Complete works of hall c.., p.419
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 419
“I’ll come again before I leave the country,” he said at the last moment, “and then perhaps I’ll have something to say to you.”
When the Factor returned to the sitting-room, looking like the same grey rock but with clouds enveloping it, Aunt Margret, who had scarcely moved, said in the frightened voice of one who has seen a ghost —
“Do you know who that was?”
“What do you mean?”
“That was Oscar Stephensson.”
“Margret Neilsen, you are mad. Oscar Stephensson is dead.”
“Then he has come to life again. That is Oscar Stephensson as sure as I’m a living woman!”
VII
CHRISTIAN CHRISTIANSSON left the Factor’s house glowing with excitement. Oh, for the hour when he could lay aside the armour of duplicity! When he could say to his own people, “I am Oscar Stephensson. Let the world think me Christian Christiansson, but you at least must know me for who I am.”
It was necessary and inevitable that he should reveal himself to his own family. How else could he carry out the plan he had formed of buying the farm at the auction to-morrow morning and giving it back to his brother? And how, except by right of blood, by right of parentage, could he claim the child and take her away with him when he returned to England?
In this mood he went back to Government House and announced his intention of going on to Thingvellir.
“Thingvellir!” said the Minister. “It’s only natural, sir, that you should wish to see our great historic meeting-place, the scene of so many of our Sagas. But why go there to-day? It isn’t every day the old town is alive, but this is the last of the year, you know, and before midnight we shall have many interesting ceremonies. Why not stay until to-morrow, and then I shall be happy to go with you?”
“I have a particular reason for wishing to go to-day,” said Christian Christiansson.
“That’s a pity, and our townspeople will be woefully disappointed. To tell you the truth, I’ve done nothing all morning but receive deputations asking me to offer you a public banquet. Every class of the community is excited, and the students are talking of a torchlight procession.”
“That settles it, Mr. Finsen. I must go now in any case.”
“You are too modest, Mr. Christiansson. But perhaps you don’t know the way. And then look at the clouds — a snowstorm is coming.”
“I know every inch of the way, and the snowstorm, if it is not too heavy, will only add to my pleasure.”
“If it is not too heavy! Believe me, there’s nothing in the world more miserable than being caught in a blinding snowstorm on the Moss Fell Heath. But if you must you must, sir, and if you have a particular reason for going it is not for me to keep you back.” —
“It is late, Mr. Finsen, and the days are short — I must get off immediately.”
“I’ll send for ponies without delay, sir. You’ll want two — one for yourself, the other for your pony-boy. You’ll be back in a few days, I trust, so you’ll leave your baggage behind you.” The pony-boy with the ponies came round at noon, and by that time, the report of Christiansson’s departure having passed through the town, a number of the townspeople had gathered at the gate to see him off. Among them were Palsson the banker, Oddsson the merchant, Zimsen the captain, Jonsson the chairman of the Town Board, and (most surprising of all) the Factor.
There was a tingling atmosphere of unsatisfied curiosity in the little crowd, for rumour of the two hundred thousand crowns had passed from lip to lip, and people were asking who the stranger was, who his father had been, and what he could want with so much money. When Christian Christiansson in his long blue ulster and close-fitting fur cap came out of the house, and parted from his host and hostess at the porch, he seemed to be in high spirits, for he saluted everybody at the gate, and mentioned most of the company by name.
This intensified the curiosity, and amid a running fire of chaff and laughter, the bolder ones began to probe with questions.
“You’ll put up at the Inn-farm to-night, Mr Christiansson?”
“No doubt, Mr. Jonsson, no doubt.”
“But there’s to be an auction there in the morning, you know — I say there’s to be an auction in the morning, so you’ll be turned out to-morrow.”
“Unless,” said the captain, with a wink in his weather eye, “unless Mr. Christiansson buys up the old place and turns farmer and innkeeper.”
“And why not, Captain Zimsen, why not?”
“Hard work early and late, sir.”
“Well, no man ever won the day by snoring.”
Christian Christiansson had swung to the saddle, when the Factor came up to him with his rheumy eyes shining, and said —
“Don’t be surprised if I follow you to Thingvellir. Life is short, and before I die I have something to say to Magnus Stephensson.”
“We talked of him on the ship, sir, didn’t we — him and his rascally young brother?” said the merchant.
“We did,” said Christian Christiansson, and then at the last moment, the pony-boy being mounted, and everything ready, a spirit of recklessness came over him, and he added, “But you made one mistake, Mr. Oddsson.”
“And what was that, Mr. Christiansson?”
“You said Oscar Stephensson had never done anything in his life, except putting an end to it, but he did one thing once, I remember. He stood for parliament when I was at home, and gave a dreadful drubbing to the dunderhead who opposed him. Good-bye!”
When he was gone it was the same as if a spell had been broken. Something in his last word, something in his laugh, and something in the lifting of his cap as he cantered up the road, had struck a vague consciousness of his identity into the gossips at the gate. For a moment they stared into each other’s face in blank bewilderment and then the merchant said —
“Who the deuce can he be then?”
“Shall I tell you who my sister says he is?” said the Factor.
“Who?”
“Oscar Stephensson himself.”
It fell in their midst like a thunderbolt.
“Well, that would explain something, — I say that would explain something,” said the banker, and he told the story of Magnus Stephensson’s interest.
Within half-an-hour the word had gone through the town with the rush and rattle of the holme wind. Christian Christiansson was Oscar Stephensson! Almost in as many words he had said so himself, and there could not be a doubt about it!
That night at the Artisans’ Institute there were a hundred stories of Oscar Stephensson. Some of them were good, and they were told with tears; but some were bad, yet they were received with peals of laughter. In the smoking-room of the hotel the students sang Oscar’s songs until the lamps went out, and then they bellowed them through the darkness in a dozen different keys, while the windows rattled with the vibration of their lusty voices.
Meantime a group of sedater citizens had taken their surmise to the Minister, and he had said with his sly smile —
“We cannot uncover his nakedness, you know, but we can go on with the arrangements for the banquet, and so tempt him to reveal himself.”
They went on with them immediately. The banquet was to be at the Templars’ Hall the night after the stranger’s return to Reykjavik. The Minister was to propose, “Christian Christiansson, Iceland’s favourite son and heir!” Then the students were to sing Oscar Stephensson’s patriotic hymn, “Isafold! my Isafold! great land of frost and fire.” And after the guest had spoken the cathedral choir were to give Christian Christiansson’s stirring anthem, “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, who shall rise up in His holy place? Even he who has clean hands and a pure heart, and hath not lifted up his mind with vanity!”
Everything else was forgotten! The odium attaching for ten years to Oscar Stephensson’s name was gone! The dishonour which Death itself could not kill had disappeared before the blinding light of genius, the glittering shrine of success!
VIII
MEANTIME the man himself was on his way to Thingvellir. The clouds might be low, but his heart was high; the sea might break on the black beach with a monotonous moan, but his whole being sang a song of hope. A wild activity of thoughts, imagination, feelings, and impulses possessed him, and for the first time since he returned to Iceland he was entirely happy.
God had permitted him to come in time to save his people from being made houseless and homeless! He had sinned and he had suffered, but the sacred duty of atonement was not to be denied him! The Inn-farm, which had been mortgaged to save him from the grip of the law, was to be given back unburdened to his brother! Two hundred thousand crowns were in his breast pocket, and they were to buy the old place at the auction to-morrow morning!
As he cantered up the road that led out of the town his soul careered like a leaf in autumn under a bottom wind of hope and joy. He saw himself arriving at the farm in the dusk of the evening and meeting his mother and Magnus and his daughter Elin. He heard himself saying, “Mother, don’t you know me? I am Oscar, and I have come back to make amends.” And next day, when the auction would be over, the Sheriff gone and everybody crying for happiness, he saw himself taking Elin between his knees — Elin with the eyes of Thora, yet with his own face looking at him as in a glass — and saying, “You are to come with me now, my dearest, and if you have gone short of anything as a child I will make it up to you as a woman!”
The pony-boy caught the contagion of his high spirits, and as they cantered along he sang snatches of the Elf-song:
“Dance by night and dance by day,
Life and time will pass away,
Love alone will last alway.”
He was a tall lad of eighteen who must have resembled his mother, for he had the pink and white face of a girl. They had passed the hot springs and the Ellida river and risen to the heights of the first hill on their journey before the sunshine of the boy’s spirits began to be overcast. Then as they rested their ponies and tightened the girths, he said in a frightened whisper —
“Do you hear it, sir?”
“Hear what?” said Christian Christiansson.
“The Peak,” said the boy, pointing to a rock of rugged outline that stood on the topmost line of the mountain to their right, with a dark cloud, that was like a great monster of the air, poised above it.
“What about it, my boy?”
“The storm and the Peak are friends, sir, for they always talk together before the wind comes down. When people hear them talking they tremble, because they know the storm is coming.”
“Let us get on then,” said Christian Christiansson.
In half-an-hour they had come to the bleak and barren country of the Red Hill, the Red Lake, and the Deep Tarn with its dark waters and gloomy shore, and by that time the great cloud which had been poised above the Peak was broken into many parts, and each part seemed to be fighting the others in the sky, for there were volleys of sound like thunder.
“Hadn’t we better stop at the farm at Middale, sir?” said the boy.
But Christian Christiansson thought of his mother, of Magnus, of Elin, and of the auction to-morrow morning, and he determined to push on.
They were on the edge of the Moss Fell Heath when the snow began to fall. It fell at first in big flakes like dead butterflies, for there was yet no wind on the ground, although the clouds were still scurrying across the sky and the noise overhead was deafening.
Christian Christiansson remembered what the Minister had said, that of all the miseries of life the worst was to be caught in a snowstorm on this desolate moor, and for one moment he asked himself if he ought not to go back to Middale and wait there until the storm had passed. But at the next instant he told himself that the devilish powers which had dogged his steps since he landed in Iceland were trying to keep him back from the good work he meant to do, so he must go on in any case.
