She grew strangely heavy at heart as she saw that this child seemed to think not at all on the sorrow she would bring on her father and mother. Yet I lived with Baard for more than twenty years in sorrow and torment, she thought. Well, maybe ’tis so with all of us. It seemed Kristin had not even seen how Ulvhild had fallen away this autumn—’tis little like, thought Aashild, that she will see her little sister any more. But she said naught of this—the longer Kristin could hold to this mood of wild and reckless gladness, the better would it be, no doubt.
Kristin rose up in the dark, and gathered together her ornaments in a little box which she took with her into the bed. Then Lady Aashild could not keep herself from saying:
“Yet methinks, Kristin, the best way of all would be that Erlend ride hither, when your father comes home—that he confess openly he hath done you a great wrong—and put himself in Lavrans’ hands.”
“I trow that, then, father would kill Erlend,” said Kristin.
“That would not Lavrans, if Erlend refuse to draw steel against his love’s father.”
“I have no mind that Erlend should be humbled in such wise,” said Kristin. “And I would not father should know that Erlend had touched me, before he asked for me in seemliness and honour.”
“Think you Lavrans will be less wroth,” asked Aashild, “when he hears that you have fled from his house with Erlend; and think you ’twill be a lighter sorrow for him to bear? So long as you live with Erlend, and your father has not given you to him, you can be naught but his paramour before the law.”
“ ’Tis another thing,” said Kristin, “if I be Erlend’s paramour after he has tried in vain to win me for his lawful wife.”
Lady Aashild was silent. She thought of her meeting with Lavrans Björgulfsön when he came home and learnt that his daughter had been stolen away.
Then Kristin said:
“I see well, Lady Aashild, I seem to you an evil, thankless child. But so has it been in this house ever since father came from the Haugathing, that every day has been a torment to him and to me. ’Tis best for all that there be an end of this matter.”
They rode from Jörundgaard betimes the next day, and came to Haugen a little after nones. Erlend met them in the courtyard, and Kristin threw herself into his arms, paying no heed to the man who was with her and Lady Aashild.
In the house she greeted Björn Gunnarsön; and then greeted Erlend’s two men, as though she knew them well already. Lady Aashild could see no sign in her of bashfulness or fear. And after, when they sat at the board, and Erlend set forth his plan, Kristin put her word in with the others and gave counsel about the journey: that they should ride forth from Haugen next evening so late that they should come to the gorge when the moon was setting, and should pass in the dark through Sil to beyond Loptsgaard, thence up along the Otta stream to the bridge, and from thence along the west side of the Otta and the Laagen over bypaths through the waste as far as the horses could bear them. They must lie resting through the day at one of the empty spring sæters on the hillside there; “for till we are out of the Holledis country there is ever fear that we may come upon folk that know me.”
“Have you thought of fodder for the horses?” said Aashild. “You cannot rob folks’ sæters in a year like this—even if so be there is fodder there—and you know none in all the Dale has fodder to sell this year.”
“I have thought of that,” answered Kristin. “You must lend us three days’ food and fodder. ’Tis a reason the more why we must not journey in so strong a troop. Erlend must send Jon back to Husaby. The year has been better on the Trondheim side, and surely some loads can be got across the hills before the Yuletide snows. There are some poor folk dwelling southward in the parish, Lady Aashild, that I would fain you should help with a gift of fodder from Erlend and me.”
Björn set up an uncanny, mirthless horselaugh. Lady Aashild shook her head. But Erlend’s man Ulf lifted his keen, swarthy visage and looked at Kristin with his bold smile:
“At Husaby there is never abundance, Kristin Lavransdatter, neither in good years nor in bad. But maybe things will be changed when you come to be mistress there. By your speech a man would deem you are the housewife that Erlend needs.”
Kristin nodded to the man calmly, and went on. They must keep clear of the high-road as far as might be. And she deemed it not wise to take the way that led through Hamar. But, Erlend put in, Munan was there—and the letter to the Duchess they must have.
“Then Ulf must part from us at Fagaberg and ride to Sir Munan, while we hold on west of Mjösen and make our way by land and the byroads through Hadeland down to Hakedal. Thence there goes a waste way south to Margretadal, I have heard my uncle say. ’Twere not wise for us to pass through Raumarike in these days, when a great wedding-feast is toward at Dyfrin,” she said with a smile.
Erlend went round and laid his arm about her shoulders, and she leaned back to him, paying no heed to the others who sat by looking on. Lady Aashild said angrily:
“None would believe aught else than that you are well-used to running away”; and Sir Björn broke again into his horselaugh.
In a little while Lady Aashild stood up to go to the kitchen-house and see to
