In spite of this, Olav now saw for the first time that Arnvid and Ingunn bore a likeness to each other—Arnvid too had a small nose, as though unfinished, but in the man it seemed pressed in under the brow. Arnvid too had large, dark-blue eyes—but in him they were deep-set.

Arnvid did not belong to the Steinfinn stock, but Tore of Hov had married his father’s sister. And the likeness between his heavy, dark ugliness and Ingunn’s restless charm was not to be mistaken.

“So I see you have little mind to go with your kinsmen in that which is now brewing?” said Olav rather mockingly.

“Be sure I shall not hang back,” answered Arnvid.

“What will he say to it, Bishop Torfinn, your ghostly father, if you make common cause with us in what Steinfinn has on foot?” asked Olav with his little mocking smile.

“He is in Björgvin now, so he cannot hear aught of it till the thing be done,” said Arnvid shortly. “I can do naught else, I must go with my cousin.”

“Ay, and you are not one of his priests either,” said Olav as before.

“No, the more the pity,” replied Arnvid. “Would I were. This matter between Steinfinn and Mattias—the worst of it is, I ween, that it is grown so old. Steinfinn must do something now to win back his honour. But then, you may be sure that all the old talk will be chewed over again, and foully will it stink. I hold myself not more fearful than other men—none the less do I wish I could have held aloof from these doings.”

Olav held his peace. Now they were touching again on a matter that was no clearer to Olav than it was to the Steinfinnssons. Arnvid had been put to book-learning in his childhood. But then both his elder brothers had died, and his parents took him home again and married him to the rich bride who had been promised to his brother. But it seemed Arnvid did not count it as good fortune to be called to the headship of his family and to possess the manor in Elfardal, instead of being made a priest.

The wife he got was fair and rich and only five or six years older than he; yet the young couple seemed ill suited to each other. In some measure this may have come from their having little say in the house so long as Arnvid’s parents were alive. Then Finn, Arnvid’s father, died; but just after that his young wife, Tordis Erlingsdatter, died in childbirth. From that time Arnvid’s mother took control, and they said she was somewhat masterful. Arnvid let her have charge both of the estate and of his three little sons and submitted to her in all things.

In former times many men of the Steinfinn kin had been priests, and even if none of them had made a special mark in the service of the Church, they had yet been good priests. But when it became the rule that priests in Norway must live unmarried, as in other Christian lands, the Steinfinnssons sought no more after book-learning. It was by prudent marriages that the kin had always extended its power, and that a man might make his way in the world without support in his marriage they could not believe.

Summer heat had come in earnest the day Olav and Ingunn had stolen away to Hamar.

From the crag above the outlying barn the fiord could be seen far below, beyond the waves of forest and patches of meadow in the hollows. On clear mornings Lake Mjösen lay reflecting the headlands, scored with light stripes, which betokened fine weather. As the day went on, all nature was bathed in heat haze, the land on the other side in blue mist, through which the green paddocks around the farms shimmered brightly. Far to the south on Skrei Fell there was still a glitter of snow high up, gleaming like water and cloud, but the patches of snow grew smaller day by day. Fair-weather clouds were piled up everywhere on the horizon and sailed over forest and lake, casting shadows below. Sometimes they thinned out and spread over the sky, making it a dull white, and the lake turned grey and no longer reflected the land. But the rain came to nothing—it was blown away, and all the trees glittered with leaves flickering in the sunshine, as though the very land panted for heat.

The turf roots began to look scorched and the cornfields yellowed in patches, where the soil was thin; but the weeds flourished and grew high above the light shoots of young corn. The meadows burst into purple with sorrel and monk’s-hood and St. Olav’s flower. There was little to do on the farm now, and nothing was done—the few who were left at home spent their days in waiting.

Olav and Ingunn idled among the houses. Separately and as though by chance they wandered down to the beck that ran north of the farm. It flowed between high banks worn in the turf; the water rushed over great bedded rocks that stretched from bank to bank, and fell into a pool below with a strangely soothing murmur.

The two found a place under a clump of quivering aspens above the stream. The ground was dry here, with fine, thin grass and no flowers.

“Come and lay your head in my lap,” said the girl, “and I will clean it for you.”

Olav shifted a little and laid his head on her knees.