“You will be happy soon enough, my daughter, with the good Sisters—you will have other things to think of besides longing to be home with us—”
They sailed so near by the town that the smell of tar and salt fish was borne out to them from the wharves. Gyrid named all the churches, the traders’ quarters and the open places which ran up from the water’s edge—Kristin remembered nothing from the time she was here before but the great heavy towers of St. Halvard’s church. They sailed westward past the whole town and laid to at the convent pier.
Kristin walked between her father and her uncle through a cluster of warehouses, and came out upon a road which led up through the fields. Simon came after, leading Gyrid by the hand. The serving-folk stayed behind to help some men from the convent load the baggage upon a cart.
Nonneseter and the whole Leiran quarter lay within the boundaries of the town grazing-grounds, but there were but a few clusters of houses here and there along the roadside. The larks were trilling over their heads in the pale-blue sky, and the small yellow flowers of the coltsfoot were thickly sprinkled over the wan clay slopes, but along by the fences the roots of the grass were green.
When they were through the gate and were come into the cloister, all the nuns came marching two by two towards them from the church, while song and music streamed out after them through the open door.
Ill at ease, Kristin watched the many black-robed women with white linen wimples about their faces. She curtsied low, and the men bowed with their hats held close to their breasts. After the nuns came a flock of young maidens—some of them but children—in gowns of undyed wadmal, their waists bound with belts of twined black and white, and their hair braided tightly back from their faces with cords of the same black and white. Without thinking, Kristin put on a bold and forward look as the young maids passed, for she felt bashful, and was afraid they must think she looked countrified and foolish.
The convent was so glorious that she was quite overcome. All the buildings round the inner court were of grey stone; on the north side the main-wall of the church stood up high above the other houses; it had two tiers of roofs and towers at the west end. The court itself was laid with stone flags, and round the whole there ran a covered way whose roof was borne on pillars fairly wrought. In the midst of the court stood a stone statue of the Mater Misericordiæ, spreading her cloak over some kneeling figures.
Then a lay-sister came and prayed them to go with her to the Abbess’ parlour. The Lady Groa Guttormsdatter was a tall and stoutly-made old woman—she would have been comely had she not had so many hairs about her mouth. Her voice was deep like a man’s. But her bearing was gentle and kindly—she called to mind that she had known Lavrans’ father and mother, and asked after his wife and his other children. Last she spoke to Kristin in friendly wise:
“I have heard good report of you, and you look to be wise and well nurtured—sure I am you will give us no cause for miscontent. I have heard that you are plighted to this good and well-born man, Simon Andressön, whom I see here—it seems to us that ’twas wise counsel of your father and your husband to be, to grant you leave to live here awhile in the Virgin Mary’s house, that you may learn to obey and serve before you are called to rule and to command. Now would I have you lay to heart this counsel: that you learn to find joy in prayer and the worship of God, that you may use yourself in all your doings to remember your Creator, God’s gentle Mother, and all the Saints who have given us the best patterns of strength, uprightness, faithfulness and all the virtues you must show forth in guiding your people and your goods and nurturing your children. And you will learn in this house, too, to take good heed of time, for here every hour has its use and its task also. Many young maids and women love all too well to lie abed late of a morning, and sit long at table of an evening in idle talk—yet look not you as you were one of these. Yet may you learn much in the year you are here that may profit you both here on earth and in our heavenly home.”