The Wife

THE WIFE

By SIGRID UNDSET

Translated by CHARLES ARCHER

The Wife

By Sigrid Undset

Translated by Charles Archer

Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-7378-5

eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-7435-5

This edition copyright © 2021. Digireads.com Publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover Image: a detail of a portrait of a Lady, by Domenico (Domenico Bigordi) Ghirlandaio (1449-94), c. 1490 (tempera & oil on panel) / Bridgeman Images.

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CONTENTS

Book 1. The Fruit of Sin

1

2

3

4

5

6

Book 2. Husaby

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Book 3. Erlend Nikulaussön

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Book 1. The Fruit of Sin

1

The evening before Simon’s Mass,{1} Baard Peterssön’s galleass lay in to the landing-place at Birgsi. Abbot Olav of Nidarholm had himself ridden down to the strand to greet his kinsman, Erlend Nikulaussön, and bid welcome to the young wife he was bringing with him home. The pair were to be the Abbot’s guests, and to sleep at Vigg that night.

It was a deathly pale, woebegone young wife that Erlend led shoreward from the pier. The Abbot spoke jestingly of the pains of the sea-voyage; Erlend laughed and said he well believed his wife longed for nothing so much as to lie once more in a bed well fixed into a house-wall. And Kristin strove to smile; but within herself she thought that never, so long as she lived, would she willingly set foot on shipboard again. She turned sick if Erlend so much as came near her, he smelt so of the ship and of the sea—his hair was all matted and sticky with sea-water. He had been crazy with joy all the time on board—and Sir Baard had laughed: at his home in Möre, where Erlend had grown up, the boys had been out in the boats sailing or rowing late and early. ’Twas true they had been a little sorry for her, Erlend and Sir Baard, but not so sorry, Kristin thought, as her wretchedness deserved. They kept on saying the sea-sickness would pass when she grew used to being aboard ship. But from first to last her misery had not abated.

Even the next morning she felt as if she were still sailing, as she rode up through the settled lands. Uphill and downhill, their road led over great, steep clay ridges, and when she tried to fix her eyes on some spot on the hills far ahead, it was as though the whole country-side were dipping, then rising, in waves cast up against the shining, blue-white winter-morning sky.

A whole troop of Erlend’s friends and neighbours had come to Vigg in the early morning to attend the bridal pair, so that they rode in a great company. The ground sounded hollow under the horses’ hoofs, for the earth was as hard as iron with the black frost. The air was full of steam from the men and horses; the bodies of the beasts and the men’s hair and furs were white with rime. Erlend seemed as white-haired as the Abbot; his face glowed from his morning draught and the biting wind. He wore his bridegroom’s dress to-day; youth and gladness seemed to shine out of him, and joy and wantonness welled out in the tones of his mellow, supple voice as he rode, shouting and laughing, amidst his guests.

Kristin’s heart began to tremble strangely—with sorrow, with tenderness and with fear. She was still sick from the voyage; she had the burning pain at her breast that came now whenever she had eaten or drunk never so little; she was bitterly cold; and deep down in her mind was a dull, dumb spot of anger with Erlend, that he could be so gay and care-free. . . . And yet, now that she saw his childlike pride and sparkling happiness in bringing her home as his wife, a bitter regret welled up in her; her breast ached with pity for him. She wished now that she had not hearkened to the counsel of her own self-will, but had let Erlend know when he was at her home last summer—let him know what made it most unfit that their wedding should be held with too great pomp. She saw now that she had wished he should be made to feel—he too—that they could not escape unhumbled from what they had done.

—And she had been afraid of her father, too. And she had thought in her mind: when once their bride-ale had been drunk, they were to journey so far off; ’twas like she would not see her home-country again for a long, long time—not till all talk about her had had good time to die away. . . .

Now she saw that things here would be much worse than she had deemed. True, Erlend had spoken of the great house-warming he would hold at Husaby, but she had not thought it would be like a second wedding-feast. And the guests here were the folk that Erlend and she were to live among—it was their respect and friendship they had need to win. It was these folk that had had Erlend’s folly and evil fortunes before their eyes all these years. Now he himself believed that he had redeemed himself in their judgment, that now he could take the place among his fellows that was due to his birth and fortune. And now ’twas like he would be a laughing-stock through this whole country-side when it came out that he had done amiss with his own betrothed bride.