“You’re not afraid, my lad?”
“Not to say afraid,” faltered the boy.
“Let us gallop then.”
The Heath itself when they came to it was a white wilderness within the embracement of black rocks and mountains. They were only able to find the road by following the beacons, which were like white-headed sentinels in single file, with their backs to the storm, going on and on over the wide waste.
The sense of desolation was appalling, and a voice seemed to say, “Go back while there is time to do so.” But again Christian Christiansson thought of his mother, of Magnus, of Elin, and of the auction to-morrow morning, and he urged his horse through the deepening snow.
They had not gone much farther when the wind came down and hurled itself in their faces. The snowflakes were pelted and slung at them like splinters of flint. It seemed as if every flake would cut through their skin. Then the cold became intense. Ice gathered over their eyes, and at every other minute they had to stop to break it away.
Finally the darkness descended upon them, the deadly, implacable darkness of the wind and snow. A wild torrent of whirling snowflakes swept over the moor and concealed them from each other. It became so dark that they could only see a few yards on either side, and they had to cry out at intervals in order to keep together.
They were now in the mighty grip of the storm and could no longer think of going back. The wind hissed and howled and wept; the snow pelted and cut. There was no shelter of rock or tree or bush on any side; there was nothing about or above them but the wide wilderness and the thickening darkness.
Christian Christiansson was sorry for the boy, but thus far his own spirits had risen with every fresh phase of the tempest. He had a sense of fighting a fierce duel with the elements. At the other end of his journey were his mother and Magnus and Elin, and if he could reach them before morning he would be able to succour and save them. It was a race as for life, for the lives of his nearest and dearest, against the wild wantonness of elemental powers. Nature herself, with more than her usual heartlessness towards man, was at devilish war with his effort to save his people. But he would conquer her! Let it snow or blow or hail or thunder, he would reach home in time for the auction!
The ponies were the first to fail. The one that Christian Christiansson rode was a strong mare of mature age, but the boy’s was a young one, newly broken, and it seemed to be suffocating in the snow and the wind. After a time it turned its head from the storm and refused to go forward, and then the boy had to alight and walk in front of it and tug it along by the bridle. In a little while it stopped altogether and slid down on its side, and could with difficulty be raised to its feet again.
“He’s only four, and this is his first journey,” said the boy in a whimpering tone, as he laid the lash on the pony’s back.
Then the boy himself began to give in. He wore bag gloves (with two thumbs but no fingers), and in tugging at the bridle he lost one of them. As a consequence his bare hand got frost-bitten and was soon quite powerless. In walking before the horse his clothes had frozen stiff, and he was hardly able to put one foot before another. His voice became weaker and his speech more broken, and when his companion called back to him he could scarcely send forward his reply. At last in a faint voice he cried —
“Come and fetch me, sir — I have no strength left.”
A little later he became delirious, talked of his mother, and tried to strip off his clothes as if he were going to bed.
Christian Christiansson experienced deep anguish of mind at the thought of the sufferings he had inflicted upon the lad, but he lifted him to the saddle with his back to the horse’s head, and comforted him as well as he could in his awful situation.
“Courage, my boy, courage! The House of Rest cannot be far off. We’ll shelter there. The storm will pass.”
A vision of the little house of basaltic rocks, which he had entered with Helga, had been floating through his mind like a dream of the Calenture. How long it took him to get there and with what desperate exertions he never knew, but walking in front of the young pony and leading the mare beside him, he reached the little house at last.
As soon as they were under cover, the boy dropped to his ‘knees, and, with a gibbering accent, as if speaking through half-frozen lips, he began to repeat the Creed, “I believe in God the Father Almighty.” He thought he was saying his prayers.
The House of Rest was badly provided, but it had hay for the horses, and they began to munch it immediately. There was no lamp, and when the door was shut to keep out the driving snow, the place was in pitch darkness.
After a while the air became warm with the breath of the ponies, and the men’s clothes melted. This made them very cold, and they had to beat their arms under their armpits to keep their bodies from shivering and their teeth from chattering. Then the atmosphere grew hot, for the ponies began to sweat, and the boy stripped off his outer garments, and lay down with the young horse, boy and horse side by side, as if they had been human companions.
Christian Christiansson threw himself upon the wooden platform prepared for travellers, and listened to the storm outside. The wind was howling and hissing around the corners of the house, and he had the sense of the snow becoming deeper and deeper about it. If the storm continued the little place might be buried before long, and then it would be difficult or impossible to cut a way out.
His heart fell low. He began to feel appalled by the awfulness of his position. The devilish elements were beating him. He was only half-way on his journey,” and if he could not make the rest of it before morning, his mother and Magnus and little Elin would be homeless. Yet the storm showed no sign of abating; the ponies were spent, the boy was done, and it seemed impossible to go on.
Suddenly a new thought came to him and he raised himself and cried —
“My boy, my boy! do you know the road from Borg to Thingvellir?”
“Yes, sir,” said the boy’s drowsy voice in the darkness.
“What sort of road is it?”
