Ingebjörg let herself be lifted into Erlend’s saddle, but it was soon plain that she could not keep her seat,—she slid down again at once. He looked at Kristin doubtfully, and she said that she was used to ride on a man’s saddle.
He took hold of her below the knees and lifted her up. A sweet and happy thrill ran through her to feel how carefully he held her from him, as though afraid to come near her—at home no one ever minded how tight they held her when they helped her on to a horse. She felt marvellously honoured and uplifted—
The knight—as Ingebjörg called him, though he had but silver spurs—now offered that maiden his hand, and his men sprang to their saddles. Ingebjörg would have it that they should ride round the town to the northcard, below the Ryenberg and Martestokke, and not through the streets. First she gave as a reason that Sir Erlend and his men were fully armed—were they not? The knight answered gravely that the ban on carrying arms was not over strict at any time—for travellers at least—and now everyone in the town was out on a wild beast hunt—Then she said she was fearful of the pards. Kristin saw full well that Ingebjörg was fain to go by the longest and loneliest road, that she might have the more talk with Erlend.
“This is the second time this evening that we hinder you, good sir,” said she, and Erlend answered soberly:
“’Tis no matter, I am bound no further than to Gerdarud to-night—and ’tis light the whole night long.”
It liked Kristin well that he jested not, nor bantered them, but talked to her as though she were his like or even more than his like. She thought of Simon; she had not met other young men of courtly breeding. But ’twas true, this man seemed older than Simon—
They rode down into the valley below the Ryenberg hills and up along the back. The path was narrow, and the young bushes swung wet, heavily-scented branches against her—it was a little darker down here, and the air was cool and the leaves all dewy along the beck-path.
They went slowly, and the horses’ hoofs sounded muffled on the damp, grass-grown path. She rocked gently in the saddle; behind her she heard Ingebjörg’s chatter and the stranger’s deep, quiet voice. He said little and answered as if his mind wandered—it sounded almost as if his mood were like her own, she thought—she felt strangely drowsy, yet safe and content now that all the day’s chances were safely over.
It was like waking to come out of the woods, on to the green slopes under the Martestokke hills. The sun was gone down and the town and the bay lay below them in a clear, pale light—above the Aker ridges there was a light-yellow strip edging the pale-blue sky. In the evening hush, sounds were borne to them from far off as they came out of the cool depths of the wood—a cart-wheel creaked somewhere upon a road, dogs on the farms bayed at each other across the valley. And from the woods behind them birds trilled and sang full-throated, now the sun was down.
Smoke was in the air from the fires on lands under clearance, and out in a field there was the red flare of a bonfire; against the great ruddy flame the clearness of the night seemed a kind of darkness.