid shook her head.
“ ’Tis a hard and evil life, that, Arne Gyrdsön—’twould be a heavy sorrow for your mother, boy, should you ever come to be a falcon-catcher. None may earn his bread in those wild hills except he join in fellowship with the worst of men—aye, and with them that are worse still.”
Lavrans had come toward them and had heard this last word: “Aye,” says he, “there’s more than one hide of land in there that pays neither tax nor tithe—”
“Yes, many a thing must you have seen,” said Isrid coaxingly, “you who fare so far afield—”
“Aye, aye,” said Lavrans slowly. “Maybe—but methinks ’tis well not to speak of such things overmuch. One should not, I say, grudge folks who have lost their peace in the parish, whatever peace they can find among the fells. Yet have I seen yellow fields and brave meadows where few folk know that such things be, and herds have I seen of cattle and small stock, but of these I know not whether they belonged to mankind or to other folk—”
“Oh! aye,” says Isrid. “Bears and wolves get the blame for the beasts that are missed from the sæters here, but there are worse thieves among the fells than they.”
“Do you call them worse?” asked Lavrans thoughtfully, stroking his daughter’s cap. “In the hills to the south under the Boar Fells I once saw three little lads, and the greatest was even as Kristin here—yellow hair they had, and coats of skin. They gnashed their teeth at me like wolf-cubs before they ran to hide. ’Twere little wonder if the poor man who owned them were fain to lift a cow or two—”
“Oh! both wolves and bears have young,” says Isrid testily. “And you spare not them, Lavrans, neither them nor their young. Yet they have no lore of law nor of Christendom, as have these evildoers you wish so well to—”
“Think you I wish them too well, because I wish them a little better than the worst?” said Lavrans, smiling a little. “But come now, let us see what cheer Ragnfrid has sent with us today.” He took Kristin by the hand and led her with him. And as they went he bent and said softly: “I thought of your three small brothers, little Kristin.”
They peeped into the watch-house, but it was close in there and smelt of mould. Kristin took a look around,
