She had stopped counting the days—it seemed as though she had been an endless time on the journey. They had visited kindred and friends all down the Dale; she had made acquaintance with children on the great manors and had played in strange houses and barns and courtyards, and had worn many times her red dress with the silk sleeves. They had rested by the roadside by day when the weather was fair; Arne had gathered nuts for her and she had slept after meals upon the saddlebags wherein were their clothes. At one great house they had silk-covered pillows in their beds, but one night they lay at an inn, and in one of the other beds was a woman who lay and wept softly and bitterly each time Kristin was awake. But every night she had slumbered safely behind her father’s broad, warm back.
Kristin awoke with a start—she knew not where she was, but the wondrous ringing and booming sound she had heard in her dream went on. She was lying alone in a bed, and on the hearth of the room a fire was burning.
She called upon her father, and he rose from the hearth where he had been sitting, and came to her along with a stout woman.
“Where are we?” she asked, and Lavrans laughed and said:
“We’re in Hamar now, and here is Margret, the wife of Fartein the shoemaker—you must greet her prettily now, for you slept when we came hither. But now Margret will help you to your clothes.”
“Is it morning then?” said Kristin. “I thought you were even now coming to bed.—Oh! do you help me,” she begged; but Lavrans said, something sternly, that she should rather be thankful to kind Margret for helping her.
“And see what she has for you for a gift!”
’Twas a pair of red shoes with silken latchets. The woman smiled at Kristin’s glad face, and drew on her shift and hose up on the bed, that she should not need to tread barefoot upon the clay floor.
“What is it makes such a noise,” asked Kristin, “like a church bell, but many bells?”