The Axe Read Free

with their mother in the outhouse, she was silent, caring little for how they fared or what they did. Yet before, in the good days, she had been a tender mother, and Steinfinn Toresson had been a happy and loving father, proud of their strong and handsome children.
    So long as her sons, Hallvard and Jon, were still small, she often took them in her lap and sat rocking them, with her chin resting on their fair-haired crowns, while she moped, lost in sorrowful thought. But the boys were not very old before they grew weary of staying in the outhouse with their mournful mother and her women.
    Tora, the younger daughter, was a good and pretty child. She saw full well that her father and mother had suffered a grievouswrong and were now full of cares and sorrow, and she strove to cheer them, kindly and lovingly. She became the favourite of both. Steinfinn’s face would brighten somewhat when he looked at this daughter of his. Tora Steinfinnsdatter was delicate and shapely in body and limbs, she ripened early into womanhood. She had a long, full face, a fair skin, and blue eyes; thick plaits of smooth, corn-yellow hair hung over her shoulders. Her father stroked her cheek: “A good child you are, Tora mine—God bless you. Go to your mother, Tora; sit with her and comfort her.”
    Tora went, and sat down spinning or sewing beside her sorrowful mother. And she thought herself more than rewarded if Ingebjörg said at the last: “You are good, Tora mine—God preserve you from all evil, my child.” Then Tora’s tears began to fall-she thought upon her parents’ heavy lot, and, full of righteous wrath, she looked at her sister, who had never enough constancy to sit still with their mother and could not come into the outhouse without making her impatient with her continual restlessness—till Ingebjörg bade her go out again. And Ingunn made for the door, carefree and unrepentant, and ran out to play and shout with the other children of the place—Olav and some boys belonging to the serving-folk at Frettastein.
    Ingunn was the eldest of all Steinfinn’s and Ingebjörg’s children. When she was little, she had been marvellously fair; but now she was not half as pretty as her sister, people thought. And she had not so much sense, nor was she very quick-witted; she was neither better nor worse than are most children. But in a way she was as much liked by the people of the place as the quiet and beautiful younger sister. Steinfinn’s men looked upon Tora with a sort of reverence, but they were better pleased to have Ingunn among them in the hall.
    There were no maids of her own age either at Frettastein or any of the farms and homesteads round about. So it was that Ingunn was always with the boys. She took part in all their games and all their pursuits, practised such sports as they used—she threw the spear and the stone, shot with the bow, struck the ball, set snares in the wood, and fished in the tarn. But she was clumsy at all these things, neither handy nor bold, but weak, quick to give up and take to tears when their play grew rough or the game went against her. For all that, the boys let her go with them everywhere.For one thing, she was Steinfinn’s daughter, and then Olav Audunsson would have it so. And it was always Olav who was the master of their games.
    Olav Audunsson was well liked by all on the estate, both great and small, and yet none would have called him a winning child. It seemed that none could come at the heart of this boy, although he was never unfriendly toward any living soul—rather might it be said that he was good-natured and helpful in his taciturn and absent way.
    Handsome he was, though he was fair of skin and hair as an albino almost, but he had not the albino’s sidelong glance or bowed neck. Olav’s blue-green eyes were pale in colour, but he looked the world straight in the face with them, and he carried his head erect upon his strong, milk-white neck. It was as though sun and wind had little