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025 - Book 3 Chapter 4 · Bridal Wreath

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  Speaker 1: Book three, Chapter four of the Bridal Wreath by Sigurd Nsett.
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  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter four.
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  Speaker 1: The frost held on in every byre in the parish.
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  Speaker 1: The half starved beasts bellowed dolefully with hunger and cold.
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  Speaker 1: Already the farmers were skimping and saving on their fodder
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  Speaker 1: every straw they could. There was little visiting round at
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  Speaker 1: Yule this year. Folks stayed quiet in their own homes.
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  Speaker 1: During Yule tide, the cold grew greater. It was as
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  Speaker 1: though each day was colder than the last, scarce any
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  Speaker 1: one could call to mind so hard a winter. There
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  Speaker 1: came no more snow, not even up in the mountains.
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  Speaker 1: But the snow that had fallen at Clement's Mass froze
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  Speaker 1: hard as a stone. The sun shone from a clear sky.
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  Speaker 1: Now the days began to grow lighter. At night, the
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  Speaker 1: northern lights flickered and flamed above the range to the north.
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  Speaker 1: They flamed over half the heaven, but they brought no
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  Speaker 1: change of weather. Now and again would come a cloudy day,
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  Speaker 1: and a little dry snow would sprinkle down, And then
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  Speaker 1: came clear weather again and biting cold. The logan muttered
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  Speaker 1: and gurgled sluggishly under its ice bridges. Christen thought each
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  Speaker 1: morning that she could bear no more, that she could
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  Speaker 1: never hold out to the day's end, for each day
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  Speaker 1: she felt was as a duel between her and her father,
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  Speaker 1: and could they be against each other so when every
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  Speaker 1: living being in the parish, man and beast, was suffering
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  Speaker 1: under one common trial. But still when the evening came
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  Speaker 1: she had held out one day more. It was not
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  Speaker 1: that her father was unfriendly. They spoke no word of
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  Speaker 1: what was between them, but she felt behind all that
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  Speaker 1: he did not say his firm, unbending will to hold
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  Speaker 1: fast to his denial, and her heart ached within her
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  Speaker 1: for the lack of his friendship. The ache was so
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  Speaker 1: dreadful in its keenness, because she knew how much else
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  Speaker 1: her father had on his shoulders, and had things been
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  Speaker 1: as before, he would have talked with her of it all.
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  Speaker 1: It was, indeed so that at Uringard they were in
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  Speaker 1: better case than most other places, But here too they
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  Speaker 1: felt the pinch of the year each day and each hour.
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  Speaker 1: Other years it had been Lavern's wont in the winter's
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  Speaker 1: to handle and break in his young colts, but this
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  Speaker 1: year he had sent them all south in the autumn
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  Speaker 1: and sold them. And his daughter missed the sound of
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  Speaker 1: his voice out in the courtyard, and the sight of
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  Speaker 1: him struggling with the slender, ragged two year olds in
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  Speaker 1: the game he loved so well. Storehouses and barns and
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  Speaker 1: bins at Uringard were not bearer yet. There was store
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  Speaker 1: left from the harvest of the year before. But many
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  Speaker 1: folk came to ask for help to buy or to
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  Speaker 1: beg for gifts, and none ever asked in vain. Late
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  Speaker 1: one evening came a huge, old skin clad man on ski.
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  Speaker 1: Laverrens talked with him out in the courtyard, and Halvdan
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  Speaker 1: bore food across to the hearth room for him. None
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  Speaker 1: on the place who had seen him knew who he was.
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  Speaker 1: He might well be one of those wild folk who
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  Speaker 1: lived far in among the fells. Like enough Laverrens had
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  Speaker 1: come upon him in there. But Laverrens said not of
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  Speaker 1: the visitor, nor have done either. But one evening came
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  Speaker 1: a man whom Lavrens Burgelsen had been at odds with
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  Speaker 1: for many years. Laverrens went to the store room with him.
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  Speaker 1: When he came back to the hall again, he said,
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  Speaker 1: they come to me for help, every man of them.
