LITMIR.BIZ

      "

      "Then to the rolling Heav'n itself I cried.

      Asking, 'What Lamp had Destiny to guide

      Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?'

      And--'A blind Understanding!' Heav'n replied."

      THE PRODIGAL SON

      PART I

      "The worldly hope men set their hearts upon

       Turns ashes--or it prospers; and anon

       Like Snow upon the desert's dusty face

      Lighting a little hour or two--is gone."

      I

      Iceland had never looked more wonderful. The stern old Northland, which in the daylight bears always and everywhere on its sphinx-like face the mutilating imprint of the burnt-out fires of ten thousand ages, and would seem to be dead but for the murmurings of volcanic life in its sulfurous womb, lay in the autumn moonlight like a great creature asleep--calm, august, and blue as the night.

      The moon was still shining, and everything seemed to swim in the soft grace of its silvery light, houses, ships, fishing-boats, the fiord in front, the lake behind, the black moorland around, and the snow-tipped mountains beyond--when the little wooden capital began to stir in the morning.

      It was the day appointed for the annual sheep-gathering at Thingvellir; the sheep-fold was thirty odd miles away; there were no railways or coaches, and few roads in Iceland, and hence the younger townspeople who intended to make a holiday of the event had to set out early on their little shaggy ponies.

      As the clock struck four in the tower of the cathedral Thora Neilsen, the daughter of Factor Neilsen, awoke with a start, and leapt out of bed. She had drawn up her blinds the night before so that the daylight might waken her in the morning, but before she realized that it was the moonlight that had been playing upon her eyelids she was standing in the middle of the floor and crying in the ringing voice of youth and happiness:

      "Aunt Margret! Auntie! I've overslept myself! I'll be late! Auntie! Auntie!"

      Then the measured and sonorous breathing which had been coming through an open door from the adjoining room was interrupted by an older voice, a good-natured voice trying to be angry, and saying drowsily:

      "Drat the girl, she'll waken the whole house."

      This was followed by the creaking of a bed and the thud of bare feet on the floor, accompanied by a running fire of grumbling, in which the speaker reminded herself that she was not a cat, capable of sleeping in the daytime, and if she had to be called up in the dead of night she might at least be permitted to wash her face.

      The girl listened for a moment and laughed--the light and joyous laugh of the soul that has never known sorrow. She was young and unusually fair. Her height was under rather than over the average height of woman, and if her face was not beautiful it produced the effect of beauty, being one of those soft-featured faces which have a smile always playing upon them, even when the owner does not know it to be there.

      She lit her candles, dropped her Venetians, and began to dress herself, humming a tune to show she was not concerned. By this time the rumbling artillery from the next apartment entered the room in the person of an elderly lady, who looked more than usually grotesque (if it is fair to take her at such a moment) in abbreviated underwear and small calico nightcap, with bobs of hair in papers about her forehead like barnacles on the figurehead of a ship that is fresh from a long service in foreign waters.

      This was Aunt Margret, with goodness written on every line of her old face, but with a tongue that fell like a fountain on sharp stones and knew nothing of dry weather. The moment she set eyes on Thora in the preliminary stages of her toilet she cried:

      "Silk? At this time in the morning? And who is to see them under your big boots, if you please?"

      The girl laughed at this, as she laughed at everything, and said: "Very well, give me the woollen ones then. But what a cross old thing you are, auntie. You knew I had to get up early, having a six hours' ride before me."

      "But who wants you to have a six hours' ride, I wonder?" said Aunt Margret, bustling about breathlessly to get the girl ready.

      "You know quite well who wants me, auntie--Magnus wants me. When they elected him mountain-king for the year I promised him faithfully that I would go to the sheep-gathering, and of course----"

      "Don't try to fool an old fox, my dear, but come and wash in this water. It isn't because Magnus wants you at the sheep-gathering, but because somebody else is going to take you there."

      "Auntie!" cried Thora, lifting a dripping face from the washbasin.

      "Oh, you needn't color up like fire, my precious--I know it's the truth without that."

      "How absurd you are, Aunt Margret! You know as well as I do that Magnus himself asked Oscar to take me. He wrote expressly from the farm, not having seen Oscar since he came from college, and wanting to kill two birds with one stone."

      "The more fool he!" said Aunt Margret. "The man who expects to marry a girl and asks another man to look after her while he is away is a fool, and his friends ought to take care of him. It's only the simpleton who shuts the door with a bang behind him like that."

      "What a nonsensical woman you are, auntie!" said Thora. "Oscar is Magnus's brother."

      "Brother, indeed! So was Jacob the brother of Esau, and Cain was the brother of Abel, and those ten big beauties were the brothers of Joseph and Benjamin."

      "Good gracious me, Aunt Margret, what a bad disposition you've got! That's the worst of you--you have got such a bad disposition. You talk of Oscar Stephenson as if he were a regular reprobate instead of the son of the Governor, and the idol of everybody."

      "It's easy to defend some one whom nobody wants to strike. I don't say anything against Oscar."

      "Of course, you don't, you cross old creature. You're fonder of him than anybody else, and I believe you want him for yourself, you jealous thing, because you think he is the brightest and cleverest and best-looking young man in Iceland."

      "Many things glitter in the goldsmith's shop, but a sensible woman doesn't want to grab the whole of them."

      "And do I, you silly?"

      "It looks as if you do, my dear; but sit down here before the glass and let me brush your hair. You are to be married to Magnus, and your public betrothal is to take place the day after to-morrow in the presence of both the families, yet you've had Oscar here every day, and all day, since he came home from England a week ago, and now you are going to ride with him to Thingvellir. You'll make mischief, I promise you. Two dogs at the same bone seldom agree."

      At that the girl was taken with a violent fit of

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