The Abbot leant over towards her from his horse:

You look so sad, Kristin Lavransdatter; are you not quit of your sea-sickness yet? Or is it, perhaps, that you are home-sick for your mother?

Even so, sir, said Kristin softly; ’tis of my mother I am thinking.

They had come up into Skaun, and were riding high on a hillside. Below them in the valley bottom the woods stood white and shaggy with rime; everywhere the sunlight glittered, and a small lake in the midst flashed blue. Then all at once the troop passed out from a little pinewood, and Erlend pointed ahead:

"There lies Husaby,{2} Kristin. God grant you many happy days there, my own wife!" he said, with a thrill in his voice.

Before them stretched broad plough-lands, white with rime. The manor stood, as it were, on a broad shelf midway on the hillside—nearest them lay a small church of light-coloured stone, and just south of it were the clustered houses; they were many and great; the smoke whirled up from their smoke-vents. Bells began ringing from the church, and many folk came streaming from the courtyard to meet them, with shouts of greeting. The young men in the bridal trains clashed their weapons one on another—and with a great clattering and the thunder of hoofs and joyous uproar the troop swept forward towards the new-married man’s abode.

They stopped before the church. Erlend lifted his bride from her horse, and led her forward to the church-door, where a little crowd of priests and clerks stood waiting to welcome them. Within, it was bitterly cold, and the daylight, sifting in through the small round-arched windows of the nave, dulled the shine of the tapers burning in the choir.

Kristin felt lost and afraid when Erlend loosed her hand and went over to the men’s side, while she herself took her place among the throng of strange women, all in festal dress. The service was most goodly. But Kristin was very cold, and it seemed as though her prayers were blown back upon her when she tried to free her heart and lift it upwards. She thought maybe it was no good omen that this should be St. Simon’s day—the guardian saint of the man by whom she had done so ill.

From the church all the people went in procession down to the manor, the priests first, then Kristin and Erlend hand in hand, then their guests pair by pair. Kristin was not enough herself to see much of the manor buildings. The courtyard was long and narrow; the houses lay in two rows, south and north of it. They were big and built close together; but they looked old and ill-tended.

The procession halted at the door of the hall-house, and the priests blessed it with holy water. Then Erlend led her through a dark outer room. On her right a door was thrown open, letting out a flood of light. She bent, passing through the doorway, and stood with Erlend in his hall.

It was the greatest room{3} she had ever seen in any man’s dwelling-house. There was a hearth-place in the midst of the floor, and it was so long that there were two fires on it, one at each end; and the room was so broad that the cross-beams were borne up on carven pillars—it seemed to her more like the body of a church or a king’s hall than a room in a manor-house. Up by the eastern gable-end, where the high-seat stood in the middle of the wall-bench, closed box-beds were built in between the timber pillars.

And what a mass of lights were burning in the hall—on the tables, that groaned with costly cups and vessels, and on sconces fastened to the walls! After the fashion of the old age, weapons and shields hung amidst the stretched-out tapestries. Behind the high-seat the wall was covered with a velvet hanging, and against it a man was even now fastening up Erlend’s gold-mounted sword and his white shield with the red lion salient.

Serving-men and women had taken the guests’ outer garments from them. Erlend took his wife by the hand and led her forward to the hearth, the guests standing in a half-ring just behind them. A fat lady with a gentle face came forward and shook out Kristin’s head-linen, where it had been crumpled by the hood of her cloak. As she stepped back into her place, she nodded to the young couple and smiled; Erlend nodded and smiled back to her, and looked down at his wife—his face, as he looked, was beautiful. And again Kristin felt her heart sink—with pity for him. She knew what he was thinking now, as he saw her standing there in his hall with the long snow-white linen coif over her scarlet bridal dress. And this morning she had had to wind a long woven belt tight around her waist under her clothes before she could get the dress to fit upon her, and she had rubbed upon her cheeks some of a red salve that Lady Aashild had given her; and while she thus bedecked herself, she had thought in sorrow and bitterness that Erlend must look but little upon her, now that he had her safely his own—since he still saw and knew nothing. Bitterly she repented now that she had not told him.

While the married pair stood thus, hand in hand, the priests were walking the round of the hall, blessing house and hearth and bed and board.

