For the rest, Lavrans Björgulfsön had reason enough this summer to be moody and downcast, for now all tokens showed that the year would be an exceedingly bad one in all the country round; and the farmers were coming together time and again to take counsel how they should meet the coming winter. As the late summer drew on, it was plain to most, that they must slaughter great part of their cattle or drive them south for sale, and buy corn to feed their people through the winter. The year before had been no good corn year, so that the stocks of old corn were but scanty.
One morning in early autumn Ragnfrid went out with all her three daughters to see to some linen she had lying out on the bleach field. Kristin praised much her mother’s weaving. Then the mother stroked little Ramborg’s hair and said:
“We must save this for your bride-chest, little one.”
“Then, mother,” said Ulvhild, “shall I not have any bride-chest when I go to the nunnery?”
“You know well,” said Ragnfrid, “your dowry will be nowise less than your sisters. But ’twill not be such things as they need that you will need. And then you know full well, too, that you are to bide with your father and me as long as we live—if so be you will.”
“And when you come to the nunnery,” said Kristin, unsteadily, “it may be, Ulvhild, that I shall have been a nun there for many years.”
She looked across at her mother, but Ragnfrid held her peace.
“Had I been such an one that I could marry,” said Ulvhild, “never would I have turned away from Simon—he was so kind, and he was so sorrowful when he said farewell to us all.”
“You know your father bade us not speak of this,” said Ragnfrid; but Kristin broke in defiantly:
“Aye; well I know that ’twas far more sorrow for him parting from you than from me.”
Her mother spoke in anger:
“And little must his pride have been, I wot, had he shown his sorrow before you—you dealt not well and fairly by Simon Andressön, my daughter. Yet did he beg us to use neither threats nor curses with you—”
“Nay,” said Kristin as before, “he thought, maybe, he had cursed me himself so much, there was no need for any other to tell me how vile I was. But I marked not ever that Simon had much care for me, till he saw that I loved another more than him.”
“Go home, children,” said Ragnfrid to the two little ones. She sat herself down on a log that lay by the green, and drew Kristin down beside her.
“You know, surely,” said she then, “that it has ever been held seemly and honourable, that a man should not talk overmuch of love to his betrothed maiden—nor sit with her much alone, nor woo too hotly—”
“Oh!” said Kristin, “much I wonder whether young folk that love one another bear ever in mind what old folk count for seemly, and forget not one time or another all such things.”
“Be you ware, Kristin,” said her mother, “that you forget them not.” She sat a little while in silence: “What I see but too well now is that your father goes in fear that you have set your heart on a man he can never gladly give you to.”
“What did my uncle say?” asked Kristin in a little while.
“Naught said he,” answered her mother, “but that Erlend of Husaby is better of name than of fame. Aye, for he spoke to Aasmund, it seems, to say a good word for him to Lavrans. Small joy was it to your father when he heard this.”
But Kristin sat beaming with gladness. Erlend had spoken to her father’s brother. And she had been vexing her heart because he made no sign!
Then her mother spoke again:
“Yet another thing is: that Aasmund said somewhat of a waif word that went about in Oslo, that folk had seen this Erlend hang about in the byways near by the convent, and that you had gone out and spoken with him by the fences there.”
“What then?” asked Kristin.
“Aasmund counselled us, you understand, to take this proffer,” said Ragnfrid. “But at that Lavrans grew more wroth than I can call to mind I saw him ever before. He said that a wooer who tried to come to his daughter by that road should find him in his path sword in hand. ’Twas little honour enough to us to have dealt as we had with the Dyfrin folk; but were it so that Erlend had lured you out to gad about the ways in the darkness with him, and that while you were dwelling in a cloister of holy nuns, ’twas a full good token you would be better served by far by missing such a husband.”
Kristin crushed her hands together in her lap—the colour came and went in her face. Her mother put an arm about her waist—but the girl shrank away from her, beside herself with the passion of her mood, and cried:
“Let me be, mother! Would you feel, maybe, if my waist hath grown—”
The next moment she was standing up, holding her hand to her cheek—she looked down bewildered at her mother’s flashing eyes. None had ever struck her before since she was a little child.
“Sit down,” said Ragnfrid. “Sit down,” she said again, and the girl was fain to obey. The mother sat a while silent; when she spoke, her voice was shaking:
“I have seen it full well, Kristin—much have you never loved me. I told myself, maybe ’twas that you thought I loved not you so much—not as your father loves you. I bided my time—I thought when the time came that you had borne a child yourself, you would surely understand—
“While yet I was suckling you, even then was it so, that when Lavrans came near us two, you
