A DISCONSOLATE LOVER.
To resume the thread of our narrative. Taking it up where it was
dropped some chapters back, I must first recall the day and the
situation.
Our lunch was spread under the ample shelter of a tent, which
screened us from the rays of the sun, and formed a no bad substitute
for the protecting trees under which our picnics are enjoyed in other
lands. There seemed to be but one drawback to complete enjoyment. The
noonday heat rose above 70°, and started great quantities of small
flies and mosquitoes. From these pestiferous insects we thought we
surely had escaped when we came to Greenland. But no! this was not
to be. They attacked us in perfect clouds during the afternoon, and
before I had quite completed my survey most of the party had betaken
themselves to the oomiak, and hauled out into the middle of the fiord
to escape their assaults. But the day was then well spent, and the
pleasure-seekers had by this time enough of sport to satisfy them.
All had enjoyed the day, Marcus alone excepted. That youth could
never restrain his mortification at the havoc he at heart believed
the Prince was making with his matrimonial prospects. For that young
gentleman persistently devoted himself to the lively Concordia,
despite the heat and mosquitoes, while she, in grateful appreciation
of his attentions, wove wreaths of wild flowers for his cap, sung
for him in irreproachable Esquimaux, and performed other coquettish
acts of that kind with which recognized lovers are not unfrequently
tantalized in other places than Greenland.
[Illustration: CONCORDIA AT THE PICNIC.]
Whether Marcus would sensibly have staid at home, had he not been
ordered to go by the pastor, I can not pretend to say; but having
gone, he was certainly deserving (or at least he evidently thought
so, like any other lover would have done) of better treatment from
his inamorata; and, to look at him, you would have thought so too,
for he was really a fine-looking fellow—at least for a half-breed.
The stolid mask of the Esquimaux did not suit his frank, open face at
all, and it was quite impossible for him to show himself at ease when
he was not. Whether the Prince discovered the disturbed state of his
feelings is not certain, but it is certain that he did not treat the
matter with much attention. He never allowed Marcus to approach the
object of his devotion to speak with her except once, and then Marcus
was overheard to reproach her with flirting with the American—an
opinion which was very generally entertained. The lively young lady
of the seal-skin pantaloons grew indignant, declaring very pointedly
that it was none of his business what she did with the American.
Quite taken aback, the young man began to remonstrate with her,
evidently under the impression that the Prince had already installed
himself deep in the affections which, until this most unhappy day, he
thought he had possessed all to himself. Then he began to institute
comparisons between himself and the Prince. “Look at him,” exclaimed
the much-injured lover, “with his pockets full of beads and jewelry!
Look at him there, with his pop-gun of a rifle! Do you imagine he
could shoot a seal? No, never! And if he did, could he get it home?
No! Can he go in the fleet kayak? Can he climb the cliffs of the
kittiwake, or gather the eggs of the lumme? Can he dart the spear
at the eider-duck? Can he scale the mountain-sides in pursuit of
the reindeer? Look at his pale face, and answer me!” and by this
time fairly boiling over with rage and vexation as he recounted
the Prince’s negative qualifications, he exclaimed, “No! he can do
none of these things. He is good for nothing!” Then he straightened
himself and said, with great self-complacency, “Look at me!”
“I don’t want to,” said the girl; “I won’t!” which terminated the
colloquy, for the Prince himself came up at that very moment, and,
addressing himself to the indignant lover, desired to know if his
mother was intimately acquainted with his whereabouts—an inquiry
which might have resulted in serious consequences had the lover
understood even so much as a word of it. Without wasting much time,
however, upon the injured youth, the Prince called for the music
(the boy who steered our oomiak had brought up a cracked fiddle),
and then, seizing Concordia by the waist, he whirled her through the
old Norseman’s grave-yard in a fantastic waltz that must have made
the very bones of the dead heroes fairly rattle again. Could those
ancient priests, with the bishops at their head, have arisen then and
there, they would doubtless have anathematized the whole party on the
spot; for others were not slow to follow, and the dance did not wind
up until they had gone through with several hornpipes and Greenland
reels of a kind, I dare avow, never dreamed of by Terpsichore.
Meanwhile Marcus, leaning against the old church wall, looked on in a
most disconsolate and defiant manner, with his fists thrust far down
into his pockets, as if that were the only safe place for them.
Whatever may have been Marcus’s recollections of the day, certainly
all the rest of the party had a thoroughly good time of it. The day,
however, lost something of its romantic character when the shades
of evening began to trail over us, and the sun going down behind
the distant glacier-crowned hills left the chilliness of evening to
succeed the warmth of noon, as fatigue succeeded to the freshness of
the morning.
When, therefore, we had completed our survey of the spot, we were
a much more orderly party than we had been previously; and, when
once more afloat in our oomiak, we went about from place to place in
the fiord, visiting other ruins, with a solemnity more befitting
explorers. The jealous Marcus had not now so much cause of complaint
against the Prince, yet he did not recover his liveliness of
disposition. He paddled along at his post of duty, looking neither
to the right nor to the left, saying never a word, but evidently
thinking very hard.
As he appeared to be of a very simple and gentle nature, I could but
sympathize with him in his present trouble. There could be no doubt
that he looked upon his hopes of happiness as forever gone. He had
discovered his lady-love to be mercenary—her mind carried away by the
Prince’s lavish expenditure of beads, ribbons, and jewelry; and all
this for a young foreigner with a fair face, who could neither shoot
a seal, nor go in a kayak, nor cast a spear! It was altogether most
unaccountable. He seemed to be all the time, and naturally enough,
comparing himself with his rival, to the great disparagement, of
course, of the said rival, else he would not have been a lover, and
with great wonderment as to what she possibly could see to admire in
the other man. That Concordia meant to run off to America, Marcus
evidently did not have a doubt, and his face seemed to indicate
at times that he was capable of any deed of desperation in order
to prevent so dire a catastrophe. Should he spear him, or put a
bullet through him, or any thing of that sort? Especially did his
countenance assume a malignant expression when, upon the homeward
journey, the coquette would break out with her favorite song, the
chorus of which was, “Tesseinowah, tesseinowah,” repeated over and
over again. At this the Prince always manifested great delight, while
Marcus grew correspondingly gloomy.
When we had at length reached Julianashaab, and had thanked the good
pastor, to whom we were so much indebted, and had said “good-night”
to our oarswomen, I took the unhappy Marcus aside to condole with
him. “Are you not,” said I, “son of the head man of Bungetak?”
“Ab,” said Marcus, and I thought a glow of satisfaction overspread
his features at being reminded of his superior parentage.
“Concordia is very pretty,” I continued.
“Ab!” said Marcus again, his countenance falling at the recollection
of his previous hopes and present discomfiture.
I asked him, “Do you know what pretty girls do in my country?”
“Na-mik” (no), he answered, his countenance falling still more at the
further mention of the pretty girl that he had lost.
“When the pretty girl has the chance, she always marries the son of
the head man,” said I.
Then his countenance assumed a joyous expression, and he went his way
with a smile, which said plainly that, if he thought it was not much
to be Marcus, it was good to be the son of the head man of Bungetak.