Next a serving-woman bore forth the keys of the house to Erlend. He hooked the heavy bunch on Kristin’s belt—and looked, as he did so, as though he had been fain to kiss her where she stood. A man brought a great horn ringed about with golden rings—Erlend set it to his lips and drank to her:

Hail, and welcome to thy house, Lady of Husaby!

And the guests shouted and laughed while she drank with her husband and poured out the rest of the wine on the hearth-fire.

Then the minstrels struck up their music, as Erlend Nikulaussön led his wedded wife to the high-seat, and the wedding guests took their seats at the board.

On the third day the guests began to break up, and by the hour of nones on the fifth day the last of them were gone, and Kristin was alone with her husband at Husaby.

The first thing she did was to bid the serving-folk take all the bed-gear out of the bed, wash it and the walls round about it with lye, and carry out and burn up the straw. Then she had the bedstead filled with fresh straw, and above it made up the bed with bed-clothes from the store she had brought with her. It was late in the night before this work was at an end. But Kristin gave order that the same should be done with all the beds on the place, and that the skin rugs should be well baked in the bath-house—the maids must set to the work in the morning the first thing, and get as much done towards it as they could before the Sunday holiday. Erlend shook his head and laughed—she was a housewife indeed! But he was not a little ashamed.

For Kristin had not had much sleep the first night, even though the priests had blessed her bed. ’Twas spread above with silken pillows, with sheets of linen and the bravest rugs and furs; but beneath was dirty, mouldy straw, and there were lice in the bed-clothes and in the splendid black bearskin that was spread over all.

Many things had she seen already in these few days. Behind the costly tapestry hangings, the unwashed walls were black with dirt and soot. At the feast there had been masses of food, but much of it spoilt with ill dressing and ill service. And to make up the fires they had had naught but green and wet logs, that would scarce catch fire, and that filled the hall with smoke.

Everywhere she had seen ill husbandry, when on the second day she went round with Erlend and looked over the manor and farm. By the time the feasting was over, little would be left in barn and storehouse; the corn-bins were all but swept clean. And she could not understand how Erlend could think to keep all the horses and so many cattle through the winter on the little hay and straw that was in the barns—of leaf-fodder there was not enough even for the sheep and goats.

But there was a loft half full of flax that had been left lying unused—there must have been the greatest part of many years’ harvest. And then a storehouse full of old, old unwashed and stinking wool, some in sacks and some lying loose in heaps. When Kristin took up a handful, a shower of little brown eggs fell from it—moth and maggots had got into it.

The cattle were wretched, lean, galled and scabby; and never had she seen so many aged beasts together, in one place. Only the horses were comely and well-tended. But, even so, there was no one of them that was the equal of Guldsveinen or of Ringdrotten, the stallion her father had now. Slöngvanbauge, the horse he had given her to take along with her from home, was the fairest beast in the Husaby stables. When she came to him, she had to go and throw her arms round his neck and press her face against his cheek.

She thought on her father’s face, when the time came for her to ride away with Erlend and he lifted her to the saddle. He had put on an air of gladness, for many folk were standing round them; but she had seen his eyes. He stroked her arm downwards, and held her hand in his for farewell. At the moment, it might be, she had thought most how glad she was that she was to get away at last. But now it seemed to her that as long as she lived her soul would be wrung with pain when she remembered her father’s eyes at that hour.

And so Kristin Lavransdatter began to guide and order all things in her house. She was up at cock-crow every morning, though Erlend raised his voice against it, and made as though he would keep her in bed by force—surely no one expected a newly-married wife to rush about from house to house long before ’twas daylight.

When she saw in what an ill way all things were here, and how much there was for to set her hand to, a thought shot through her clear and hard; if she had burdened her soul with sin that she might come hither, let it even be so—but ’twas no less sin to deal with God’s gifts as they had been dealt with here. Shame upon the folk that had had the guidance of things here, and on all them that had let Erlend’s goods go so to waste! There had been no fit steward at Husaby for the last two years; Erlend himself had been much away from home in that time, and besides, he understood but little of the management of the estate. ’Twas no more than was to be looked for, then, that his bailiffs in the outlying parishes should cheat him, as she was sure they did, and that the serving-folk at Husaby should work only as much as they pleased, and when and how it chanced to suit them. ’Twould be no light task for her to put things right again.

