But now the priest and her father looked at the children. The priest laughed, and bade the boy be gone back to school, but Lavrans frowned and took Kristin by the hand.
It began to grow lighter in the church now. Kristin clung sleepily to Lavrans’ hand, while he and the priest walked beneath the pile of timber and talked of Bishop Ingjald’s building-work.
They wandered all about the church, and in the end went out into the forehall. Thence a stone stairway led to the western tower. Kristin tumbled wearily up the steps. The priest opened a door to a fair chapel, and her father said that Kristin should set herself without upon the steps and wait while he went to shrift; and thereafter she could come in and kiss St. Thomas’s shrine.
At that there came an old monk in an ash-brown frock from out the chapel. He stopped a moment, smiled at the child, and drew forth some sacks and wadmal cloths which had been stuck into a hole in the wall. These he spread upon the landing:
“Sit you here, and you will not be so cold,” said he, and passed down the steps upon his naked feet.
Kristin was sleeping when Canon Martein, as the priest was called, came out and waked her with a touch. Up from the church sounded the sweetest of song, and in the chapel candles burned upon the altar. The priest made sign that she should kneel by her father’s side, and then he took down a little golden shrine which stood above the communion-table. He whispered to her that in it was a piece of St. Thomas of Canterbury’s bloody garments, and he pointed at the saint’s figure on the shrine that Kristin might press her lips to his feet.
The lovely tones still streamed from the church as they came down the steps; Canon Martein said ’twas the organist practising his art and the school-boys singing; but they had not the time to stay and listen, for her father was hungry—he had come fasting for confession—and they were now bound for the guest-room of the canons’ close to take their food.
The morning sun without was gilding the steep shores on the further side of the great lake, and all the groves of yellowing leaf-trees shone like gold-dust amid the dark-blue pinewoods. The lake ran in waves with small dancing white caps of foam to their heads. The wind blew cold and fresh and the many-hued leaves drifted down upon the rimy hillsides.
A band of riders came forth from between the bishop’s palace and the house of the Brothers of Holy Cross. Lavrans stepped aside and bowed with a hand upon his breast, while he all but swept the sward with his hat, so Kristin could guess the nobleman in the fur cloak must be the bishop himself, and she curtsied to the ground.
The bishop reined in his horse and gave back the greeting; he beckoned Lavrans to him and spoke with him a while. In a short space Lavrans came back to the priest and child and said: