the mother and Gudrid, who had kept up an anxious lookout, met them
nearly a mile away. After the first joyous embrace of welcome, Sigurd
whispered a few words to his wife, and she hastened back to put the
guest-room in order. Mr. Lorne found it so pleasant to get under a roof
again, that he ordered another halt of two days before going on to the
Geysers and Hekla. No beverage ever tasted so sweet to him as the great
bowl of milk which Gudrid brought as soon as he had taken his seat, and
the radishes from the garden seemed a great deal better than the little
jar of orange marmalade which he insisted on giving in exchange for
them.
“Oh, is it indeed orange?” cried Gudrid. “Jon, Jon, now we shall know
what the taste is!”
Their mother gave them a spoonful apiece, and Mr. Lorne smiled as he saw
their wondering, delighted faces.
“Does it really grow on a tree?—and how high is the tree?—and what does
it look like?—like a birch?—or a potato-plant?” Jon asked, in his
eagerness, without waiting for the answers. It was very difficult for
him to imagine what he had never seen, even in pictures, or anything
resembling it. Mr. Lorne tried to explain how different are the
productions of nature in warmer climates, and the children listened as
if they could never hear enough of the wonderful story. At last Jon
said, in his firm, quiet way, “Some day I’ll go there!”
“You will, my boy,” Mr. Lorne replied; “you have strength and courage to
carry out your will.”
Jon never imagined that he had more strength or courage than any other
boy, but he knew that the Englishman meant to praise him, so he shook
hands as he had been taught to do on receiving a gift.
The two days went by only too quickly. The guest furnished food both for
himself and the family, for he shot a score of plovers and caught half a
dozen fine salmon. He was so frank and cheerful that they soon became
accustomed to his presence, and were heartily sorry when Erik and the
other Icelandic guide went out to drive the ponies together, and load
them for the journey. Mr. Lorne called Sigurd and Jon into the
guest-room, untied a buckskin pouch, and counted out fifty silver
rix-dollars upon the table. “For my little guide!” he said, putting his
hand on Jon’s thick curls. Father and son, in their astonishment,
uttered a cry at the same time, and neither knew what to say. But,
brokenly as Mr. Lorne talked, they understood him when he said that Jon
had probably saved his life, that he was a brave boy and would make a
good, brave man, and that if the father did not need the money for his
farm expenses, he should apply it to his son’s education.
The tears were running down Sigurd’s cheeks. He took the Englishman’s
hand, gave it a powerful grip, and simply said, “It shall be used for
his benefit.”
Jon was so strongly moved that, without stopping to think, he did the
one thing which his heart suggested. He walked up to Mr. Lorne, threw
his arms around his neck, and kissed him very tenderly.
“All is ready, sir!” cried Erik, at the door. The last packages were
carried out and tied upon the baggage-ponies, farewells were said once
more, and the little caravan took its way down the valley. The family
stood in front of the house, and watched until the ponies turned around
the first cape of the hills and disappeared; then they could only sit
down and talk of all the unexpected things that had happened. There was
no work done upon the farm that day.
VI
The unusual warmth of the summer, which was so injurious to the pastures
lying near the southern coast, brought fortune to Sigurd’s farm. The
price of wool was much higher than usual, and owing to Jon’s excursion
into the mountains, the sheep were in the best possible condition. They
had never raised such a crop of potatoes, nor such firm, thick-headed
cabbages, and by great care and industry a sufficient supply of hay had
been secured for the winter.
“I am afraid something will happen to us,” said Sigurd one day to his
wife; “the good luck comes too fast.”
“Don’t say that!” she exclaimed. “If we were to lose Jon——”
“Jon!” interrupted Sigurd. “Oh, no; look at his eyes, his breast, his
arms, and his legs—there are a great many years of life in them! He
ought to have a chance at the school in Rejkiavik, but we can hardly do
without him this year.”
“Perhaps brother Magnus would take him,” she said.
“Not while I live,” Sigurd replied, as he left the room, while his wife
turned with a sigh to her household duties. Her family, and especially
her elder brother, Magnus, who was a man of wealth and influence, had
bitterly opposed her marriage with Sigurd, on account of the latter’s
poverty, and she had seen none of them since she came to live on the
lonely farm. Through great industry and frugality they had gradually
prospered; and now she began to long for a reconciliation, chiefly for
her husband’s and children’s sake. It would be much better for Jon if he
could find a home in his uncle’s house when they were able to send him
to school.
So, when they next rode over to Kyrkedal on a Sabbath day in the late
autumn, she took with her a letter to Magnus, which she had written
without her husband’s knowledge, for she wished to save him the pain of
the slight, in case her brother should refuse to answer or should answer
in an unfriendly way. It was a pleasant day for all of them, for Mr.
Lorne had stopped a night at Kyrkedal, and Erik had told the story of
Jon’s piloting them through the wilderness; so the pastor, after
service, came up at once to them and patted Jon on the head, saying;
“_Bene fecisti, fili!_” And the other boys, forgetting their usual
shyness, crowded around and said: “Tell us all about it!” Everything was
as wonderful to them as it still seemed to Jon in his memory, and when
each one said: “If I had gone there I should have done the same thing!”
Jon wondered that he and the boys should ever have felt so awkward and
bashful when they came together. Now it was all changed; they talked and
joked like old companions, and cordially promised to visit each other
during the winter, if their parents were willing.
On the way home Sigurd found that he had dropped his whip, and sent Jon
back to look for it, leaving his wife and Gudrid to ride onward up the
valley. Jon rode at least half a mile before he found it, and then came
galloping back, cracking it joyously. But Sigurd’s face was graver and
wearier than usual.
“Ride a little while with me,” he said; “I want to ask thee something.”
Then, as Jon rode beside him in the narrow tracks which the ponies’
hoofs had cut through the turf, he added: “The boys at Kyrkedal seemed
to make much of thee; I hope thy head is not turned by what they said.”
“Oh, father!” Jon cried; “they were so kind, so friendly!”
“I don’t doubt it,” his father answered. “Thou hast done well, my son,
and I see that thou art older than thy years. But suppose there were a
heavier task in store for thee,—suppose that I should be called
away,—couldst thou do a man’s part, and care properly for thy mother and
thy little sister?”
Jon’s eyes filled with tears, and he knew not what to say.
“Answer me,” Sigurd commanded.
“I never thought of that,” Jon answered, in a trembling voice; “but if I
were to do my best, would not God help me?”
“He would!” Sigurd exclaimed with energy. “All strength comes from Him,
and all fortune. Enough—I can trust thee, my son; ride on to Gudrid, and
tell her not to twist herself in the saddle, looking back!”
Sigurd attended to his farm for several days longer, but in a silent,
dreamy way, as if his mind were busy with other thoughts. His wife was
so anxiously waiting the result of her letter to Magnus, that she paid
less attention to his condition than she otherwise would have done.
But one evening, on returning from the stables, he passed by the table
where their frugal supper was waiting, entered the bedroom, and sank
down, saying:
“All my strength has left me; I feel as if I should never rise again.”
They then saw that he had been attacked by a dangerous fever, for his
head was hot, his eyes glassy, and he began to talk in a wild,
incoherent way. They could only do what the neighbors were accustomed to
do in similar cases,—which really was worse than doing nothing at all
would have been. Jon was despatched next morning, on the best pony, to
summon the physician from Skalholt; but, even with the best luck, three
days must elapse before the latter could arrive. The good pastor of
Kyrkedal came the next day and bled Sigurd, which gave him a little
temporary quiet, while it reduced his vital force. The physician was
absent, visiting some farms to the eastward,—in fact, it was a full week
before he made his appearance. During this time Sigurd wasted away, his
fits of delirium became more frequent, and the chances of his recovery
grew less and less. Jon recalled, now, his father’s last conversation,
and it gave him both fear and comfort. He prayed, with all the fervor of
his boyish nature, that his father’s life might be spared; yet he
determined to do his whole duty, if the prayer should not be granted.
VII
At the end of two weeks, Sigurd’s wife received a letter from her
brother, and it was better than she had dared to hope. Magnus wrote that
his wife was dead, his son was a student in Copenhagen, and he was all
alone in the big house at Rejkiavik. He was ready to give Jon a home,
even to take herself and her husband, provided the latter could sell his
farm to good advantage and find some employment which would add to his
means. “He must neither live an idle life nor depend on my help,” Magnus
said; and his sister felt that he was right, although he told the truth
in rather a hard, unfriendly way.