One day she talked of these things with Ulf Haldorssön, Erlend’s own henchman. They ought to have had the threshing done by now, at least of the corn from the home farm—and there was none too much of it either—before the time came to slaughter for winter meat. Ulf said:

You know, Kristin, that I am not a farm-hand. It has been our place to be Erlend’s arms-bearers—Haftor’s and mine—and I have no skill in husbandry any longer.

I know it, said the mistress of the house. But so it is, Ulf, that ’twill be no easy task for me to guide things here this winter, a newcomer as I am here north of Dovre, and with no knowledge of our folks. ’Twould be a friend’s turn of you if you would help and counsel me.

I can well believe it, Kristin—that you will have no easy task this winter, said the man, looking at her with a little smile—the strange smile that was always on his face when he spoke with her or with Erlend. It was bold and mocking, and yet there were both kindness and a sort of respect for her in his bearing. Nor, it seemed to her, had she a right to take offence that Ulf should bear himself more forwardly towards her than might have been seemly otherwise. She herself and Erlend had made this serving-man a party to their wanton and deceitful doings; and she could see that he knew, too, how things stood with her now. She must let this pass—and indeed she saw that Erlend put up with anything Ulf might say or do, and that the man showed but little reverence for his master. True, they had been friends from childhood; Ulf came from Möre, and was son to a small farmer that lived near Baard Peterssön’s manor. He called Erlend by his name; and her, too, now—it was true that this way of speech was commoner here north of Dovre than in her own country.

Ulf Haldorssön was a proper man, tall and dark, with sightly eyes; but his mouth was ugly and coarse. Kristin had heard ugly tales of him from the maids on the place—when he was in at the city he drank beyond measure and spent his time in revel and roistering in the lowest houses of call—but at home at Husaby he was the best man to have at one’s beck, the fittest, the hardest worker, and the shrewdest. Kristin had come to like him well.

’Twere no easy thing for any woman, he went on, to come hither to this house—after all that has come and gone. And yet, Mistress Kristin, I deem that you will win through it better than most could have done. You are not the woman to sit down and moan and whimper; but you will set your thoughts on saving your children’s inheritance yourself, since none else here takes thought for such things. And methinks you know that you can trust me, and that I will help you as far as in me lies. You must bear in mind that I am unused to farm work. But if you will take counsel with me and let me come to you for counsel, I trow we will tide over this winter none so ill.

Kristin thanked Ulf, and went into the house.

She was heavy at heart with unrest and fear, but she tried to forget it in work. One thing was that she understood not Erlend—even now he seemed to suspect nothing. But another and a worse trouble was that she could feel no life in the child she bore within her. At twenty weeks it should quicken, she knew—and now more than three weeks over the twenty had gone by. She lay awake at night and felt the burden within her that grew greater and heavier, but was still as dull and lifeless as ever. And there floated through her mind all she had heard of children that were born crippled, with sinews stiff as stone, of births that had come to the light without limbs—with scarce a semblance of human shape. Before her tight-shut eyes would pass pictures of little infants, dreadfully misshapen; one shape of horror melting into another still worse. Southward in the dale at home, at Lidstad, the folks had a child—nay, it must be grown up now. Her father had seen it, but would never speak of it; she had marked that he grew ill at ease if anyone but named aught of it. What did it look like?—Oh, no! Holy Saint Olav, pray for me!—She must needs trust firmly on the holy King’s tender mercy; had she not placed her child under His ward? She would suffer for her sins in meekness, and with her whole heart have faith that there would be help and mercy for the child. It must be the Enemy himself that tempted her with these ugly visions, to drive her to despair. But her nights were evil. . . . If a child had no limbs, if it were palsied, like enough the mother would feel no sign of life within her. . . . Erlend, half waking, marked that his wife was restless, drew her closer into his arms, and laid his face against the hollow of her throat.

But by day she showed no sign of trouble. And every morning she dressed her body with care so as to hide from the house-folk yet a little longer that she bore another life about with her.

