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They are to join Canute near Scoerstan; I heard it talked among them. My horse is somewhat heavy in his movements, for he is the one Gram rode yesterday; I found him grazing by the road. Let me go, Sister Wynfreda. Bid me farewell and let me go." Clutching at her belt, her arm, her cloak, the nun strove desperately to detain her. "Randalin! Listen!
The shadows deepened in the eyes of Sister Wynfreda as she turned them back toward the lane, for her patience was not yet ripe to perfect mellowness. She was but little past the prime of her rich womanhood, and still bore the traces of a great beauty. She bore in addition, upon cheek and forehead, the scars of three frightful burns.
But Randalin's head was shaking too decidedly, though she was not ungentle in her answering. "I give you thanks, Sister Wynfreda, but such a life is not for me. My nature is such that I do not like the gloomy songs you sing; nor do I care for green things, except to wear in my hair. And it seems to me that I should be spiritless and a coward if I should like such a life.
"If it be true as you say, " she was speaking with the passionate bitterness of wounded youth, "if it be true that in his place anyone would have believed what he believed, then is this a very hateful world and I want no further part in it." Over the fragrant leaves which she was touching as fondly as if they had been children's faces, Sister Wynfreda gently shook her head.
Dropping down beside the other, her slim young fingers began to imitate the gnarled old ones as they weeded and straightened. "I wonder at it, Sister Wynfreda, that you do not urge me to creep in with you. A year ago, you wanted it when I wanted it not; but now when I am willing, you hold me off." "Is it clear before your mind that you are willing, my daughter?" the nun asked gently.
At last they began to laugh and jeer, and called to me that they would go down and drink my wedding toast before they broke in the door and fetched me; and then they betook themselves to feasting." Sister Wynfreda bent her head to murmur a prayer: "God forgive me if I have lacked charity in my judgment on the Pagans!
For the moment Sister Wynfreda was not a nun but a woman, a woman with a great yearning tenderness that might have been a beautiful mother-love. She ran to the girl and caught her tremblingly by the hands, feeling up her arms to her shoulders and about her face, as if to make sure that she was really unharmed. "Praise the Lord that you are delivered whole to me!" she breathed.
"I wish that Sister Wynfreda could see that, now, since it is her belief that Danes are always overbearing toward their captives," she told herself. "This one has no appearance of having felt blows or known hard labor. She could not have been entertained with greater liberality in her father's house " She broke off suddenly, as the words suggested a new train of thought.
Raising her tear-stained face at last, Sister Wynfreda said humbly, "God pardon me if I sin in my grief, but to me it seems so bitter a thing when trouble comes upon the young. The first fall of the young bird in its flight, the first blow that startles the young horse, I flinch before them as before my own wounds.
"Fridtjof?" she questioned. At the sound of her voice, the boy turned and hastened toward her. Then a great cry burst from Sister Wynfreda, for the face under the black locks was the face of Randalin. At a hoary speaker Laugh thou never. Often is good that which the aged utter; Oft from a shrivelled hide Discreet words issue. Ha'vama'l. She made a convincing boy, this daughter of the Vikings.
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