Ragnfrid said the same that morning they were to set out. They were up at cock-crow; 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 mountain-sides 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 saddle-bow, 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.