It was the custom at Husaby that after the evening meal the serving-folk went off to the houses where they slept; so that she and Erlend were left alone in the hall. Altogether the ways of this manor were more as they had been in the ancient days, when folks kept thralls and bondswomen for the household work. There was no fixed table in the hall, but morning and evening the meals were spread on a great board that was laid on trestles, and after the meal it was hung up again on the wall. At the other meals folks took their food over to the benches and sat and ate it there. Kristin knew such had been the custom in former times. But nowadays, when ’twas hard to find men to serve at table, and all folks had to content them with maids for indoor work, it fitted the times no longer—the women were loath to break their backs lifting the heavy tables. Kristin remembered her mother telling how at Sundbu they had put a fixed table into the hall when she was but eight winters old, and that the women thought it in every way the greatest boon—they need no longer take all their sewing out to the women’s house, but could sit in the hall and clip and cut out—and it made such a goodly show to have candlesticks and a few costly vessels standing out in view. Kristin thought: next summer she would pray Erlend to have a fixed table set up along the northern wall.

So it was at her home, and there her father had his high seat at the board’s end—but then the beds there were by the entrance wall. At home her mother sat highest up on the outer bench, so that she could go to and fro and keep an eye on the service of the food. Only when there was a feast did Ragnfrid sit by her husband’s side. But here the high seat stood in the middle of the eastern gable-end, and Erlend would have her always sit in it with him. At home her father always placed God’s servants in the high seat, if any such were guests at the manor, and he himself and Ragnfrid served them while they ate and drank. But Erlend would have none of this, unless they were high of station. He was no great lover of priests and monks—they were costly friends, he was used to say. Kristin could not but think of what her father and Sira Eirik always said, when folk complained of the churchmen’s greed of money: men forgot the sinful joys they had snatched for themselves when the time came to pay for them.

She questioned Erlend about the life here at Husaby in ancient days. But he knew strangely little. Things were thus and thus, he had heard; but he could not remember so nicely. King Skule had owned the manor and built on it—’twas said he had meant to make Husaby his dwelling-place, when he gave away Rein for a nunnery. Erlend was right proud of his descent from the Duke, whom he always called King, and from Bishop Nikulaus; the Bishop was the father of his grandfather, Munan Bishopsson. But it seemed to Kristin that he knew no more of these men than she herself knew already from her father’s tales. At home it was otherwise. Neither her father nor her mother was overproud of the power of their forbears and the high esteem they had enjoyed. But they spoke often of them; held up the good that they knew of them as a pattern, and told of their faults and the evil that had come of them as a warning. And they had little tales of mirth too—of Ivar Gjesling the Old and his quarrel with King Sverre; of Ivar Provst’s quick and witty sallies; of Haavard Gjesling’s huge bulk; and of Ivar Gjesling the Young’s wonderful luck in the chase. Lavrans told of his grandfather’s brother that carried off the Folkunga maid from Vreta cloister; of his grandfather’s mother Ramborg Sunesdatter, who longed always for her home in Wester Gothland and at last went through the ice and was lost, when driving on Lake Vener one time she was staying with her brother at Solberga. He told of his father’s prowess in arms, and of his unspeakable sorrow over his young first wife, Kristin Sigurdsdatter, that died in childbirth when Lavrans was born. And he read, from a book, of his ancestress the holy Lady Elin of Skövde, who was given grace to be one of God’s blood-witnesses. Her father had often spoken of making a pilgrimage with Kristin to the grave of this holy widow. But it had never come to pass.

In her fear and distress, Kristin tried to pray to this saint that she herself was linked to by the tie of blood. She prayed to St. Elin for her child, kissing the reliquary that she had had of her father; in it was a shred of the holy lady’s shroud. But Kristin was afraid of St. Elin, now when she had brought such shame on her race. When she prayed to St. Olav and St. Thomas for their intercession, she often felt that her complaints found a way to living ears and merciful hearts. These two martyrs for righteousness her father loved above all other saints; above even St. Laurentius himself, though this was the saint he was called after, and in honour of whose day in the late summer he always held a great drinking-feast and gave richly in alms. St. Thomas her father had himself seen in his dreams one night when he lay wounded outside Baagahus. No tongue could tell how lovely and venerable he was to look on, and Lavrans himself had been able to say naught but Lord! Lord! But the radiant figure in the Bishop’s raiment had gently touched his wounds and promised that he should have his life and the use of his limbs, so that he should see again his wife and his daughter, according to his prayer. But at that time no man had believed that Lavrans Björgulfsön could live the night through.

