On the journey down to Oslo they had stayed as guests at Simon’s home, and she had come to know his mother and sisters—Sir Andres was in Sweden still. She had not felt at ease there, and her dislike of the Dyfrin folk was all the stronger that she could think of no good ground for it. All the way thither, she had said to herself that they had no cause to be proud or to think themselves better than her kin—no man knew aught of Reidar Darre, the Birch-leg, before King Sverre got him the widow of the Dyfrin Baron to wife. But lo! they were not proud at all; and when Simon himself spoke one night of his forefather: “I have found out now for sure—he was a comb-maker—so ’tis as though you were to come into a kingly stock—almost, Kristin,” said he. “Take heed to your tongue, boy,” said his mother but they all laughed together. It vexed her strangely when she thought of her father; he laughed much, if Simon gave him the least cause—a thought came to her dimly that maybe her father would gladly have had more laughter in his life—But ’twas not to her mind that he should like Simon so much. They had all been at Skog over Easter. She had found that her uncle was a hard master to his farmers and serving-folk—she had met one and another who asked after her mother and spoke lovingly of Lavrans: they had better times when he lived here. Aasmund’s mother, Lavrans’ step-mother, lived on the manor in a house by herself; she was not so very old, but sickly and failing. Lavrans had but seldom spoken of her at home. Once when Kristin asked him if he had had a hard step-mother, her father answered: “She never did much to me of either good or ill.” Kristin felt for her father’s hand, and he pressed hers: “You will be happy soon enough, my daughter, with the good Sisters—you will have other things to think of besides longing to be home with us—” * * * * * They sailed so near by the town that the smell of tar and salt fish was borne out to them from the wharves. Gyrid named all the churches, the traders’ quarters and the open places which ran up from the water’s edge—Kristin remembered nothing from the time she was here before but the great heavy towers of St. Halvard’s church. They sailed westward past the whole town and laid to at the convent pier. Kristin walked between her father and her uncle through a cluster of warehouses, and came out upon a road which led up through the fields. Simon came after, leading Gyrid by the hand. The serving-folk stayed behind to help some men from the convent load the baggage upon a cart. Nonneseter and the whole Leiran quarter lay within the boundaries of the town grazing-grounds, but there were but a few clusters of houses here and there along the roadside. The larks were trilling over their heads in the pale-blue sky, and the small yellow flowers of the coltsfoot were thickly sprinkled over the wan clay slopes, but along by the fences the roots of the grass were green.