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  Speaker 1: But here in my own house you are all against me,
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  Speaker 1: you too, wife, he said hotly. The mother flamed up
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  Speaker 1: at Christin. Hear you what your father says to me. No,
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  Speaker 1: I am not against you, Lvereigns. I know, and I
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  Speaker 1: WoT well you know it too. Christin, what befell away
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  Speaker 1: south at Rolstadt late in the autumn, when he journeyed
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  Speaker 1: down the dale with that other adulterer, his kinsman of Houges.
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  Speaker 1: She took her own life, the unhappy woman he had
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  Speaker 1: lured away from all her kin. Christin stood with a hard,
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  Speaker 1: frozen face. I see that tis all one. You blame
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  Speaker 1: him as much for the years he has striven to
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  Speaker 1: free himself from sin, as for the years he lived
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  Speaker 1: in it his Usmara cried renfret, clasping her hands together.
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  Speaker 1: What is come to you? Has even this not availed
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  Speaker 1: to change your heart? No, said Kristin, I have not changed. Then,
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  Speaker 1: Lawns looked up from the bench where he sat by ulfield.
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  Speaker 1: Neither have I changed, Christin, he said in a low voice.
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  Speaker 1: But Christin felt within her that in a manner she
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  Speaker 1: was changed in thoughts, if not in heart. She had
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  Speaker 1: had tidings of how it had fared with them on
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  Speaker 1: that dreadful journey. As things fell out, it had gone
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  Speaker 1: off more easily than they looked it should, whether the
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  Speaker 1: cold had got into the hurt, or whatever the cause
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  Speaker 1: might be. The knife wound in Erelon's breast had festered
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  Speaker 1: and constrained him to lie six some while in the
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  Speaker 1: hospice at Roelstadt, Sir Bjorn tending him. But that Erelon
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  Speaker 1: was wounded made it easier to win belief for their
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  Speaker 1: tale of how that other thing had befallen. When he
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  Speaker 1: was fit to journey on, he had taken the dead
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  Speaker 1: woman with him in a coffin all the way to
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  Speaker 1: oshlo There By sirah Yon's help he had won for
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  Speaker 1: her Christian burial in the churchyard of the old church
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  Speaker 1: of Saint Nicholas that had been pulled down. Then had
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  Speaker 1: he made confession to the Bishop of Oshloh himself, and
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  Speaker 1: the bishop had laid on him as penance to go
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  Speaker 1: on pilgrimage to the Holy Blood at Schwerin. Now was
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  Speaker 1: he gone out of the land. She could not make
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  Speaker 1: pilgrimage to any place on earth and find absolution for her.
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  Speaker 1: There was naught but to sit here and wait and think,
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  Speaker 1: and strive to hold out in the struggle with her
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  Speaker 1: father and mother. A strange, wintry cold light fell on
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  Speaker 1: all her memories of meetings with Erlon. She thought of
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  Speaker 1: his vehemency in love and in grief, and it was
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  Speaker 1: borne in on her that had she been able like
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  Speaker 1: him to take up all things of a sudden and straightway,
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  Speaker 1: rush forward with them headlong afterwards, maybe they might have
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  Speaker 1: seemed less fearful and heavy to bear. At times, too,
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  Speaker 1: she would think, maybe ere Lon will give me up.
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  Speaker 1: It seemed to her she must always have had a
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  Speaker 1: little lurking fear that if things grew too hard for them,
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  Speaker 1: he would fail her, that she would never give him
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  Speaker 1: up unless he himself loosed her from all vows. So
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  Speaker 1: the winter dragged on toward its end, and Kristin could
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  Speaker 1: not cheat herself any more. She had to see that
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  Speaker 1: the hardest trial of all lay before them, that all
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  Speaker 1: field had not long to live. And in the midst
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  Speaker 1: of her bitter sorrow for her sister, she saw with
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  Speaker 1: horror that truly her own soul was wildered and eaten
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  Speaker 1: away with sin, For with the dying child and the
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  Speaker 1: parent's unspeakable sorrow before her eyes. She was still brooding
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  Speaker 1: on this one thing. If ulf Hild dies, how can
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  Speaker 1: I bear to look at my father and not throw
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  Speaker 1: myself at his feet and confess all and beseech him
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  Speaker 1: to forgive me and command me. They were come far
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  Speaker 1: on in the long fast, folks had begun slaughtering the
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  Speaker 1: small stock they had hoped to save alive, for fear
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  Speaker 1: they should die of themselves. And the people themselves sickened
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  Speaker 1: and pined from living on fish, with naught besides but
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  Speaker 1: a little wretched meal and flour. Syra Iric gave leave
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  Speaker 1: to the whole parish to eat milk food if they would,
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  Speaker 1: But few of the folk could come by a drop
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  Speaker 1: of milk. Ulf Hild lay in bed. She lay alone
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  Speaker 1: in the sister's bed, and some one watched by her.