Aye, said Erlend. One heard of such things. Naught of the kind had ever befallen him, and to be sure ’twas not like that it should—for he had never been a pious man, such as Lavrans was.

Then Kristin asked of all the folk who had been at their home-coming feast. Erlend had not much to say of them either. It seemed to Kristin that her husband was not much like the folks of this country-side. They were comely folk, many of them, fair and ruddy of hue, with round hard heads and bodies strong and heavily built—many of the older folks were hugely fat. Erlend looked like a strange bird among his guests. He was a head taller than most of the men, slim and lean, with slender limbs and fine joints. And he had black silky hair and was pale brown of hue—but with light-blue eyes under coal-black brows and long black eyelashes. His forehead was high and narrow, the temples hollow, the nose somewhat too great and the mouth something too small and weak for a man—but he was comely none the less; she had seen no man that was half so fair as Erlend. Even his mellow, quiet voice was unlike the others’ thick full-fed utterance.

Erlend laughed and said his forbears were not of these parts either—only his grandfather’s mother, Ragnfrid Skulesdatter. Folks said he was much like his mother’s father, Gaute Erlendssön of Skogheim. Kristin asked what he knew about this grandfather. But it proved to be almost nothing.

One night Erlend and Kristin were undressing in the hall. Erlend could not get his shoe-latchet unloosed; as he cut it, the knife slipped and gashed his hand. He bled much and swore savagely. Kristin fetched a piece of linen from her chest. She was in her shift. As she was binding up his hand, Erlend passed his other arm around her waist.

Of a sudden he looked down into her face with fear and confusion in his eyes, and his face grew red as fire. Kristin bowed her head. Erlend took away his arm, saying nothing—then Kristin went off in silence and crept into the bed. Her heart beat with hard dull strokes against her ribs. Now and again she looked over at her husband. He had turned his back to her, and was slowly drawing off one garment after another. At last he came to the bed and lay down.

Kristin waited for him to speak. She waited so, that at times ’twas as though her heart no longer beat, but only stood still and quivered in her breast.

But Erlend said no word. Nor did he take her in his arms. At last, falteringly, he laid a hand across her breast and pressed his chin down on her shoulder so strongly that the stubble of his beard pricked her skin. As he still spoke not a word, Kristin turned to the wall.

It was as though she were sinking, sinking. Not a word could he find to give her—now when he knew that she had borne his child within her all this long weary time. She clenched her teeth hard in the dark. Never would she beg and beseech—if he chose to be silent, she would be silent too, even, if need be, till the day she bore his child. Bitterness surged through her heart; but she lay stock-still against the wall. And Erlend too lay still in the dark. Hour after hour they lay thus, and each knew that the other was not sleeping. At last she heard by his even breathing that he had fallen asleep; and then she let the tears flow as they would, in sorrow and bitterness and shame. Never, it seemed to her, could she forgive him this.

For three days Erlend and Kristin went about thus—he like a wet dog, the young wife thought. She was hot and hard with wrath—she grew wild with rage when she marked that he would look searchingly at her and then hastily look away again if she turned her eyes towards him.

On the morning of the fourth day, as she sat in the hall, Erlend came in through the doorway, dressed for riding. He said he was going westward to Medalby; maybe she would come with him and see the place; it was one of the farms that fell under her morning-gift. Kristin said yes; and Erlend helped her himself to put on her long shaggy boots and the black sleeve-cloak with the silver clasps.

In the courtyard were four horses ready saddled, but Erlend said now that Haftor and Egil might stay at home and help with the threshing. Then he helped his wife up into the saddle. Kristin felt that ’twas in Erlend’s mind to speak now of what lay between them unuttered. Yet he said naught as they rode slowly southward towards the woods.

It was far on now in the early winter, but no snow had yet fallen in this country-side. The day was fresh and fair, the sun just risen, and the white rime glittered in silver and gold everywhere, on the fields and on the trees. They were riding over the Husaby lands. Kristin saw that there was little sown or stubble land, but mostly fallows left for grass, and old meadow-land, uneven, moss-grown, and choked with alder-shoots. She spoke of this.

