The prior, who dwelt in a house by himself, northward of the church, seemed to have no more will of his own than the Abbess’ writing reed or her scourge. Sister Potentia looked after most things within the house; and she thought most of keeping such order as she had seen in the far-famed German convent where she had passed her noviciate. She had been called Sigrid Ragnvaldsdatter before, but had taken a new name when she took the habit of the order, for this was much the use in other lands; it was she, too, who had thought of making the maidens, who were at Nonneseter as pupils, and for a time only, wear novice’s dress.
Sister Cecilia Baardsdatter was not as the other nuns. She went about quietly, with downcast eyes, answered always gently and humbly, was serving maid to all, did for choice all the roughest work, fasted much more than she need—as much as Lady Groa would let her—and knelt by the hour in the church after evensong or went thither before matins.
But one evening, after she had been all day at the beck with two lay sisters washing clothes, she suddenly burst into a loud sobbing at the supper table. She cast herself upon the stone floor, crept among the Sisters on hands and knees, beat her breast, and with burning cheeks and streaming tears begged them all to forgive her. She was the worst sinner of them all—she had been hard as stone with pride all her days; pride, and not meekness or thankfulness for Jesus’ redeeming death, had held her up, when she had been tempted in the world; she had fled thither not because she loved a man’s soul, but because she loved her own vainglory. She had served her sisters out of pride, vanity had she drunken from her water cup, self-righteousness had she spread thick upon her dry bread, while the other Sisters were drinking their beer and eating their bread-slices with butter.
Of all this Kristin understood no more than that not even Cecilia Baardsdatter was truly godly at heart. An unlit tallow candle that has hung from the roof and grown foul with soot and cobweb—to this she herself likened her unloving chastity.
Lady Groa went herself and lifted up the sobbing woman. Sternly she said, that for this disorder Cecilia should as a punishment move from the Sisters’ dormitory into the Abbess’s own bed, and lie there till she was free of this fever.
“And thereafter, Sister Cecilia, shall you sit in my seat for the space of a week; we will seek counsel of you in spiritual things and give you such honour for your godly life, that you may have your fill of the homage of sinful mankind. Thus may you judge if it be worth so much striving, and thereafter choose whether you will live by the rules, as do we others, or keep on in exercises that no one demands of you. Then can you ponder whether you will do for love of God, that he may look down upon you in His mercy, all those things which you say you have done that we should look up to you.”
And so was it done. Sister Cecilia lay in the Abbess’s room for fourteen days; she had a high fever, and Lady Groa herself tended her. When she got up again, she had to sit for a week at the side of the Abbess in the high seat both in the church and in the convent, and all waited on her—she wept all the time as though she were being beaten with whips. But afterward she was much calmer and happier. She lived much as before, but she blushed like a bride if anyone looked at her, whether she was sweeping the floor or going alone to the church.
None the less did this matter of Sister Cecilia awake in Kristin a great longing for peace and atonement with all wherefrom she had come to feel herself cast out. She thought of Brother Edvin, and one day she took courage and begged leave of Lady Groa to go out to the barefoot friars and visit a friend she knew there.
She marked that Lady Groa misliked this—there was scant friendship between the Minorites and the other cloisters in the bishopric. And the Abbess was no better pleased when she heard who was Kristin’s friend. She said this Brother Edvin was an unstable man of God—he was ever wandering about the country and seeking leave to pay begging visits to strange bishoprics. The common folk in many places held him to be a holy man, but he did not seem to understand that a Franciscan’s first duty was obedience to those set over him. He had shriven freebooters and outlaws, baptised their children, chanted them to their graves without asking leave—yet, doubtless, he had sinned as much through ignorance as in despite, and he had borne meekly the penances laid upon him on account of these things. He
