It was in Kristin’s mind that he knew not all, for that yet she had not told him of this last thing that was come upon her—but she rested content and said no more.
She went with the men to the meeting. Lavrans came with his arm in a sling, and Erlend had many burns on his face; he was ill to look upon, but he laughed it off. None of the wounds were large, and he said he hoped they would not spoil his face too much when he came to be a bridegroom. He stood up after Lavrans and promised four marks of silver as an offering to the church, and for his betrothed, with Lavrans’ assent, land worth sixty cows from her holdings in the parish.
It was found needful for Erlend to stay a week at Jörundgaard by reason of his burns. Kristin saw that ’twas as though Lavrans had come to like his son-in-law better since the night of the fire; the men seemed now to be good friends enough. She thought: maybe her father might grow to like Erlend Nikulaussön so well that he would not judge them too strictly, and would not take the matter so hardly as she had feared when the time came when he must know that they had transgressed against him.
8
The year proved a rarely good one over all the north part of the Dale. The hay crop was heavy, and it was got in dry; the folk came home from the sæters in autumn with great store of dairy-stuff and full and fat flocks and herds—they had been mercifully spared from wild beasts, too, this year. The corn stood tall and thick as few folks could call to mind having seen it before—it grew full-eared and ripened well, and the weather was fair as heart could wish. Between St. Bartholomew’s and the Virgin’s Birthfeast, the time when night-frosts were most to be feared, it rained a little and was mild and cloudy, but thereafter the time of harvest went by with sun and wind and mild, misty nights. The week after Michaelmas most of the corn had been garnered all over the parish.
At Jörundgaard all folks were toiling and moiling, making ready for the great wedding. The last two months Kristin had been so busy from morning to night that she had but little time to trouble over aught but her work. She saw that her bosom had filled out; the small pink nipples were grown brown, and they were tender as smarting hurts when she had to get out of bed in the cold—but it passed over when she had worked herself warm, and after that she had no thought but of all she must get done before evening. When now and again she was forced to straighten up her back and stand and rest a little, she felt that the burden she bore was growing heavy—but to look on she was still slim and slender as she had ever been. She passed her hands down her long shapely thighs. No, she would not grieve over it now. Sometimes a faint creeping longing would come over her with the thought: like enough in a month or so she might feel the child quick within her—By that time she would be at Husaby.—Maybe Erlend would be glad—She shut her eyes and fixed her teeth on her betrothal ring—then she saw before her Erlend’s face, pale and moved, as he stood in the hall here in the winter and said the words of espousal with a loud clear voice:
“So be God my witness and these men standing here, that I Erlend Nikulaussön do espouse Kristin Lavransdatter according to the laws of God and men, on such conditions as here have been spoken before these witnesses standing hereby. That I shall have thee to my wife and thou shalt have me to thy husband, so long as we two do live, to dwell together in wedlock, with all such fellowship as God’s law and the law of the land do appoint.”
As she ran on errands from house to house across the farm-place, she stayed a moment—the rowan trees were so thick with berries this year—’twould be a snowy winter. The sun shone over the pale stubble fields where the corn sheaves stood piled on their stakes. If this weather might only hold over the wedding!