"There!" said Anna. "That's fair--nothing could be fairer than that, Magnus. Come, now, you must shake hands with Oscar."
She put her hand on Magnus's arm, but he did not move.
"Magnus," she said, "your mother's love may be all that is left to you now, but it will last long, my son. You need not give it up to any one, and no one can take it away. After all a mother's love is best. It will cling to you and comfort you whatever you do and whatever the world may do to you. Magnus, you must make friends with your brother--for your mother's sake, Magnus----"
Magnus turned about and saw Oscar before him with broken face and outstretched hand. Then his own hand swung out, drew back, swung out again, and at the next moment the big, burly fellow had flung his arms about Oscar's neck and was sobbing over him like a child.
Two minutes later Magnus was on his way home, cracking his long whip over Golden Mane's flying head and whooping and galloping like a madman.
PART IV
"For some we loved, the loveliest and the best
That from his vintage rolling time hath prest,
Have drunk their cup a round or two before,
And one by one crept silently to rest."
I
The day of the Proclamation of the Laws was to be kept as a general holiday. A hundred pack horses, carrying tents and provisions, had left the little capital for Thingvellir the day before. The Danish man-of-war anchored in the fiord had lent half its flags and the Order of Good Templars had sent all their insignia. It was to be a great and gorgeous spectacle.
Before daybreak the town was astir, and elderly people on slow ponies were setting out on their journey. Everybody was on horseback, for the way was long and Iceland had few roads and no coaches. Soon after dawn the Governor started off in his cocked hat, and with his Inverness belted over the bright gold of his official uniform. Factor Neilsen rode beside him, and the Bishop, the Chief Justice and most of the Thingmen followed in his train. The idea of reviving a great ceremony of ancient days, and clasping hands with the mighty dead over a gulf of a thousand years, had taken hold of everybody's imagination.