The Bondman: A New Saga

by Sir Hall Caine

III.

The lonely valley of Thingvellir was alive that morning with a great throng of people. They came from the west by the Chasm of All Men, from the east by the Chasm of Ravens, and from the south by the lake. Troop after troop flowed into the vast amphitheatre that lies between dark hills and great jokulls tipped with snow. They pitched their tents on the green patch, under the fells to the north, and tying their ponies together, head to tail, they turned them loose to graze. Hundreds of tents were there by early morning, gleaming white in the sunlight, and tens of hundreds of ponies, shaggy and unkempt, grubbed among the short grass that grew between.

Near the middle of the plain stood the Mount of Laws, a lava island of oval shape, surrounded by a narrow stream, and bounded by overhanging walls cut deep with fissures. Around this mount the people gathered. There friend met friend, foe met foe, rival met rival, northmen met southmen, the Westmann islander met the Grimsey islander, and the man from Seydisfiord met the man from Patriksfiord. And because Althing gathered only every other year, many musty kisses went round, with snuffboxes after them, among those who had not met before for two long years.

It was a vast assembly, chiefly of men, in their homespun and sheepskins and woollen stockings, cross-gartered with hemp from ankle to knee. Women, too, and young girls and children were there, all wearing their Sunday best. And in those first minutes of their meeting, before Althing began, the talk was of crops and stock, of the weather, and of what sheep had been lost in the last two hard winters. The day had opened brightly, with clear air and bright sunshine, but the blue sky had soon become overcast with threatening clouds, and this lead to stories of strange signs in the heavens, and unaccustomed noises on the earth and under it.

A man from the south spoke of rain of black dust as having fallen three nights before until the ground was covered deep with it. Another man, from the foot of Hekla, told of a shock of earthquake that had lately been felt there, travelling northeast to southwest. A third man spoke of grazing his horse on the wild oats of a glen that he had passed through, with a line of some twenty columns of smoke burst suddenly upon his view. All this seemed to pass from lip to lip in the twinkling of an eye, and when young men asked what the signs might mean, old men lifted both hands and shook their heads, and prayed that the visitations which their island had seen before might never come to it again.

Such was the talk, and such the mood of the people when the hour arrived for the business of Althing to begin, and then all eyes turned to the little wooden Thing House by the side of the church, wherein the Thing-men were wont to gather for their procession to the Mount of Laws. And when the hour passed, and the procession had not yet appeared, the whisper went around that the Governor had not arrived, and that the delay was meant to humor him. At that the people began to mutter among themselves, for the slumbering fire of their national spirit had been stirred. By his tardy coming the Governor meant to humiliate them! But, Governor or no Governor, let Althing begin its sitting. Who was the Governor that Althing should wait for him? What was Althing that it should submit to the whim or the will of any Governor?

Within the Thing House, as well as outside of it, such hot protests must have had sway, for presently the door of the little place was thrown open and the six and thirty Thing-men came out.

Then followed the solemn ceremonies that had been observed on the spot for nigh a thousand years. First walked the Chief Judge, carrying the sword of justice, and behind him walked his magistrates and Thing-men. They ascended to the Mount by a flight of steps cut out of its overhanging walls. At the same moment another procession, that of the old Bishop and his clergy, came out of the church and ascended to the Mount by a similar flight of steps cut out of the opposite side of it. The two companies parted, the Thing-men to the north and the clergy to the south, leaving the line of this natural causeway open and free, save for the Judge, who stood at the head of it, with the Bishop to the right of him and the Governor's empty place to the left.

And first the Bishop offered prayer for the sitting of Althing that was then to begin.