The little girl gazed upon the figure; and as she gazed the lady raised a hand and showed her a wreath of golden flowers;—she beckoned with it.
Behind her Kristin heard Guldsveinen neigh loud in fear—she turned her head—the stallion reared, screaming till the echoes rang, then flung around and fled up the hill with a thunder of hoofs. The other horses followed—straight up the scree, while stones came rumbling down and boughs and roots broke and rattled.
Then Kristin screamed aloud. “Father,” she shrieked, “father!” She gained her feet, tore after the horses and dared not look behind. She clambered up the scree, trod on the hem of her dress and slipped back downwards; climbed again, catching at the stones with bleeding hands, creeping on sore bruised knees, and crying now to Guldsveinen, now to her father—sweat started from every pore of her body and ran like water into her eyes, and her heart beat as though ’twould break against her ribs; while sobs of terror choked her throat:
“Oh father, oh father!”
Then his voice sounded somewhere above: she saw him come with great bounds down the scree—the bright, sunlit scree; birch and aspen stood along it and blinked from their small silvered leaves—the hillside was so quiet, so bright, while her father came leaping, calling her by name; and Kristin sank down and knew that now she was saved.
“Sancta Maria!” Lavrans knelt and clasped his daughter—he was pale and strange about the mouth, so that Kristin grew yet more afraid; ’twas as though only now in his face she read how great had been her peril.
“Child, child,—” he lifted her bleeding hands, looked at them, saw the wreath upon her bare head, and touched it. “What is it—how came you hither, my little Kristin—?”
“I went with Guldsveinen,” she sobbed upon his breast. “I got so afraid seeing you all asleep, but then Guldsveinen came—and then there was someone by the beck down yonder that beckoned me—”
“Who beckoned—was it a man?”
“No, ’twas a lady—she beckoned with a wreath of gold—I think ’twas the dwarf-maiden, father—”