3
Haugen lay high up in the hills on the west side of the valley. This moonlight night the whole world was white. Billow after billow, the white fells lay domed under the pale-blue heavens with their thin-strewn stars. Even the shadows that peaks and domes stretched forth over the snow-slopes seemed strangely thin and light, the moon was sailing so high.
Downward, toward the valley, the woods stood fleecy-white with snow and rime, round the white fields of crofts scrolled over with tiny huts and fences. But far down in the valley-bottom the shadows thickened into darkness.
Lady Aashild came out of the byre, shut the door after her, and stood a while in the snow. White—the whole world; yet it was more than three weeks still to Advent. Clementsmass cold—’twas like winter had come in earnest already. Aye, aye; in bad years it was often so.
The old woman sighed heavily in the desolate air. Winter again, and cold and loneliness—Then she took up the milkpail and went towards the dwelling-house. She looked once again down over the valley.
Four black dots came out of the woods half-way up the hillside. Four men on horseback—and the moonlight glanced from a spear-head. They were ploughing heavily upward—none had come that way since the snowfall. Were they coming hither?
Four armed men—’Twas not like that any who had a lawful errand here would come so many in company. She thought of the chest with her goods and Björn’s in it. Should she hide in the outhouse?
She looked out again over the wintry waste about her. Then she went into the living-house. The two old hounds that lay before the smoky fireplace smote the floor-boards with their tails. The young dogs Björn had with him in the hills.
Aashild blew the embers of the fire into flame, and laid more wood on them; filled the iron pot with snow and set it on the fire; then poured the milk into a wooden bowl and bore it to the closet beside the outer room.