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.