Free The Snake Pit by Sigrid Undset

than sorry to be forced to break up their married life. I know full well that my father had always held the marriage of priests to be an evil custom, and that was also the opinion of Bishop Nikulaus—but ’twas the usage when my father was a young man, and then he had to do as his mother willed. My brothers and sisters and my mother then went upcountry, and I have not seen much of them since: Kaare, my brother, got Tveit, and Erlend got Aasheim; now both the manors are divided among many children. I stayed with Father; I had always been intended for the priesthood—and Father and I lived happily together and lookedon Halvard’s Church as our true home. I was ordained subdeacon three years after King Skule’s fall. Grandmother Tora died soon after.
    “But it was of your great-grandfather Olav Ribbung and his kin that I was to tell you. Ingolf, you know, was married to Ragna Hallkelsdatter from Kaaretorp—’twas Tora who had busied herself to secure this good marriage for her grandson, as soon as he was grown; Audun, your father, was already some two years old when we kinsmen set out to follow King Skule and the Vaarbelgs. When Torgils turned mad, Ingolf and Ragna had an uneasy life at Hestviken, and afterwards they lived mostly at Kaaretorp. But one Yule, when they were here, Ingolf wished to accompany Halldis, his sister, and her husband across the fiord to Aas and to stay with them awhile. They ran upon a rock, and all who were in the boat were drowned.
    “Olav Ribbung bore this disaster so well that my father used to say he had never seen a man bear adversity so nobly—he always named his brother as a pattern of firmness and strength—those twin brothers loved each other so dearly.—Ay, ’twas his son and daughter and son-in-law who were lost. Olav merely said that he thanked God his mother and Astrid, his wife, had died before these disasters had fallen upon his children. He dwelt on there with the madman, and there were no others of his offspring left but Borgny, the nun, and Audun, a little lad. Ingolf’s widow married again in Elvesyssel, and Olav gave his consent that Audun should be brought up by his mother and stepfather. Olav Ribbung then adopted the son that Torgils had gotten by a serving wench here at Hestviken, but the boy lived no long time.
    “’Twas the third year I was lame from my broken leg, when Ingolf and the others were lost. And I bore it ill—I thought it unbearably hard to be a cripple, young as I was, and that I could never be a priest. Then father always held up Olav Ribbung to me as an example.—But I know that Olav took it sorely to heart that Audun would not marry again after your mother’s death and would not bide at home in Hestviken—and the race bade fair to die out.
    “But now there is good hope, I ween, that it will thrive again, with such young and sound and goodly folk as you and your wife. And you may be well assured that I yearn to take a son of yours in my arms. Four generations have I known—five, if I mayreckon our ancestress among them—gladly would I see the first man of the sixth ere I die. ’Tis not given to many men to know their own kindred through six generations. And I would deem it a reasonable thing, my Ingunn, if your husband too should conceive a great longing for the same—his departed kinsmen have possessed this manor of Hestviken since there were men in Norway. Do you hear that, young woman?” he said, laughing to himself.
    Olav saw how red she turned.—But it was not the modest blush of happy longing; it was the hot glow of shame that mantled her face. Her eyes grew dark and troubled. In charity he took his glance from her.
    7
Vaarbelger
was the name given to the followers of Skule by their enemies, the Birchlegs. Various explanations of the name have been suggested, the most probable being “hides taken in springtime” (
vaar,
spring, and
belg,
hide), the hides being almost valueless during the spring months.
    Duke Skule was proclaimed