Her husband answered jauntily:

Know you not, Kristin, you that have such skill in guiding goods and gear, that it profits not to raise corn so near to a great market?—a man does better by bartering his wool and butter for the outland merchants’ corn and flour—

Then should you have bartered away all that wool that lies now in your lofts and is long since spoiled, said Kristin. But so much I know, that the law says every man that leases land shall sow corn on three parts of it, and let the fourth part lie fallow for grass. And ’tis not fit that the landlord’s manor should be worse cared for than the tenants’ farms—so my father always said.

Erlend laughed a little, and answered:

I have never searched out the law in that matter—so long as I have my dues, my tenants can till their farms as likes them best, and, for Husaby, I manage it as seems to me best and fittest.

Would you be wiser, then, asked Kristin, than our fathers that went before us, and St. Olav and King Magnus that made these laws?

Erlend laughed again and said:

’Tis a matter I have never thought on—but the devil and all must be in it, Kristin, that you have the laws of the land so at your finger-ends—

I know a little of these things, said Kristin, because my father often prayed Sigurd of Loptsgaard to say over the laws to us when he came to visit us and we sat at home of an evening. Father deemed it profitable for the servants and the young folk to learn somewhat of such things; and so Sigurd would repeat one passage or another.

Sigurd— said Erlend. Aye, now I remember seeing him at our wedding. He was that long-nosed toothless old fellow that wept and drivelled and patted you on the breast—he was drunk as an owl even the next morning, when the folks came up to see me set the linen coif on your head—

He has known me from before I can remember, said Kristin angrily. He used to take me on his lap and play with me when I was a little maid—

Erlend laughed again:

Well, ’twas a strange pastime enough—for you all to sit there and listen to that old fellow chanting out the laws, part by part. Sure Lavrans is in all ways unlike other men—others are used to say that if the peasant knew the laws of the land in full, and the stallion knew his strength, ’twould take the devil to be a knight.

Suddenly, with a cry, Kristin struck her horse on the quarter and dashed on, leaving Erlend gazing after his wife in wonderment and anger.

Of a sudden he put spurs to his horse. Christ—the fjord—there was no crossing over it now—the clay bank had slipped in the autumn.

Slöngvanbauge stretched himself to gallop the harder when he heard the other horse behind him. Erlend was in deadly fear—how she was dashing down the steep hill-sides too! At last he tore past her through the undergrowth, then swung into the road where it ran level for a little way, and stood so that she must needs stop. When he came alongside her, he saw that she seemed a little frightened herself now.

Erlend leant forward towards his wife and struck her a ringing blow under the ear—so that Slöngvanbauge leapt aside and reared in fright.

Aye, and you deserved it, said Erlend in a shaken voice, when the horses had quieted down and they were riding side by side again. To carry on so—clean crazy with rage. You frighted me—

Kristin held her head so that he could not see her face. Erlend was wishing that he had not struck her. But he said again:

You made me afraid, Kristin—to behave so! And of all times, now— he added in a low voice.

Kristin neither answered nor looked at him. But Erlend could feel that she was less angry now than before, when he had mocked at her home. He wondered much at this—but he saw that so it was.

They came to Medalby, and Erlend’s tenant came out and would have them into the dwelling-house. But Erlend said ’twere well they should look round the farm-buildings first—and Kristin must come with them. The farm is hers now—and she understands these things better than I, Stein, he said, laughing. There were some other farmers there, come to act as witnesses—some of them too were Erlend’s tenants.

Stein had come to the farm last term-day, and ever since he had been praying that the landlord would come up and see the state of the houses when he took them over, or would send men to act for him. The other farmers bore witness that not one of the houses had been weather-tight, and that those which now were tumble-down had been no better when Stein came. Kristin saw that it was a good farm, but that it had been ill cared for. She could see that this Stein was a hard-working man. Erlend, too, was reasonable and promised him some relief in his rents, till such time as he had got the houses mended.

Then they went into the hall, and found the board set out with good food and strong ale. The farmer’s wife begged Kristin to forgive that she had not come out to meet her. She said her husband would not suffer her to go out under open sky till she had been churched after her childbed. Kristin greeted the woman kindly, and had her take her over to the cradle to look at the child. It was these people’s first-born: a son twelve days old, and big and sturdy.

Next Erlend and Kristin were led to the high-seat, and all the folks sat down, and ate and drank a good while. Kristin was the one that talked most during the meal; Erlend said little, and the peasants not much; but Kristin thought she could mark that they liked her well.

