Kristin saw that her father was ashy white in the face, and that he had bled till his light-blue garments were covered all over with red-brown stains. All at once he stood upright, snatched an axe from one of the men and went forward where some of the folk stood holding on to the bull. He smote the beast between the horns with the back of the axe—it dropped forward on its knees; but Lavrans ceased not striking till its blood and brains were scattered all about. Then a fit of coughing took him and he sank backwards on the ground. Trond and another man came to him and bore him within the house.
At that, Kristin thought her father was surely dead; she screamed loudly and ran after, calling to him as if her heart were breaking.
In the winter-room Ulvhild had been laid on the great bed—all the pillows were thrown out upon the floor, so that the child lay flat. ’Twas as though already she lay stretched on the dead-straw. But she wailed loudly and without cease, and her mother lay bent over her, soothing and patting the child, wild with grief that she could do naught to help her.
Lavrans lay upon the other bed: he rose and staggered across the floor that he might comfort his wife. At that she started up and shrieked:
“Touch me not, touch me not! Jesus, Jesus,—’twere liker you should strike me dead—never will it end, the ill-fortune I bring upon you—”
“You?—Dear my wife, ’tis not you that have brought this on us,” said Lavrans, and laid a hand upon her shoulder. She shuddered at that, and her light-grey eyes shone in her lean, sallow face.
“Doubtless she means that ’twas my doing,” said Trond Ivarsön roughly. His sister looked at him with hate in her eyes, and answered:
“Trond knows what I mean.”
Kristin ran forward to her parents, but both thrust her away from them, and Tordis, coming in with a kettle of hot water, took her gently by the shoulder and said, “Go—go over to our house, Kristin; you are in the way here.”
Tordis was for seeing to Lavrans’ hurt—he had set himself down on the step before the bed—but he said there was little amiss with him: