The Axe Read Online Free PDF

hills. Far below,the lake lay glistening, a dead grey with dark stripes where the current ran: it gave promise of showers. The sky had a wan look, and dark shreds of cloud drifted low down—there had been rainstorms in the night. When Olav stepped out on the grass of the yard his high boots of yellow undyed leather were darkened with moisture—little reddish splashes appeared on his boot-legs. He sat down on the doorstone and pulled off his boots, tied the laces together, and slung them over his shoulder to carry them with his folded cloak and the axe.
    Barefoot he went across the wet courtyard to the house where Ingunn had slept that night with two of the serving-maids, that she might be able to slip away without being seen. For the journey to town Olav had dressed himself in his best clothes—a long kirtle of light-blue English cloth and hose of the same stuff. But the dress was somewhat outgrown—the kirtle was tight across the chest and short at the wrists and it scarce reached to the middle of his calf. The hose too were very tight, and Ingebjörg had cut off the feet the autumn before; now they ended at the ankle. But the kirtle was fastened at the neck with a fine ring-brooch of gold, and round his waist he wore a belt set with silver roses and Saint Olav’s image on the buckle; his dagger bore gilt mounts on hilt and sheath.
    Olav went up into the balcony and struck three light blows upon the door. Then he stood waiting.
    A bird began trilling and piping—it burst forth like a fountain above the sleepy twittering from the thickets round about. Olav saw the bird as a dot against the sky—it sat on a fir twig against the yellowing northern heaven. He could see how it drew itself in and swelled itself out, like a little heart beating. The hosts of cloud high up began to flush, a flush spread over the hillside with a rosy reflection in the water.—Olav knocked at the door again, much harder—it rang out in the morning stillness so that the boy held his breath and listened for a movement in any of the houses.
    Soon after, the door was opened ajar—the girl slipped out. Her hair hung about her, ruffled and lustreless; it was yellow-brown and very curly. She was in her bare smock; the neck, which was of white linen, was worked with green and blue flowers, but below, it was of coarse grey stuff, and it was too long for her and trailed about her narrow pink feet. She carried her clothes over her arm and had a wallet in her hand. This she gave to Olav, threwdown her bundle of clothes, and shook her hair from her face, which was still flushed with sleep—one cheek redder than the other. She took a waist-band and girt up her smock with it.
    She was tall and thin, with slight limbs, a long, slender throat, and a small head. Her face was a triangle, her forehead low and broad, but it was snow-white and finely arched at the temples under the thick folds of hair; the thin cheeks were too much drawn in, making the chin too long and pointed; the straight little nose was too low and short. But for all that her little face had a restless charm of its own: the eyes were very large and dark grey, but the whites were as blue as a little child’s, and they lay in deep shadow beneath the straight black lines of her brows and her full, white eyelids; the mouth was narrow, but the lips were red as berries—and with her bright pink and white complexion Ingunn Steinfinnsdatter was fair now in her young girlhood.
    “Make haste,” said Olav, as she sat on the stair winding her linen hose tightly around her legs; and she took good time about it. “You were best carry hose and shoes till the grass be dry.”
    “I will not go barefoot on the wet ground in this cold—” the girl shivered a little.
    “You will be warmer when once you have made an end of putting on your clothes—you must not be so long about it—’tis rosy morning already, cannot you see?”
    Ingunn made no answer, but took off her hose-band and began again to wind