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  Speaker 1: Each night. It chanced sometimes that both Kristin and her
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  Speaker 1: father would be sitting by her. On such a night,
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  Speaker 1: Lavren said to his daughter, mind you what brother Edwin
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  Speaker 1: said that time about ulf Hild's lot. Even then the
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  Speaker 1: thought came to me that maybe he meant this, but
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  Speaker 1: I thrust it from me. Then, sometimes in these nights
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  Speaker 1: he would speak of this thing, and that from the
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  Speaker 1: time when the children were small. Kristen sat there, white
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  Speaker 1: and desperate. She knew that behind the words her father
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  Speaker 1: was beseeching her. One day, Laverns had gone with Colbine
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  Speaker 1: to hunt out a bear's winter lair in the wooded
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  Speaker 1: hills to the north. They came home with a she
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  Speaker 1: bear on a sledge, and Lawrens brought with him a
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  Speaker 1: living bear cub in the bosom of his coat. Ulf
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  Speaker 1: Hild brightened a little when he showed it to her,
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  Speaker 1: but Ranfried said that was surely no time to raise
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  Speaker 1: up such a beast. What would he do with it
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  Speaker 1: at a time like this. I will rear it up
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  Speaker 1: and bind it before my daughter's bower, said Lavrens, laughing harshly.
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  Speaker 1: But they could not get for the cub the rich
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  Speaker 1: milk it needed, and Lavrens had to kill it a
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  Speaker 1: few days after. The sun had gained so much strength
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  Speaker 1: now that sometimes at midday the roofs would drip a little.
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  Speaker 1: The tit mice clambered about, clinging on the sunny side
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  Speaker 1: of the timber walls, and pecked till the wood rang,
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  Speaker 1: digging for the flies sleeping in the cracks over the
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  Speaker 1: rolling fields around the snow shone hard and bright as silver.
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  Speaker 1: At last, one evening, clouds began to draw together over
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  Speaker 1: the moon, and the next morning the folks at Urengard
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  Speaker 1: woke in the midst of a whirring world of snow
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  Speaker 1: that shut in their sight on every hand. That day
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  Speaker 1: they knew that Ulfhild was dying. All the housefolk were indoors,
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  Speaker 1: and Sierra Eyrich came over to them. Many candles were
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  Speaker 1: burning in the hall. Early in the evening, ulf Hild
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  Speaker 1: passed away, quietly and peacefully in her mother's arms. Roufred
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  Speaker 1: bore it better than in he had thought possible. The
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  Speaker 1: father and mother sat together, Both were weeping very quietly.
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  Speaker 1: All in the room were weeping. When Kristin went across
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  Speaker 1: to her father, he laid his arm round her shoulders.