Then the child awoke, and began first to whimper, and then to shriek so fearfully that the mother had to fetch it and give it the breast to stop its cries. Kristin looked more than once across at the two, and when the boy was full-fed and quiet, she took him from the woman and laid him on her arm.

Look, husband! she said. Is not this a fair and lusty knave?

Doubtless it is, said her husband, not looking towards them.

Kristin sat holding the child a little before she gave it back to the mother.

I will send over a gift for this little son of yours, Arndis, she said, for that he is the first child I have held in my arms since I came hither north of Dovre.

Hot and defiant, with a little smile, she looked at her husband and then along the row of peasants on the bench. There was the least little twitching at the corners of the mouths of one or two of them; but immediately they stared before them, stiff with solemnity. Then stood up a very old fellow who had drunk well already. He took the ladle out of the ale-bowl, laid it on the table and lifted the heavy vessel aloft:

Then will we pledge you, mistress, on a wish: that the next child you hold in your arms may be the new master of Husaby!

Kristin rose up and took the heavy bowl. First she held it out to her husband. Erlend but touched it with his lips, but Kristin drank deep and long.

Thanks for that good wish, Jon o’ the Woods, she said, nodding to him, her face shining and gleeful. Then she passed on the bowl.

Erlend sat there darkly flushed and, Kristin could see, in great wrath. She herself felt naught now but an unthinking need to laugh and be glad. Some time after, Erlend gave the sign for breaking up, and they set out on their homeward way.

They had ridden a good way in silence, when Erlend broke out of a sudden:

Think you it was needful to let our very peasants know you were with child when you were wedded? You may stake your soul that ’twill be no time now ere the tale about us two is all over every parish by the Trondheim Fjord. . . .

Kristin made no answer at first. She looked straight forth over her horse’s head, and her face grew so white that Erlend was afraid.

As long as I live, I shall not forget, she said at last, without looking at him, that this was your first greeting to your young son that is beneath my girdle.

Kristin! said Erlend beseechingly. My Kristin, he implored, when she answered not, nor looked at him. Kristin!

Sir? she said in cold, measured tones, without turning her head.

Erlend swore furiously, set spurs to his horse and dashed forward along the road. But, a little after, he came riding back to meet her.

Now had you vexed me so sorely, he said, "that I was nigh riding off and leaving you."

And if you had, answered Kristin quietly, it might have been that you had had long and long to wait ere I came after you to Husaby.

How you talk! said the man despairingly.

Again they rode for a space without speaking. In a while they came to a place where a bridle-path led off over a ridge. Erlend said to his wife:

I had meant that we should ride home by this way over the hill—’tis a little farther, but I had a mind to take you up here with me some time.

Kristin nodded listlessly.

In a little, Erlend said it would be better they should go on foot. He tied their horses to a tree.

Gunnulf and I had a fort on the hill-top here, he said. I would like well to see if any of our castle is left—

He took her hand. She let him hold it, but walked with her eyes cast down, looking to her footing. It was not long before they reached the top. Over the rime-covered woods in the gorge of the little stream they saw Husaby on the hill-side right over against them, lying wide-stretched and brave, with its stone church and the many great houses, wide plough-lands around it and dark pine-clad ridges behind.

Mother, said Erlend in a low voice, she would come with us up here—often. But always she sat gazing south, up towards the Dovrefjeld. I trow she longed both early and late to be gone from Husaby. Or sometimes she would turn to the north and look towards the hill-glen where you see the far-off blue—the hills beyond the fjord. Never did she look across at Husaby.

His voice was soft and beseeching. But Kristin neither spoke nor looked at him. Soon he went off and began kicking the frozen heather:

No, I can see there’s naught left here of Gunnulf’s and my stronghold. True enough, ’tis many a long day since we played about here, Gunnulf and I—

There was no answer—Right below where they stood lay a little frozen pool—Erlend took up a stone and threw it down on to the ice. The pool was frozen to the bottom, so the stone did but make a small white star on the black mirror. Erlend took another stone and threw harder—then another and yet another, till at last he was showering down stones furiously, bent on splintering the ice to shards. Then he caught sight of his wife’s face—she stood there with eyes dark with scorn, smiling disdainfully at his childishness.

Erlend turned sharp round—but at the same moment Kristin grew deadly pale, and her eyelids closed. She stood clutching in the air with her hands, swaying as