(He lifts his bow and loosens arrows at intervals while
  HALLGERD and RANNVEIG speak.)

    HALLGERD (in an undertone to RANNVEIG, looking out meanwhile
      to the left)
                              Mother, come here—­
  Come here and hearken.  Is there not a foot,
  A stealthy step, a fumbling on the latch
  Of the great door?  They come, they come, old mother: 
  Are you not blithe and thirsty, knowing they come
  And cannot be held back?  Watch and be secret,
  To feel things pass that cannot be undone.

                        RANNVEIG
  It is the latch.  Cry out, cry out for Gunnar,
  And bring him from the loft.

                        HALLGERD
                                Oh, never: 
  For then they’d swarm upon him from the roof. 
  Leave him up there and he can bay both armies,
  While the whole dance goes merrily before us
  And we can warm our hearts at such a flare.

RANNVEIG (turning both ways, while HALLGERD watches her gleefully)
Gunnar, my son, my son!  What shall I do?

(ORMILD enters from the left, white and with her hand to her
side, and walking as one sick.)

HALLGERD
Bah—­here’s a bleached assault....

RANNVEIG
Oh, lonesome thing,
To be forgot and left in such a night. 
What is there now—­are terrors surging still?

                      ORMILD

I know not what has gone:  when the men came
I hid in the far cowhouse.  I think I swooned.... 
And then I followed the shadow.  Who is dead?

RANNVEIG
Go to the bower:  the women will care for you.

  (ORMILD totters up the hall from pillar to pillar.)

      ASTRID (entering by the dais door)
  Now they have found the weather-ropes and lashed them
  Over the carven ends of the beams outside: 
  They bear on them, they tighten them with levers,
  And soon they’ll tear the high roof off the hall.

                        GUNNAR
  Get back and bolt the women into the bower.

  (ASTRID takes ORMILD, who has just reached her, and goes out with
  her by the dais door, which closes after them.)

  Hallgerd, go in:  I shall be here thereafter.

                        HALLGERD
  I will not stir.  Your mother had best go in.

RANNVEIG
How shall I stir?

VOICES (outside and gathering volume)
Ai....  Ai....  Reach harder....  Ai....

GUNNAR
Stand clear, stand clear—­it moves.

THE VOICES
It moves....  Ai, ai....

(The whole roof slides down rumblingly, disappearing with a crash
behind the watt of the house.  All is dark above.  Fine snow sifts
down now and then to the end of the play.)

GUNNAR (handling his bow)
The wind has changed:  ’tis coming on to snow. 
The harvesters will hurry in to-morrow.