Kristin kissed the monk’s hand:
“Truly I know not, Father, what I have done, or how deserved, that you show me such great love.”
The monk answered in a low voice:
“I have thought many a time, Kristin, that had it so befallen we had met more often, then might you have come to be as my daughter in the spirit.”
“Mean you that you would have brought me to turn my heart to the holy life of the cloister?” asked Kristin. Then, a little after, she said: “Sira Eirik laid a command on me that, should I not win my father’s consent and be wed with Erlend, then must I join with a godly sisterhood and make atonement for my sins—”
“I have prayed many a time that the longing for the holy life might come to you,” said Brother Edvin. “But not since you told me that you wot of—I would have had you come to God, wearing your garland, Kristin—”
When they came to Jörundgaard Brother Edvin had to be lifted down and borne in to his bed. They laid him in the old winter house, in the hearth-room, and cared for him most tenderly. He was very sick, and Sira Eirik came and tended him with medicines for the body and the soul. But the priest said the old man’s sickness was cancer, and it could not be that he had long to live. Brother Edvin himself said that when he had gained a little strength he would journey south again and try to come home to his own cloister. But Sira Eirik told the others he could not believe this was to be thought of.
It seemed to all at Jörundgaard that a great peace and gladness had come to them with the monk. Folks came and went in the hearth room all day long, and there was never any lack of watchers to sit at nights by the sick man. As many as had time flocked in to listen, when Sira Eirik came over and read to the dying man from godly books, and they talked much with Brother Edvin of spiritual things. And though much of what he said was dark and veiled, even as his speech was wont to be, it seemed to these folks that he strengthened and comforted their souls, because each and all could see that Brother Edvin was wholly filled with the love of God.
But the monk was fain to hear, too, of all kind of other things—asked the news of the parishes round, and had Lavrans tell him all the story of the evil year of drought. There were some folk who had betaken them to evil courses in that tribulation, turning to such helpers as Christian men should most abhor. Some way in over the ridges west of the Dale was a place in the mountains where were certain great white stones, of obscene shapes, and some men had fallen so low as to sacrifice boars and gib-cats before these abominations. So Sira Eirik moved some of the boldest, most God-fearing farmers to come with him one night and break the stones in pieces. Lavrans had been with them, and could bear witness that the stones were all besmeared with blood, and there lay bones and other refuse all around them—’Twas said that up in Heidal the people had had an old crone sit out on a great earth-fast rock three Thursday nights, chanting ancient spells.
One night Kristin sat alone by Brother Edvin. At midnight he woke up, and seemed to be suffering great pain. Then he bade Kristin take the book of Miracles of the Virgin Mary, which Sira Eirik had lent to Brother Edvin, and read to him.
Kristin was little used to read aloud, but she set herself down on the step of the bed and placed the candle by her side; she laid the book on her lap and read as well as she could.
In a little while she saw that the sick man was lying with teeth set tight, clenching his wasted hands as the fits of agony took him.
“You are suffering much, dear Father,” said Kristin sorrowfully.
“It seems so to me, now. But I know ’tis but that God has made me a little child again and is tossing me about, up and down—
“I mind me one time when I was little—four winters old I was then—I had run away from home into the woods. I lost myself, and wandered about many days and nights. My mother was with the folks that found me, and when she caught me up in her arms, I mind me well, she bit me in my neck. I thought it was that she was angry with me—but afterward I knew better—
“I long, myself, now, to be home out of this forest. It is written: forsake ye all things and follow Me—but there has been all too much in this world that I had no mind to forsake—”
“You, Father?” said Kristin. “Ever have I heard all men say that you have been a pattern for pure life and poverty and humbleness—”
The monk laughed slyly.
“Aye, a young child like you thinks, maybe, there are no other lures in the world than pleasure and riches and power. But I say to you, these are small things men find by the wayside; and I—I have loved the ways themselves—not the small things of the world did I love, but the whole world. God gave me grace to love Lady Poverty and Lady Chastity from my youth up, and thus methought with these playfellows it was safe to wander, and so I have roved and wandered, and would have been fain to roam over all the ways of the earth. And my heart and my thoughts have roamed and wandered too—I fear me I have often gone astray in my thoughts on the most hidden things. But
