Two horses were harnessed, one in front of the other. Erlend sat in the front of the sleigh. Kristin went up to him:
“This time, Erlend, you must try to send me word how this journey goes, and what becomes of you after.”
He crushed her hand till she thought the blood must be driven out from under the nails.
“Dare you still hold fast to me, Kristin?”
“Aye, still,” she said; and after a moment: “Of this deed we are both guilty—I egged you on—for I willed her death.”
Lady Aashild and Kristin stood and looked after the sleigh, as it rose and dipped over the snowdrifts. It went down from sight into a hollow—then came forth again farther down on a snow-slope. And then the men passed into the shadow of a fell, and were gone from sight for good.
The two women sat by the fireplace, their backs to the empty bed, from which Aashild had borne away all the bedding and straw. Both could feel it standing there empty and gaping behind them.
“Would you rather that we should sleep in the kitchen-house tonight?” asked Lady Aashild at length.
“ ’Tis like it will be the same where we lie,” said Kristin.
Lady Aashild went out to look at the weather.
“Aye, should the wind get up or a thaw come on, they will not journey far before it comes out,” said Kristin.
“Here at Haugen it blows ever,” answered Lady Aashild. “ ’Tis no sign of a change of weather.”
They sat on as before.
“You should not forget,” said the Lady at last, “what fate she had meant for you two.”
Kristin answered low:
“I was thinking, maybe in her place I had willed the same.”
“Never would you have willed another should be a leper,” said Aashild vehemently.
“Mind you, Moster, you said to me once that ’tis well when we dare not do a thing we think not good and fair, but not so well when we think a thing not good and fair because we dare not do it?”
“You had not dared to do it, because ’twas sin,” said Lady Aashild.
“No, I believe not so,” said Kristin. “Much have I done already that I deemed once I dared not do because ’twas sin. But I saw not till now what sin brings with it—that we must tread others underfoot.”
“Erlend would fain have made an end of his ill life long before he met you,” said Aashild eagerly. “All was over between those two.”
“I know it,” said Kristin. “But I trow she had never cause to deem Erlend’s purposes so firm that she could not shake them.”
“Kristin,” begged the lady fearfully, “surely you would not give up Erlend now? You cannot be saved now except you save each other.”
“So would a priest scarce counsel,” said Kristin, smiling coldly. “But well I know that never can I give up Erlend now—not if I should tread my own father underfoot.”
Lady Aashild rose:
“We had as well put our hands to some work as sit here thus,” she said. “Like enough ’twould be vain for us to try to sleep.”
She fetched the butter-churn from the closet, then bore in some pans of milk, filled the churn and made ready to begin churning.
“Let me do it,” Kristin asked. “My back is younger.”
They worked without speaking; Kristin stood by the closet-door churning, while Aashild carded wool by the hearth. At last, when Kristin had emptied the churn and was kneading the butter, the girl asked of a sudden:
“Moster Aashild—are you never afraid of the day when you must stand before God’s judgment?”
Lady Aashild rose, and came and stood before Kristin in the light:
“It may be I shall find courage to ask Him that hath made me as I am, if He will have mercy on me in His own good time. For I have never begged for His mercy when I broke His commands. And never have I begged God or man to forgive me a farthing of the price I have paid here in this mountain hut.”
A little while after she said softly:
“Munan, my eldest son, was twenty years old. He was not such an one then, as I know he is now. They were not such ones then, my children—”
Kristin answered low:
“But yet have you had Sir Björn by your side each day and each night in all these years.”
“Aye—that too have I had,” said Aashild.
In a little while after, Kristin was done with the butter-making. Lady Aashild said then that they must lie down and try to sleep a little.
Inside, in the dark bed, she laid her arm round Kristin’s shoulders, and drew the young head in to her breast. And it was not long before she heard by her even gentle breathing that Kristin was fallen asleep.
IV
The frost held on. In every byre in the parish the half-starved beasts bellowed dolefully with hunger and cold. Already the farmers were skimping and saving on their fodder, every straw they could.
There was little visiting round at Yule this year; folks stayed quiet in their own homes.
During Yuletide the cold grew greater—it was as though each day was colder than the last. Scarce anyone could call to mind so hard a winter—there came no more snow, not even up in the mountains; but the snow that had fallen at Clementsmass froze hard as a stone. The sun shone from a clear sky, now the days began to grow lighter. At night the northern lights flickered and flamed above the range to the north—they flamed over half the heaven, but they brought no change of weather; now and again would come a cloudy day, and a little dry snow would sprinkle down—and then came clear weather again and biting cold. The Laagen muttered and gurgled sluggishly under its ice-bridges.
Kristin thought each morning that she could bear no more, that she could never hold out to the day’s end.
