Free The Axe by Sigrid Undset

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 inthe 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. Ingunn turned his fair, silky hair over and over, till the boy dozed, breathing evenly and audibly. She took the little kerchief that covered the throat of her dress and wiped the sweat from Olav’s face; then sat with the kerchief in her hand fanning off the flies and midges.
    From the higher ground she heard her mother’s sharp, impetuousvoice. The lady Ingebjörg and Arnvid Finnsson were walking on the path at the edge of the corn.
    Every day Ingebjörg Jonsdatter went up and sat on the crag above the manor, gazing out as she talked and talked—of her old deadly hatred of Mattias Haraldsson and of her and Steinfinn’s long-hatched plans of revenge. It was always Arnvid who had to go with her and listen and give ever the same answers to the lady’s speech.
    Olav slept with his head in Ingunn’s lap; she sat with her neck against the stem of an aspen, staring before her, thoughtlessly happy, as Arnvid came down, wading through the long grass of the meadow.
    “I saw you two sitting here—”
    “ ’Tis cool and pleasant here,” said Ingunn.
    “It seems high time to begin haymaking,” said Arnvid; he looked up the slope as a gust of wind swayed the grass.
    Olav awoke and turned over, laying the other cheek in Ingunn’s lap. “We shall begin after the holy-day—I spoke to Grim this morning.”
    “You do Steinfinn no little service here, Olav?” asked Arnvid, to draw him.
    “Oh—”