“I mean that Erlend has told me, they two have sworn troth to each other with the dearest oaths. Maybe you would say that you have power to loose your child from her oath, since she swore without your will. But Erlend you cannot loose.—And for aught I can see what most stands in the road is your pride—and the hate you bear to sin. But in that ’tis to me as though you were minded to be stricter than God himself, Lavrans Björgulfsön.”
Lavrans answered somewhat uncertainly:
“It may be there is truth in this that you say to me, Sir Baard. But what most has set me against this match is that I have deemed Erlend to be so unsure a man that I could not trust my daughter to his hands.”
“Methinks I can answer for my foster-son now,” said Baard quietly. “Kristin is so dear to him that I know, if you will give her to him, he will prove in the event such a son-in-law that you shall have no cause of grief.”
Lavrans did not answer at once. Then Sir Baard said earnestly, holding out his hand:
“In God’s name, Lavrans Björgulfsön, give your consent!”
Lavrans laid his hand in Sir Baard’s:
“In God’s name!”
Ragnfrid and Kristin were called to the upper hall, and Lavrans told them his will. Sir Baard greeted the two women in fair and courtly fashion; Sir Munan took Ragnfrid by the hand and spoke to her in seemly wise, but Kristin he greeted in the foreign fashion with a kiss, and he took time over his greeting. Kristin felt that her father looked at her while this was doing.
“How like you your new kinsman, Sir Munan?” he asked jestingly when he was alone with her for a moment late that evening.
Kristin looked beseechingly at him. Then he stroked her face a little and said no more.
When Sir Baard and Sir Munan went to their room, Munan broke out:
“Not a little would I give to see this Lavrans Björgulfsön’s face, should he come to know the truth about this precious daughter of his. Here have you and I had to beg on our knees to win for Erlend a woman he has had with him in Brynhild’s house many times—”
“Hold your peace—no word of that,” answered Sir Baard in wrath. “ ’Twas the worst deed Erlend ever did, to lure that child to such places—and see that Lavrans never hear aught of it; the best that can happen now for all is that those two should be friends.”
The feast for the drinking of the betrothal ale was appointed to be held that same autumn. Lavrans said he could not make the feast very great, the year before had been such a bad one in the Dale; but to make up he would bear the cost of the wedding himself, and hold it at Jörundgaard in all seemly state. He named the bad year again as the cause why he required that the time of betrothal should last a year.
VI
For more reasons than one the betrothal feast was put off; it was not held till the New Year; but Lavrans agreed that the bridal need not therefore be delayed; it was to be just after Michaelmas, as was fixed at first.
So Kristin sat now at Jörundgaard as Erlend’s betrothed in all men’s sight. Along with her mother she looked over all the goods and gear that had been gathered and saved up for her portion, and strove to add still more to the great piles of bedding and clothes; for when once Lavrans had given his daughter to the master of Husaby, it was his will that naught should be spared.
Kristin wondered herself at times that she did not feel more glad. But, spite of all the busyness, there was no true gladness at Jörundgaard.
Her father and mother missed Ulvhild sorely, that she saw. But she understood too that ’twas not that alone which made them so silent and so joyless. They were kind to her, but when they talked with her of her betrothed, she saw that they did but force themselves to it to please her and show her kindness; ’twas not that they themselves had a mind to speak of Erlend. They had not learned to take more joy in the marriage she was making, now they had come to know the man. Erlend, too, had kept himself quiet and withdrawn the short time he had been at Jörundgaard for the betrothal—and like enough this could not have been otherwise, thought Kristin; for he knew it was with no good will her father had given his consent.
She herself and Erlend had scarce had the chance to speak ten words alone together. And it had brought a strange unwonted feeling, to sit together thus in all folks’ sight; at such times they had little to say, by reason of the many things between them that could not be said. There arose in her a doubtful fear, vague and dim, but always present—perhaps ’twould make it hard for them in some way after they were wedded, that they had come all too near to each other at the first, and after had lived so long quite parted.
But she tried to thrust the fear away. It was meant that Erlend should visit them at Whitsuntide; he had asked Lavrans and Ragnfrid if they had aught against his coming, and Lavrans had laughed a little, and answered that Erlend might be sure his daughter’s bridegroom would be welcome.
At Whitsuntide they would be able to go out together; they would have a chance to speak together as in the old days, and then surely it would fade away, the shadow that had come between them in this long time apart, when each had gone about alone bearing a burden the other could not share.
At Easter Simon Andressön and his wife came to Formo. Kristin saw them in the
