She sat nestled by her father with one arm upon his knee; he gave her all she would have of the best, and bade her drink her fill of the beer and taste well of the mead. “She will be so tipsy she’ll never get down to the sæter on her feet,” said Halvdan, laughing, but Lavrans stroked her round cheeks: “Then here are folk enough who can bear her—it will do her good—drink you too, Arne—God’s gifts do good, not harm, to you that are yet growing—make sweet, red blood, and give deep sleep, and rouse not madness and folly—” The men too drank often and deep; neither was Isrid backward. And soon their voices and the roar and crackle of the fire were but a far off hubbub in Kristin’s ears, and she began to grow heavy of head. She was still aware how they questioned Lavrans and would have him tell of the strange things he had met with when out a-hunting. But much he would not say; and this seemed to her so good and so safe—and then she had eaten so well. Her father had a slice of soft barley-bread in his hands; he pinched small bits of it between his fingers into shapes of horses, and cutting shreds of meat, he set these astride the steeds and made them ride over his thigh and into Kristin’s mouth. But soon she was so weary she could neither open her mouth nor chew—and so she sank back upon the ground and slept. * * * * * When she came to herself again, she was lying in a warm darkness within her father’s arm—he had wrapped his cloak about them both. Kristin sat up, wiped the moisture from her face, and unloosed her cap that the air might dry her damp locks. The day was surely far spent, for the sunlight was golden, and the shadows had lengthened and fell now toward the southeast. No breath of wind was stirring, and gnats and flies buzzed and swarmed about the group of sleeping men. Kristin sat stock still, scratched her gnat-bitten hands and gazed about her—the mountain-top above them shone white with moss and golden with lichen in the sunshine, and the pile of weather-beaten timber stood against the sky like the skeleton of some wondrous beast.