The Son Avenger by Sigrid Undset Page A

keep you awake, Cecilia?”
    “Yes—I am afraid you will fall asleep and forget the candle. You have done so many times—and yesternight I had to come down and put it out, for Father was asleep too.”
    The girl was shivering with cold in her thin nightdress. Eirik stood before her, looking up at her bright form: he thought she was like an angel, and he bowed his head forward, breathing affectionately on the bare toes, red with cold, that protruded below the long ample garment, clinging to the step of the ladder.
    “Go up now, Cecilia, and lie down,” he said gaily. And there came upon him a desire to speak with his sister of all the new thoughts that filled him. “Then I will come up to you anon.”
    He slipped in under her coverlet, crooked an arm around the head of the bed, and began, in an eager voice:
    “Now you shall hear news that will surprise you, Cecilia—I am to go into a monastery.”
    “Ay, that I have heard.”
    Eirik checked himself, taken aback.
    “You have heard it! Has father told you?”
    “No, Ragna told me.”
    Ragna, the dairy-woman. Ah yes, he had chanced to mention it to her too. It dawned on Eirik that he had already mentioned it to not a few. But Ragna had always shown him kindness, and so he had said to her that when he was a monk he would pray specially for her eldest child, the sick girl. Ragna’s three children had all been such good friends with Eirik last summer.
    “Ah—” said Eirik. “Have you never thought the like, Cecilia-have you never been minded to become a nun and serve Mary maid?”
    “No,” said Cecilia. It sounded like a lock shutting with a snap, and Eirik was silenced.
    “Nay, nay,” he said meekly after a moment, “nor did this thought come to me of myself—’twas sent me by God’s mercy.”
    “This came upon you rather suddenly?” asked Cecilia with hesitation.
    “Yes,” replied Eirik gleefully. “Like a knock at the door by night and a voice calling on me to rise and go out. Like you, Ihad never thought upon such things before. And so it may be with you too, sister.”
    “I know not,” said Cecilia quietly. “I cannot think it. But ’twill be stilled here now,” she whispered, and all at once her voice sounded pitifully small and weak. “First I lost Bothild—and now you are going from us—”
    Eirik lay still, struck by his sister’s words. He had almost forgotten their summer in all that had followed after; he seemed to have travelled a long way from the memory of Bothild in these last days. But now he called to mind how she had been wont to sleep by Cecilia’s side, where he was now lying. All his memories, suddenly released, filled him with melancholy beyond bounds. He could not utter a word.
    “Are you weeping?” he asked at last, as Cecilia did not break the silence either.
    “No,” replied his sister as curtly as before.
    Ay, now Bothild slept under the sod, and his feet were set upon a path that led far away from all this. But Cecilia, she would be left here, lonely as a bird when all its fellows have flown, alone with her sad and silent father.
    “Have you heard no more of Jörund this winter?” it occurred to him to ask.
    “We have not.” He could hear by her voice that she was in a ferment.
    “That is strange. He let me suppose he would be here some time this winter.”
    Cecilia gave a start; she turned abruptly to the wall. Eirik noticed that the girl was trembling. He raised himself on his elbow, leaning over his sister.
    “What ails you?” he asked anxiously.
    “Nothing ails me,” she whispered, half choking. “I do not ask how it is with Jörund Kolbeinsson. I have not set my mind on him.”
    Eirik said doubtfully: “I cannot make this out. You speak as if you were angry with him.”
    “Angry?” She flung herself round again, facing her brother. “Maybe I am. For I am not wont to hear such speech from a man as Jörund used to me. And I gave him such answer that he—that he—I am unused to put up with a