Kristin fetched her spinning gear and sat herself down there in the back doorway. She put the distaff with the bunch of wool up under her arm-pit, but her hands, with the spindle in them, sank into her lap.
Beyond the fence the ears of barley gleamed silvery and silken in the sunshine. Above the song of the river she heard now and again from the meadows on the river-island the ring of a scythe—sometimes the iron would strike upon a stone. Her father and the house-folk were hard at work on the hay-making, to get it off their hands. For there was much to get through and to make ready against her wedding.
The scent of the lukewarm grains, and the rank smell of the swine—she grew qualmish again. And the midday heat made her so dizzy and faint. White and stiffly upright she sat and waited for it to pass over—she would not to be sick again—
Never before had she felt what now she felt. ’Twas of no avail to try to tell herself for comfort: it was not certain yet—she might be wrong——That which was between the vat and her—
Eighteen reindeer. Well on toward two hundred wedding-guests—Folk would have a rare jest to laugh at when ’twas known that all this hubbub had but been about a breeding woman they had to see and get married before—
Oh no. She threw her spinning from her and started up as the sickness overcame her again—Oh no, it was sure enough!—
They were to be wedded the second Sunday after Michaelmas, and the bridal was to last for five days. There were more than two months still to wait; they would be sure to see it on her—her mother and the other housewives of the parish. They were ever wise in such things—knew them months before Kristin could understand how they saw them. “Poor thing, she grows so pale”—Impatiently Kristin rubbed her hands against her cheeks; she felt that they were white and bloodless.
Before, she had so often thought: this must happen soon or late. And she had not feared it so terribly. But ’twould not have been the same then, when they could not—were forbidden to come together in lawful wise. It was counted—aye, a shame in a manner, and a sin too—but if ’twere two young things who would not let themselves be forced apart, folk remembered that ’twas so, and spoke of them with forbearance. She would not have been ashamed. But when such things happened between a betrothed pair—there was naught for them but laughter and gross jesting. She saw it herself—one could not but laugh: here was brewing and mixing of wine, slaughtering and baking and cooking for a wedding that should be noised far abroad in the land—and she, the bride, grew qualmish if she but smelt food, and crept in a cold sweat behind the out-houses to be sick.
Erlend. She set her teeth hard in anger. He should have spared her this. For she had not been willing. He should have remembered that before, when all had been so unsure for her, when she had had naught to trust to but his love, she had ever, ever gladly been his. He should have let her be now, when she tried to deny him because she thought ’twas not well of them to take aught by stealth, after her father had joined their hands together in the sight of Erlend’s kinsmen and hers. But he had taken her to him, half by force, with laughter and caresses; so that she had not had strength enough to show him she was in earnest in her denial.
She went in and saw to the beer in the vats, then came back again and stood leaning on the fence. The standing grain moved gently in shining ripples before a breath of wind. She could not remember any year when she had seen the corn-fields bear such thick and abundant growth.—The river glittered far off, and she heard her father’s voice shouting—she could not catch the words, but she could hear the reapers on the island laughing.