It was a beautiful confirmation service. The cathedral was full of women, but the Governor was with Anna in their pew in the gallery, and the Factor, who was alone, sat in his seat below. The children knelt in a line on the lower step of the communion rail, the girls in muslin frocks and veils, and the boys in black suits and white gloves. The morning was bright and warm, and the sun was shining from the chancel windows on to the five drooping heads as the old Bishop laid his hands on them one by one.
When the little ones had made their vows the Bishop delivered an address: "Be true, be strong, be faithful! Think of the covenant you have made with God, and resist temptation. If Satan tempts you with the treasures of this life, remember that wealth and power are only for a day, while a dishonored name is for a thousand years. Love one another, my children! No one knows how soon the world may separate you, or with what sorrow and tears you may yet be torn asunder, but keep together as long as you can, and may God love and bless you all!"
The service ended with the confirmation hymn, which the children sang by themselves. Anna, the Governor, and the Factor were deeply affected. Ah! the sweet and happy time of childhood! If the children could only remain children! But there was nothing to foretell the future--nothing to be seen there except five innocent boys and girls kneeling side by side, with their faces toward the altar--nothing to be heard but their silvery voices floating up over the heads of the congregation to the blue roof studded with stars.
IV
Soon after that the children were separated. Helga was the first to go. The Factor had become rich, and his wife, who had only been waiting until she could claim a separate maintenance, parted from her husband and went back to Denmark, taking their younger daughter with her. Helga, who was then fifteen years of age, was glad to go, but it was a condition of the separation that at twenty-one she should return to Iceland if her father wished her to do so, or forfeit all interest in his will.
Little Neils Finsen was the next to leave, for his father had married again, and his stepmother had persuaded the Sheriff that the boy had a genius for the violin, and ought to be sent to London.
Oscar remained a few winters longer, trying to find out the profession he wished to follow, and deciding sometimes in favor of the law, sometimes in favor of the church, but generally in favor of music (which was vetoed by everybody as a beggarly business), and being finally despatched to the care of the Governor's college friend at Oxford as a first stage toward an English degree and the pursuit of a public career in Iceland.
Thus it happened that within four years of their confirmation only two of the five children were left at home, and it had come to pass that these two--Magnus and Thora--were living under the same roof.
Magnus having failed at the Latin School, the Hector had concluded that it would be waste of time to keep him there any longer, and the Governor had decided to send him to the farm, when the Factor volunteered to take him as an apprentice in his business and to receive him into his house.
The Factor's house was greatly changed by this time, the place of his wife being taken by his sister, a shrewd little body with a kindly heart but a sharp tongue, which kept everybody in order and reduced everything to rule. Under Margret's régime Magnus began as one of four apprentices who ate at the same table with the master and his family, but saw no more of them than they could see at meals.