She read the letter to Sigurd the next morning, as he was lying very
weak and quiet, but in his right mind. His eyes slowly brightened, and
he murmured, at last, with difficulty:
“Sell the farm to Thorsten, for his eldest son, and go to Magnus. Jon
will take my place.”
Jon, who had entered the room in time to hear these words, sat down on
the bed and held his father’s hand in both his own. The latter smiled
faintly, opened his lips to speak again, and then a sudden quivering
passed over his face, and he lay strangely still. It was a long time
before the widow and children could believe he was dead. They said to
each other, over and over again, amid their tears: “He was happy; the
trouble for our sakes was taken away from his heart;”—and Jon thought to
himself: “If I do my best, as I promised, he will be still happier in
heaven.”
When Sigurd’s death was known, the neighbors came and helped them until
the funeral was over, and the sad little household resumed, as far as
possible, its former way of life. Thorsten, a rich farmer of Kyrkedal,
whose son was to be married in the spring, came, a few weeks later, to
make an offer for the farm. No doubt he hoped to get it at a low price;
for money has a greater value in Iceland, where there is so little of
it. But the widow said at once, “I shall make no bargain unless Jon
agrees with me;” and then Jon spoke up, looking a great deal more like a
full-grown, honest man than he supposed:
“We only want the fair value of the farm, neighbor Thorsten. We want it
because we need it, and everybody will say it is just and right that we
should have it. If we cannot get that, I shall try to go on and do my
father’s work. I am only a boy now, but I shall get bigger and stronger
every year.”
“Thy father could not have spoken better words,” said Thorsten.
He made what he considered a fair offer, and it was very nearly as much
as Jon and his mother had reckoned upon; the latter, however, insisted
on waiting until she had consulted with her brother Magnus.
Not many days after that, Magnus himself arrived at the farm. He was a
tall man, with dark hair, large gray eyes, a thin, hard mouth, and an
important, commanding air. It was a little hard for Jon to say “uncle”
to this man, whom he had never seen, and of whom he had heard so little.
Magnus, although stern, was not unfriendly, and when he had heard of all
that had been said and done, he nodded his head and said:
“Very prudent; very well, so far!”
It was, perhaps, as well that the final settlement of affairs was left
to Uncle Magnus, for he not only obtained an honest price for the farm,
but sold the ponies, cows, and sheep to much better advantage than the
family could have done. He had them driven to Kyrkedal, and sent
messengers to Skalholt and Myrdal, and even to Thingvalla, so that quite
a number of farmers came together, and they had dinner in the church.
Some of the women and children also came, to say “good-bye” to the
family; but when the former whispered to Jon, “You’ll come back to us
some day, as a pastor or a _skald_” (author), Magnus frowned and shook
his head.
“The boy is in a fair way to make an honest, sensible man,” he said.
“Don’t you spoil him with your nonsense!”
When they all set out together for Rejkiavik, Jon reproached himself for
feeling so light-hearted, while his mother and Gudrid wept for miles of
the way. He was going to see a real town, to enter school, to begin a
new and wonderful life; and just beyond Kyrkedal there came the first
strange sight. They rode over the grassy plain toward the Geysers, the
white steam of which they had often seen in the distance; but now, as
they drew near a gray cone, which rose at the foot of the hill on the
west, a violent thumping began in the earth under their feet. “He is
going to spout!” cried the guide, and he had hardly spoken when the
basin in the top of the cone boiled over furiously, throwing huge
volumes of steam into the air. Then there was a sudden, terrible jar,
and a pillar of water, six feet in diameter, shot up to the height of
nearly a hundred feet, sparkling like liquid gold in the low, pale,
sunshine. It rose again and again, until the subterranean force was
exhausted; then the water fell back into the basin with a dull sound,
and all was over.
They could think or talk of nothing else for a time, and when they once
more looked about them the landscape had changed. All was new to the
children, and only dimly remembered by their mother. The days were very
short and dark, for winter was fast coming on; it was often difficult to
make the distance from one farmhouse to another, and they twice slept in
the little churches, which are always hospitably opened for travellers
because there are no inns in Iceland. After leaving the valley, they had
a bitterly cold and stormy journey over a high field of lava, where
little piles of stones, a few yards apart, are erected to guide the
traveller. Beyond this, they crossed the Raven’s Cleft, a deep, narrow
chasm, with a natural bridge in one place, where the rocks have fallen
together from either side; then, at the bottom of the last slope of the
lava-plains, they entered the Thingvalla Forest.
