Never before had Ormarr seen Iceland rising thus out of the sea; he had but a dim notion of the grandeur of the sight. Unconsciously, he had always thought of Iceland in the green of spring or summer, and had looked forward to seeing it so on his return. Being winter, of course, there would be snow. But he had never thought to see it all so white and clean and brilliant as now.
A vague joy filled him as he looked; he felt that his soul was come of the race of those great mountains, as of a line of kings.
Iceland—his country! Like a cathedral, a consecrated pile of granite, pure and holy in the seas of the far north. And the snow—how he loved it! And the rocks, the hills and valleys ... the brooks and streams, sleeping their winter sleep now, under the ice. And fire too, the marvellous, merciless fire, smouldering quietly in its lava bed, yet strong enough to melt the ice of a hundred years in less than a minute and hurl it in huge floods of boiling water and redhot rocks and lava down the mountain-side, through the valleys, out into the sea. What did it care for men, or their goods or their lives! All had to die. And better to die by fire or ice than on a bed of sickness. Far better to die young in some mighty upheaval than to drag palsied bones through a dreary wilderness of old age.
Ormarr smoothed his brow.
Why think of dying now? He was still young, and fit for action. Yet if Mother Iceland should think fit to crush him to his death in her embrace, well, he was ready. Well for him, perhaps, to find death on her icebound, fiery heart, if the road of life proved too wearisome.
Strange thoughts—was he mad, after all? He was thinking now as he had done so often when a child. But his dreams had changed. Then, Iceland had been the starting-point of his imaginings; it had been as a weight at his heel, keeping him in bondage, holding him back from all that he thought made life worth living. Now it was changed—now all his dreams turned towards it, centred round it—Iceland now was his home. Home? No, he had no home anywhere on earth. Yet he felt drawn towards it none the less; longing for his country....
But what was this—Iceland—hovering above him, looking down at him—would she no longer receive him? Was he her child no more? Had the world worn away the marks by which his mother had known him?
Foolishness—his brain was running wild. And yet—how was it with him, after all? Was it not true that he was unworthy of love—a failure, self-condemned?
Iceland, towering in shining armour, in glittering floes and spotless mantle of snow. And one coming to her from the outer world, with the dirt of alien countries on his feet, and the pain and weariness of the world in his heart. Her sacred places were no longer open to him now; closed, locked; the keys hidden far away, not there. Perhaps in the place whence he had come, perhaps far distant, on some other continent. Or hidden, maybe, on the other side of life.
Iceland! As he watched the land rise from the cold blue waves, he felt that he, who once had been her child, was no longer worthy to be so. He had sinned in coming back at all. And he vowed in his heart to set out once more in quest of the key that might unlock its holy places to him once more. Whatever happened, he must go away again. And if he could not find what he sought, then there could be no return. Only let him first breathe the air here for a little while, tread the soil that had been his father’s—men who had never shamed their native land.