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  Speaker 1: He felt how she shook and trembled, and he drew
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  Speaker 1: her close in to him. But to her it seemed
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  Speaker 1: that he must feel as if she were further from him,
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  Speaker 1: far than the dead child in the bed. She understood
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  Speaker 1: not how it was that she still held out. She
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  Speaker 1: scarce remembered herself what it was she held out for,
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  Speaker 1: but lulled and dumb with grief as she was, she
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  Speaker 1: held herself up and did not yield. A few planks
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  Speaker 1: were torn up from the church floor in front of
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  Speaker 1: Saint Thomas's shrine, and a grave was hewn in the
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  Speaker 1: stone hard ground beneath for alf hilled Lavrin's daughter. It
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  Speaker 1: was snowing thick and silently all through those days while
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  Speaker 1: the child lay in the dead straw. It was snowing
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  Speaker 1: still when she was borne to the grave, and it
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  Speaker 1: went on snowing almost without cease, till a whole month
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  Speaker 1: was out to the folk of the dale, waiting and
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  Speaker 1: waiting for the spring to deliver them, it seemed as
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  Speaker 1: though it would never come. The days grew long and light,
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  Speaker 1: and the steam cloud from the melting snow lay on
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  Speaker 1: all the valley as long as the sun shone. But
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  Speaker 1: the cold still held the air, and there was no
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  Speaker 1: strength in the heat to overcome it. By night it
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  Speaker 1: froze hard. There was loud cracking from the ice. There
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  Speaker 1: were booming sounds from the distant fells, and the wolves howled,
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  Speaker 1: and the fox barked down among the farms as at midwinter,
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  Speaker 1: stripped the bark from the trees for their cattle. But
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  Speaker 1: they dropped down dead in their stalls by scores. None
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  Speaker 1: could tell how all this was to end. Kristen went
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  Speaker 1: out on such a day when water was trickling in
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  Speaker 1: the ruts, and the snow on the fields around glistened
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  Speaker 1: like silver. The snow wreaths had been eaten away hollow
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  Speaker 1: on the side towards the sun, so that the fine
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  Speaker 1: ice trellis of the snow crust edges broke with a
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  Speaker 1: silver tinkle when her foot touched them. But everywhere where
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  Speaker 1: the smallest shadow fell, the sharp cold held the air,
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  Speaker 1: and the snow was hard. She went upward towards the church.
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  Speaker 1: She knew not herself what she went to do, but
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  Speaker 1: something drew her there. Her father was there, Some of
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  Speaker 1: the freeholders gild brothers were to meet in the cloister way,
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  Speaker 1: she knew. Half way up the hill she met the
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  Speaker 1: troop of farmers coming down. Syra Iyrick was with them.
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  Speaker 1: The men were all on foot. They walked stoopingly in
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  Speaker 1: a dark, shaggy knot, and spoke no word. Together. They
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  Speaker 1: gave back her greeting sullenly. As she went by them.
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  Speaker 1: Kristen thought how far away the time was when every
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  Speaker 1: soul in the parish had been her friend. Like enough,
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  Speaker 1: all men knew now that she was a bad daughter.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps they knew yet more about her. It might well
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  Speaker 1: be that all believed now there had been some truth
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  Speaker 1: in the old talk about her and Arne and Bentane.
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  Speaker 1: It might be that she had fallen into the worst
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  Speaker 1: ill fame. She held her head high and passed on
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  Speaker 1: toward the church. The door stood ajar. It was cold
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  Speaker 1: in the church, yet was it as though a mild
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  Speaker 1: warmth streamed into her heart from the brown, dusky hall,
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  Speaker 1: with the high, upspringing pillars holding up the darkness under
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  Speaker 1: the roof beams. There was no light on the altars,
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  Speaker 1: but a ray of sun shone in through a chink
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  Speaker 1: of the door and gleamed faintly back from the pictures
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  Speaker 1: and the holy vessels. Far in before the altar of
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  Speaker 1: Saint Thomas, she saw her father kneeling with head bent
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  Speaker 1: forward on his folded hands, which held his cap crushed
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  Speaker 1: to his breast, shrinking back in fear and sadness. Christen
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  Speaker 1: stole out and stood in the cloister way with her
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  Speaker 1: hands about two of its small pillars. Framed in the arch.
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  Speaker 1: Between them, she saw Urine gard lying below and behind
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  Speaker 1: her home. The pale blue haze that filled the valley
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  Speaker 1: where the river lay stretched through the countryside. Its ice
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  Speaker 1: and water sent out white sparkles in the sunshine. But
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  Speaker 1: the alder thickets along its bed were yellow brown with blossom.
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  Speaker 1: Even the pinewood up by the church was tinged with
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  Speaker 1: spring green. And there was a piping and twis uttering
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  Speaker 1: and whistling of little birds in the grove near by.
