Within half-an-hour the word had gone through the town with the rush and rattle of the holme wind. Christian Christiansson was Oscar Stephenson! Almost in as many words he had said so himself, and there could not be a doubt about it!
That night at the Artisans' Institute there were a hundred stories of Oscar Stephenson. Some of them were good, and they were told with tears; but some were bad, yet they were received with peals of laughter. In the smoking-room of the hotel the students sang Oscar's songs until the lamps went out, and then they bellowed them through the darkness in a dozen different keys, while the windows rattled with the vibration of their lusty voices.
Meantime a group of sedater citizens had taken their surmise to the Minister, and he had said with his shy smile:
"We cannot uncover his nakedness, you know, but we can go on with the arrangements for the banquet, and so tempt him to reveal himself."
They went on with them immediately. The banquet was to be at the Templars' Hall the night after the stranger's return to Reykjavik. The Minister was to propose, "Christian Christiansson, Iceland's favorite son and heir!" Then the students were to sing Oscar Stephenson's patriotic hymn, "Isafold! my Isafold! great land of frost and fire." And after the guest had spoken the cathedral choir were to give Christian Christiansson's stirring anthem, "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, who shall rise up in His holy place? Even he who has clean hands and a pure heart, and hath not lifted up his mind with vanity!"
Everything else was forgotten! The odium attaching for ten years to Oscar Stephenson's name was gone! The dishonor which Death itself could not kill had disappeared before the blinding light of genius, the glittering shrine of success!
VIII
Meantime the man himself was on his way to Thingvellir. The clouds might be low, but his heart was high; the sea might break on the black beach with a monotonous moan, but his whole being sang a song of hope. A wild activity of thoughts, imagination, feelings, and impulses possessed him, and for the first time since he returned to Iceland he was entirely happy.
God had permitted him to come in time to save his people from being made houseless and homeless! He had sinned and he had suffered, but the sacred duty of atonement was not to be denied him! The Inn-farm, which had been mortgaged to save him from the grip of the law, was to be given back unburdened to his brother! Two hundred thousand crowns were in his breast pocket, and they were to buy the old place at the auction to-morrow morning!
As he cantered up the road that led out of the town his soul careered like a leaf in autumn under a bottom wind of hope and joy. He saw himself arriving at the farm in the dusk of the evening and meeting his mother and Magnus and his daughter Elin. He heard himself saying, "Mother, don't you know me? I am Oscar, and I have come back to make amends." And next day, when the auction would be over, the Sheriff gone and everybody crying for happiness, he saw himself taking Elin between his knees--Elin with the eyes of Thora, yet with his own face looking at him as in a glass--and saying, "You are to come with me now, my dearest, and if you have gone short of anything as a child I will make it up to you as a woman!"