Down in the field was a water-hole surrounded by tall, thick rushes, which were darkly mirrored in it, but in the middle of the smooth little pond the moon shone—it had now risen high enough to give a yellow light.

The mother looked into the distance, where the lake and the farms surrounding it lay in a pale, calm mist.

“Have you the wit to see, I wonder, what we have all at stake?” said Ingebjörg.

Ingunn felt her cheeks go white and cold at her mother’s words. She had always known what there was to know of her father and mother; she had known too that great events were now at hand. But here by her mother’s side, seeing how she was stirred to the depths of her soul, she guessed for the first time what it all meant. A feeble sound came from her lips—like the squeaking of a mouse.

Ingebjörg’s ravaged face was drawn sideways in a sort of smile.

“Are you afraid to watch this night with your mother? Tora would not have refused to stay with me, but she is such a child, gentle and quiet. That you are not—and you are the elder, I ween,” she concluded hotly.

Ingunn clasped her slender hands together. Again it was as though she had climbed a little higher, had gained a wider view over her world. She had always been clear that her parents were not very old folk. But now she saw that they were young. Their love, of which she had heard as a tale of old days, was ready to be quickened and to burn with a bright flame, as the fire may be revived from the glowing embers beneath the ashes. With wonder and reluctance she suspected that her father and mother loved each other even yet—as she and Olav loved—only so much the more strongly as the river is greater and fuller near its mouth than it is high up in the hills. And although what she guessed made her ashamed, she felt proud withal at the uncommon lot of her parents.

Timidly she held out both hands. “I will gladly watch with you all night, Mother.”

Ingebjörg squeezed her daughter’s hand. “God can grant Steinfinn no less than that we may wash the shame from us,” she said impetuously, clasping the girl and kissing her.

Ingunn put her arms round her mother’s neck—it was so long since she had kissed her. She remembered it as part of the life that was brought to an end on the night Mattias came to the house.

Not that Ingunn had felt the want of it—as a child she had not been fond of caresses. Between her and Olav it was like something they had found out for themselves. It had come as the spring comes—one day it is there like a miracle, but no sooner is it come than one feels it must be summer always. Like the bare strip of sod that borders the cornfield—so long as it lies naked with its withered grass after the thaw, it is nothing but a little grey balk amongst the sown; but then there comes a forest of tangled wild growth that makes it wellnigh impassable.

Now the springlike bareness of her child’s mind was overgrown with a summer luxuriance. She laid her cool, soft cheek against her mother’s wasted face. “I will gladly share your watching, Mother!”

The words seemed to sink into herself—for she had to watch for Olav. It was as though her thoughts had been astray when he set out with the others in the evening—she had not thought of the dangers the men were to face. A fear thrilled through her—but it was only as a flutter at the root of her heart. She could not fancy in earnest that anything could happen to one of hers.

For all that, she asked: “Mother—are you afraid?”

Ingebjörg Jonsdatter shook her head: “No. God will give us our right, for right is on our side.” When she saw her daughter’s look she added, with a smile Ingunn did not like—there was a queer cunning in it: “You see, my girl, it is on this wise—’tis a lucky chance for us that King Magnus died this spring. We have kinsmen and friends among those who will now have most power—so says Kolbein. And there are many of them who would fain see Mattias—do you mind what manner of man he is? Oh no, you cannot—he is short of stature, is Mattias; yet there are many who think he might be shorter by a head. Queen Ingebjörg never liked him. You must know, but for that, he would not lie at Birid at this time, when knights and barons are gathering at Björgvin and the young King is to be crowned.”

She went on talking as they walked along the fences. Ingunn fervently desired to speak to her mother of Olav Audunsson, but she guessed that she was so wholly lost in her own thoughts that she would not care to hear of aught else. Yet she could not help saying: “Was it not an ill chance that Olav could not fetch his axe in time?”

“Oh, your father will have seen that they are as well armed as there is need, all the men he has taken with him,” said the mistress. “Steinfinn would not have had the boy with him, but he begged leave to go—”

“But you are cold,” said her mother a moment later.