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  Speaker 1: Ay there had been birds song like this each evening
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  Speaker 1: after the sun was down, and she felt that the
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  Speaker 1: longing she thought must have been racked out of her
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  Speaker 1: long since, the longing in her body, and her blood
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  Speaker 1: was stirring now again, faintly and feebly, as about to
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  Speaker 1: waken from a winter's sleep. Lavans Brogelsen came out and
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  Speaker 1: locked the church door behind him. He came and stood
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  Speaker 1: by his daughter, looking out through the arch. Next to her,
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  Speaker 1: she saw how the winter gone by had harrowed her
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  Speaker 1: father's face. She understood not herself how she could touch
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  Speaker 1: now on what was between them, But the words seemed
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  Speaker 1: to rush out of themselves. Is it true what mother
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  Speaker 1: told me the other day, that you said to her?
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  Speaker 1: Had it been Arney Gerdson. You would have given me
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  Speaker 1: my will, aye, said Lavernz, not looking at her. You
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  Speaker 1: said not so well. Yet Arney lived, said Kristin. It
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  Speaker 1: never came in question. I saw well enough that the
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  Speaker 1: boy held you, dear, But he said nothing, and he
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  Speaker 1: was young. And I marked not ever that you had
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  Speaker 1: such thoughts towards him. You could scarce think I would
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  Speaker 1: proffer my daughter to a man of no estate. He
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  Speaker 1: smiled slightly. But I loved the boy, he said, in
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  Speaker 1: a low voice, And had I seen you pining for
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  Speaker 1: love of him? They stood still, gazing. Christin felt that
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  Speaker 1: her father was looking at her. She strode hard to
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  Speaker 1: be calm a face, but she felt herself grow deadly white.
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  Speaker 1: Then her father came towards her, put both his arms
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  Speaker 1: round her, and pressed her strongly to him. He bent
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  Speaker 1: her head backwards, looked down into his daughter's face, and
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  Speaker 1: then hid it again on his shoulder. This is Christus's
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  Speaker 1: little Christen. Are you so unhappy? I think I shall
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  Speaker 1: die of it, father, she said, her face pressed to him.
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  Speaker 1: She burst into weeping. But she wept because she had
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  Speaker 1: felt in his caress and seen in his eyes that
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  Speaker 1: now he was so worn out with pain that he
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  Speaker 1: could not hold out against her any more. She had
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  Speaker 1: overcome him. Far on in the night, she was wakened
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  Speaker 1: in the dark by her father's touch on her shoulder.
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  Speaker 1: Get up, he said, softly, Do you hear? She heard
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  Speaker 1: the singing of the wind round the house corners, the deep,
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  Speaker 1: full note of the south wind, heavy with wetness. Streams
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  Speaker 1: were pouring from the roof. There was the whisper of
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  Speaker 1: rain falling on soft, melting snow. Kristen flung her dress
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  Speaker 1: on her back and went after her father to the
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  Speaker 1: outer door. They stood together, looking out into the twilight
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  Speaker 1: of the May night. Warm wind and rain smote against them.
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  Speaker 1: The heavens were a welter of tangled, drifting rain clouds.
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  Speaker 1: The woods roared, the wind whistled between the houses, and
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  Speaker 1: from far up in the fells they heard the dull
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  Speaker 1: boom of snow masses falling. Kristen felt for her father's
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  Speaker 1: hand and held it. He had called her that he
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  Speaker 1: might show her this. So had it been between them before,
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  Speaker 1: that he would have done this. And so it was
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  Speaker 1: now again. When they went into bed again, Lavern said,
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  Speaker 1: the stranger serving man that came last week brought me
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  Speaker 1: letters from Sir Moon and Bardsen. He is minded to
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  Speaker 1: come up the dale to our parts next summer to
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  Speaker 1: see his mother. And he asked, if he might meet
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  Speaker 1: me and have speech with me, what will you answer him?
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  Speaker 1: My father? She whispered that can I not tell you now,
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  Speaker 1: said Lavrens. But I will speak with him, and then
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  Speaker 1: must I order this matter so as I may deem
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  Speaker 1: I can answer it to God. My daughter Kursten crept
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  Speaker 1: in again beside Ronborg, and Lawrence went and lay down
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  Speaker 1: by the side of his sleeping wife. He lay thinking
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  Speaker 1: that if the flood came over sudden and strong, there
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  Speaker 1: were few places in the parish that lay so much
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  Speaker 1: in its path. As Jurengard folks said, there was a
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  Speaker 1: prophecy that some day the river would carry it away.
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  Speaker 1: End of Chapter four