Being in the free air again he regained his self-control. "What madness! It is no murder," he thought. But he could not get back to his seat, and so he turned to where the crowd was thickest outside. That was down the line of the pathway to the wide west entrance. As he approached this point he saw that the people were in high commotion. He hurried up to them and inquired the cause. The bridal party had just passed through. At that moment the full swell of the organ came out through the open doors. The marriage service had begun.
After a while Jason had so far recovered his composure as to look about him. Deep as the year had sunk towards winter, the day was brilliant. The air was so bright that it seemed to ring. The sea in front of the town smiled under the sunlight; the broad stretch of lava behind it glistened, the glaciers in the distance sparkled, and the black jokulls far beyond showed their snowy domes against the blue sky. Oh, it was one of God's own mornings, when all His earth looks glad. And the Cathedral yard—for all it slept so full of dead men's bones—was that day a bright and busy place. Troops of happy girls were there in their jackets of gray, braided with gold or silver, and with belts of filigree; troops of young men, too, in their knee breeches, with bows of red ribbon, their dark-gray stockings and sealskin shoes; old men as well in their coats of homespun; and old women in their long blue cloaks; children in their plaited kirtles, and here and there a traveller with his leather wallet for his snuff and money. At the entrance gate there was a triumphal arch of ribbons and evergreens, and under its shadow there were six men with horns and guns, ready for a salute when the bride appeared; and in the street outside there was a stall laden with food and drink for all who should that day come and ask.
Only to Jason was the happy place a Gethsemane, and standing in the thick of the crowd, on a grave with a sunken roof, under the shadow of the Cathedral, he listened with a dull ear to the buzz of talk between two old gossips behind him. He noticed that they were women with prominent eyeballs, which produced a dreamy, serious, half-stupid, half-humorous look, like that of the dogs in the picture that sit in the judgment-seat.
"She's English," said one. "No, Irish. No, Manx—whatever that means. Anyway, she's foreign, and can't speak a word that anybody can understand. So Mother Helda says, and she's a worthy woman, you know, and cleans the floors at the Palace."
"But they say she's a sweet lady for all that," said the other; and just then a young student at their back pushed his laughing face between their shoulders and said,
"Who? Old Mother Helda?"
"Mother Helda be bothered. The lady. And her father has been wrecked in coming to her wedding, too! Poor old man, what a pity! The Governor sent my son Oscar with twenty of Loega's men to Stappen to look for me. That was a fortnight ago. I expect him back soon."
"They might have waited until he came. Why didn't they?"
"Oscar?" said the laughing face between them.
"The father, goose. Poor lady, how lonely she must feel! But then the old Bishop is so good to everybody."