Jon was a little disappointed; still he had never seen anything like it.
There were willow and birch bushes, three or four feet high, growing
here and there out of the cracks among the rocks. He could look over the
tops of them from his pony, as he rode along, and the largest trunk was
only big enough to make a club. But there is no other “forest” in
Iceland; and the people must have something to represent a forest, or
they would have no use for the word!
It was fast growing dark when they reached Thingvalla, and the great,
shattered walls of rock which inclose the valley appeared much loftier
than by day. On the right, a glimmering waterfall plunged from the top
of the cliff, and its roar filled the air. Magnus pointed out, on the
left, the famous “Hill of the Law,” where for nearly nine hundred years
the people of Iceland had assembled together to discuss their political
matters. Jon knew all about the spot, from the many historical legends
and poems he had read, and there was scarcely another place in the whole
world which he could have had greater interest in seeing. The next
morning, when it was barely light enough to travel, they rode up a kind
of rocky ladder, through a great fissure called the _Almannagjá_, or
“People’s Chasm,” and then pushed on more rapidly across the barren
table-land. It was still forty miles to Rejkiavik,—a good two days’
journey at that season,—and the snows, which already covered the
mountains, were beginning to fall on the lower country.
On the afternoon of the second day, after they had crossed the Salmon
River, Magnus said:
“In an hour we shall see the town!”
But the first thing that came in sight was only a stone tower or beacon,
which the students had built upon a hill.
“Is that a town?” asked Gudrid; whereupon the others laughed heartily.
Jon discreetly kept silent, and waited until they had reached the foot
of the beacon, when—all at once—Rejkiavik lay below them. Its two or
three hundred houses stretched for half a mile over a belt of land
between the sea and a large lake. There was the prison, built all of cut
stone; the old wooden cathedral, with its square spire; the large,
snow-white governor’s house, and the long row of stores and warehouses,
fronting the harbor—all visible at once! To a boy who had never before
seen a comfortable dwelling, nor more than five houses near together,
the little town was a grand, magnificent capital. Each house they passed
was a new surprise to him; the doors, windows, chimneys, and roofs were
all so different, so large and fine. And there were more people in the
streets than he had ever before seen together.
At last Magnus stopped before one of the handsomest dwellings, and
helped his sister down from her pony. The door opened, and an old
servant came forth. Jon and Gudrid, hand in hand, followed them into a
room which seemed to them larger and handsomer than the church at
Kyrkedal, with still other rooms opening out of it, with wonderful
chairs, and pictures, and carpets upon which they were afraid to walk.
This was their new home.
VIII
Even before their arrival, Jon discovered that his Uncle Magnus was a
man who said little, but took good notice of what others did. The way to
gain his favor, therefore, was to accept and discharge the duties of the
new life as they should arise. Having adopted the resolution to do this,
it was surprising how soon these duties became familiar and easy. He
entered the school, where he was by no means the lowest or least
promising scholar, assisted his mother and Gudrid wherever it was
possible, and was so careful a messenger that Magnus by degrees
intrusted him with matters of some importance. The household, in a
little while, became well-ordered and harmonious, and although it lacked
the freedom and homelike feeling of the lonely farm on the Thiörvǎ, all
were contented and happy.
Jon had a great deal to learn, but his eagerness helped him. His memory
was naturally excellent, and he had been obliged to exercise it so
constantly—having so few books, and those mostly his own written
copies—that he was able to repeat, correctly, large portions of the
native _sagas_, or poetical histories. He was so well advanced in Latin
that the continuance of the study became simply a delight; he learned
Danish, almost without an effort, from his uncle’s commercial partner
and the Danish clerk in the warehouse; and he took up the study of
English with a zeal that was heightened by his memories of Mr. Lorne.
We cannot follow him, step by step, during this period, although many
things in his life might instruct and encourage other earnest,
struggling boys. It is enough to say that he was always patient and
cheerful, always grateful for his opportunity of education, and never
neglectful of his proper duties to his uncle, mother, and sister.
Sometimes, it is true, he was called upon to give up hours of sport,
days of recreation, desires which were right in themselves but could not
be gratified,—and it might have gone harder with him to do so, if he had
not constantly thought: “How would my father have acted in such a case?”
And had he not promised to take the place of his father?
So three years passed away. Jon was eighteen, and had his full stature.
