Free The Son Avenger by Sigrid Undset Page B

weeping quietly and miserably.
    “The Christmas feast is better kept in heaven,” he said softly.
    “You may fetch him, then,” she whispered at last, utterly broken, and then she wept again.
    Next day Olav fetched the priest. Bothild was shriven, and when it was done she sent for her foster-father and sister and the whole household, begged their forgiveness if she had offended them, wittingly or unwittingly. Then Sira Eyvind gave her extreme unction and the bread of parting.
    After the priest had ridden away, Olav went in and sat by the dying girl.
    “Now, my Bothild, you will soon be gathered to your father. And then you must beg my friend Asger to forgive me for not keeping my word to him so well as I ought—the word I gave him on the day when I received you at his hands and promised to be toyou as a father. Do you remember that day?—you sat outside the door of the room where your father lay, it was raining and snowing; you were blue with cold. A good, obedient child you have always been, foster-daughter—God grant you may not have cause to complain too bitterly of me when you come before the judgment-seat.”
    “Toward me you were ever the most loving father.” She paused awhile, then whispered as though she feared to broach this other subject: “Would you were never harder toward any other—”
    “What mean you?” asked her father rather coldly.
    “Eirik,” said Bothild very softly. “Toward him meseems you were often hard.”
    “I trow not,” replied Olav, dismissing the matter. “I know not that I have been stricter with Eirik than there was need.”
    Bothild was silent for some moments. Then she summoned up courage:
    “There is Cecilia too, Father. I would wish that you do not give her to Jörund Kolbeinsson, if this be too grievously against her will.”
    “Is it so?” Olav asked reluctantly after a moment.
    “She liked Aslak better,” whispered her sister.
    To that Olav made no answer.
    “I had not thought to force Cecilia,” he said at last. “I will not marry her to a man she is loath to take. But I cannot promise therefore to give her to any man on whom her fancy may light, if I have reason to count him no good match for her.”
    Olav’s tone was such that the sick girl dared say no more of the subject.
    It vexed Olav that his foster-daughter had spoken of these things. Eirik’s departure from Hestviken had been too like a flight for Olav not to wonder at it. And there was one thing and another that he had seen—his suspicions were dawning. Only Olav would not admit them. No, such a thing one ought not to believe of any man, nor of Eirik either: that he could engage in clandestine commerce with a young maid who was under his own father’s protection, his foster-sister. It was true that foster-brothers and sisters—but that of himself and Ingunn was another matter; they had been called an affianced pair from childhood; that it grew to love between them, that they even forgot themselves in each other’sarms—that was bound to come when there was none to take care of them and lead them aright, as inevitably as that two young saplings growing side by side should blend their twigs and leaves into
one
crown of foliage. Neither Eirik nor Bothild had ever been told of such plans in their case. It was true that he had
thought
of it at times: if it turned out that Eirik came home, and that Cecilia would not inherit Hestviken after him—then he might marry her, who was scarcely less dear to him than his own daughter, to Eirik. It might be a sort of consolation that the new race would be her children. But these had been but the vaguest thoughts, he had spoken of them to none; so far as he recalled he had only given Bothild’s youth and poverty as his reasons when he let Ragnvald of Galaby know that he not be at the trouble of sending his suitors for her.
    Then there was that about Cecilia. No word had come from Jörund’s kinsmen, and in his heart Olav was bitterly offended; ’twas not