“Are you so glad then, my daughter, you are going so far from me?”
Ragnfrid said the same that morning they were to set out. They were up at cockcrow; it was dark without, with thick mist between the houses, as Kristin peeped out of the door at the weather. The mist billowed like grey smoke round the lanterns, and out by the open house-doors. Folk ran twixt stables and outhouses, and women came from the kitchen with steaming porridge-pots and trenchers of meat and pork—they were to have a plenty of good, strong food before they rode out into the morning cold.
Indoors, saddlebags were shut and opened, and forgotten things packed inside. Ragnfrid called to her husband’s mind all the errands he must do for her, and spoke of kin and friends upon the way—he must greet this one and not forget to ask for that one.
Kristin ran out and in; she said farewell many times to all in the house, and could not hold still a moment in any place.
“Are you so glad then, Kristin, you are going from me so far and for so long?” asked her mother. Kristin was abashed and uneasy, and wished her mother had not said this. But she answered as best she could:
“No, dear my mother, but I am glad that I am to go with father.”
“Aye, that you are indeed,” said Ragnfrid, sighing. Then she kissed the child and put the last touches to her dress.
At last they were in the saddle, the whole train—Kristin rode on Morvin, who ere now had been her father’s saddle-horse—he was old, wise and steady. Ragnfrid held up the silver stoup with the stirrup-cup to her husband, and laid a hand upon her daughter’s knee and bade her bear in mind all her mother had taught her.
And so they rode out of the courtyard in the grey light. The fog lay white as milk upon the parish. But in a while it began to grow thinner and the sunlight sifted through. And dripping with dew there shone through the white haze hillsides, green with the aftermath, and pale stubble fields, and yellow trees, and rowans bright with red berries. Glimpses of blue mountainsides seemed rising through the steamy haze—then the mist broke and drove in wreaths across the slopes, and they rode down the Dale in the most glorious sunshine, Kristin in front of the troop at her father’s side.
They came to Hamar one dark and rainy evening, with Kristin sitting in front on her father’s saddlebow, for she was so weary that all things swam before her eyes—the lake that gleamed wanly on their right, the gloomy trees which dripped wet upon them as they rode beneath, and the dark, leaden clusters of houses on the hueless, sodden fields by the wayside.
She had stopped counting the days—it seemed as though she had been an endless time on the journey. They had visited kindred and friends all down the Dale; she had made acquaintance with children on the great manors and had played in strange houses and barns and courtyards, and had worn many times her red dress with the silk sleeves. They had rested by the roadside by day when the weather was fair; Arne had gathered nuts for her and she had slept after meals upon the saddlebags wherein were their clothes. At one great house they had silk-covered pillows in their beds, but one night they lay at an inn, and in one of the other beds was a woman who lay and wept softly and bitterly each time Kristin was awake. But every night she had slumbered safely behind her father’s broad, warm back.
Kristin awoke with a start—she knew not where she was, but the wondrous ringing and booming sound she had heard in her dream went on. She was lying alone in a bed, and on the hearth of the room a fire was burning.
She called upon her father, and he rose from the hearth where he had been sitting, and came to her along with a stout woman.
“Where are we?” she asked, and Lavrans laughed and said:
“We’re in Hamar now, and here is Margret, the wife of Fartein the shoemaker—you must greet her prettily now, for you slept when we came hither. But now Margret will help you to your clothes.”
“Is it morning then?” said Kristin. “I thought you were even now coming to bed.—Oh! do you help me,” she begged; but Lavrans said, something sternly, that she should rather be thankful to kind Margret for helping her.
“And see what she has for you for a gift!”
’Twas a pair of red shoes with silken latchets. The woman smiled at Kristin’s glad face, and drew on her shift and hose up on the bed, that she should not need to tread barefoot upon the clay floor.
“What is it makes such a noise,” asked Kristin, “like a church bell, but many bells?”
“Aye, those are our bells,” laughed Margret. “Have you heard not of the great minster here in the town—’tis there you are going now. There goes the great bell! And now ’tis ringing in the cloister and in the Church of Holy Cross as well.”
Margret spread the butter thick upon Kristin’s bread and gave her honey in her milk, that the food she took might stand in more stead—she had scant time to eat.
Out of doors it was still dark and the weather had fallen frosty. The fog was biting cold. The footprints of folk and of cattle and horses were hard as though cast in iron, so that Kristin bruised her feet in the thin, new shoes, and once she trod through the ice on the gutter in the middle of the street and her legs got wet and cold. Then Lavrans took her on his back and carried her.
She strained her eyes in the gloom, but there was not much she could see of the town—she caught a glimpse of black house-gables and