He was strong and healthy, and almost handsome; and he had seen so much
of the many strangers who every summer come to Rejkiavik—French
fishermen, Spanish and German sailors, English travellers and Danish
traders—that all his old shyness had disappeared. He was able to look
any man in the eyes, and ask or answer a question.
It was the beginning of summer, and the school had just closed. Jon had
been assisting the Danish clerk in the warehouse; but toward noon, when
they had an idle hour, a sailor announced that there was a new arrival
in the harbor; so he walked down the beach of sharp lava-sand to the
wooden jetty where strangers landed. A little distance off shore a yacht
was moored; the English flag was flying at the stern, and a boat was
already pulling toward the landing-place. Jon rubbed his eyes, to be
sure that he saw clearly; but no! the figure remained the same; and now,
as the stranger leaped ashore, he could no longer contain himself. He
rushed across the beach, threw his arms around the man, and cried out,
“Lorne! Lorne!”
The latter was too astonished to recognize him immediately.
“Don’t you know me?” Jon asked; and then, half laughing, half crying,
said in Latin, “To-day is better than yesterday.”
“Why, can this be my little guide?” exclaimed Mr. Lorne. “But to be sure
it is! There are no such wise eyes in so young a head anywhere else in
the world.”
Before night the traveller was installed in the guest-room in Uncle
Magnus’s house; and then they truly found that he had not forgotten
them. After supper he opened a box, and out there came a silver watch
for Jon; a necklace, that could not be told from real pearls, for
Gudrid; and what a shawl for the mother! Even Uncle Magnus was touched,
for he brought up a very old, dusty bottle of Portugal wine, which he
had never been known to do before, except one day when the Governor came
to see him.
“And now,” said Mr. Lorne, when he was a little tired of being thanked
so much, “I want something in return. I am going, by way of the Broad
Fiord, to the northern shore of Iceland, and back through the desert;
and I shall not feel safe unless Jon goes with me.”
“Oh!” cried Jon.
“I am not afraid this time,” said Gudrid.
Magnus looked at his sister, and then nodded. “Take the boy!” he said.
“He can get back before school commences again; and we are as ready to
trust him with you as you are to trust yourself with him.”
What a journey that was! They had plenty of ponies, and a tent, and
provisions in tin cans. Sometimes it rained or snowed, and they were wet
and chilly enough at the end of the day, but then the sun shone again,
and the black mountains became purple and violet and their snows and
ice-fields sparkled in the blue of the air. They saw many a wild and
desolate landscape, but also many a soft green plain and hay-meadow
along the inlets of the northern shore; and in the little town of
Akureyri Jon at last found a tree—the only tree in Iceland! It is a
mountain-ash, about twenty feet high, and the people are so proud of it
that every autumn they wrap the trunk and boughs, and even the smallest
twigs, in woollen cloth, lest the severity of the winter should kill it.
They visited the _Myvatn_ (Mosquito Lake) in the northeastern part of
the island, saw the volcanoes which in 1875 occasioned such terrible
devastation, and then crossed the great central desert to the valley of
the Thiörvǎ. So it happened that Jon saw Gudridsdale again, but under
pleasanter aspects than before, for it was a calm, sunny day when they
reached the edge of the table-land and descended into the lovely green
valley. It gave him a feeling of pain to find strangers in his father’s
house, and perhaps Mr. Lorne suspected this, for he did not stop at the
farm, but pushed on to Kyrkedal, where the good old pastor entertained
them both as welcome guests. At the end of six weeks they were back in
Rejkiavik, hale and ruddy after their rough journey, and closer friends
than ever.
Each brought back his own gain—Mr. Lorne was able to speak Icelandic
tolerably well, and Jon was quite proficient in English. The former had
made the trip to Iceland especially to collect old historical legends
and acquire new information concerning them. To his great surprise, he
found Jon so familiar with the subject, that, during the journey, he
conceived the idea of taking him to Scotland for a year, as an assistant
in his studies; but he said nothing of this until after their return.
Then, first, he proposed the plan to Magnus and Jon’s mother, and
prudently gave them time to consider it. It was hard for both to
consent, but the advantages were too evident to be rejected. To Jon,
when he heard it, it seemed simply impossible; yet the preparations went
on,—his mother and Gudrid wept as they helped, Uncle Magnus looked
grave,—and at last the morning came when he had to say farewell.