Independent People (6 page)

At this moment the minister appeared on his horse. He fetched a deep groan as he dismounted, then stood there, a man of heroic proportions, blue in the face, grey-haired, crabbed and morose in his replies, and never of the same opinion as anyone else. It helped matters little on this occasion that the first person he set eyes on was the poetess.

“I see no reason for dragging me out here,” he grumbled. ‘There are probably people here already who know more about preaching than I do.”

“Maybe,” said Bjartur with a grin, as he caught hold of the horses, “but we like it better when we’ve tied some sort of label to our love.”

“Love! Huh!” snorted the minister as he hastened across the home-field in the direction of the house. The good man wanted his coffee before the ceremony began, because he was on an express journey; it was Saturday, and there was a child to christen before nightfall and a parish-of-ease north over Sandgilsheath to visit. “Not a word more than what stands in the ritual,” he continued; “I think I’ve just about burnt my fingers often enough with these marriage sermons. People rush baldheaded into this improvidence without an atom of the disposition that Christian wedlock demands, and where does it all end? Of those that I have married, no less than twelve couples have ended up on the parish—and it is for such people that one has to deliver a speech!” And bending his head to avoid the lintel, he disappeared inside.

Shortly afterwards the bride, downcast and with oblique irresolution in one eye, was led out to the tent by the Bailiff’s wife. The womenfolk followed, then came the men and the dogs, and the minister in a crumpled cassock, coffee just finished, brought up the rear. Rosa of Nithurkot was twenty-six when she married, chubby-faced, reserved, and with a slight cast in one eye; red-cheeked, well built, but not very tall. She looked down at the apron of her national costume all the way to the tent. Beside the inner tent-pole stood a little table, the altar; the minister halted behind it and began to thumb over the leaves of the prayer book. No one
said anything, but the choir whispered among themselves for a few moments before a few rough discordant voices broke into the wedding hymn in various tunes and different tempos. The women wiped the tears from their eyes, the minister delved into an inside pocket and fished out his watch under the noses of the bridal couple. Then he married them from the prayer book. No hymn was sung after the ceremony, but the minister wished the couple happiness in accordance with official requirements and asked the bridegroom whether his hacks were ready; he had no more time to spare for weddings. Bjartur ran off gladly to look for the horses, while the womenfolk hemmed in the bride and proceeded to kiss her. It was then time to think of coffee.

Tables and benches were set in position and the guests pleased to take a seat. Since the minister had gone, the Bailiff’s wife sat next to the bridal pair. Dishes were borne in piled with fat doughnuts and with Christmas cake full of expensive raisins, and the men continued snuffing and talking sheep. Soon the coffee arrived.

The party seemed for a while to be lacking in fire, but each faithfully and noisily swilled his four to eight cups of coffee, while here and there could be heard the crunching of raisin seeds.

“Pile into the fodder, lads,” cried Bjartur, aglow with hospitality, “and don’t be shy of the coffee!”

Finally everyone’s desire for coffee had been sated. Outside, the curlew might be heard crying, for this was his honeymoon too.

Then the Mistress of Myri rose to her feet, the poetess, her face shining over the assembly magnanimous in its papal dignity. Fumbling in the pocket of her skirt, she produced a few sheets of paper closely written.

She said she felt she must say a few words on this solemn occasion which saw two hearts here knit together. It was, of course, not her duty, but that of others, to let their light shine on this young couple who were now going out into life to discharge their duty by the fatherland, the fairest duty it was possible to discharge by the fatherland; and by God. But it was as in the old parable: many are called but many fail, so under the circumstances she thought the best way out was that she should make a little speech, just like any other ordinary woman. She really couldn’t help it, she must say something, for these two were in a manner of speaking her own children, they had served her household so faithfully, the bridegroom as long as eighteen years, and she could not bear to see them set out on life’s hallowed journey without a few words
of encouragement and exhortation. She was sorry to say that it was an inborn passion with her never to miss any opportunity of praising the nobility of the farmer’s life. She had been, it was true, bred in a town, but Providence had willed that she should become a farmer’s wife, and she had certainly never regretted it, for nature was God’s loftiest creation and life lived in the bosom of nature was the perfect life. In comparison with it, any other life was so much froth and smoke.

“Townsfolk,” she said, “have no conception of the peace that Mother Nature bestows, and as long as that peace is unfound the spirit must seek to quench its thirst with ephemeral novelties. And what is more natural than that the townsman’s feverish search for pleasure should mould people of an unstable, hare-brained character, who think only of their personal appearance and their clothes and find momentary comfort in foolish fashions and other such worthless innovations? The countryman, on the other hand, walks out to the verdant meadows, into an atmosphere clear and pure, and as he breathes it into his lungs some unknown power streams through his limbs, invigorating body and soul. The peace that reigns in nature fills his mind with calm and cheer, the bright green grass under his feet awakens a sense of beauty, almost of reverence. In the fragrance that is borne so sweetly to his nostrils, in the quietude that broods so blissfully around him, there is comfort and rest. The hillsides, the dingles, the waterfalls, and the mountains are all friends of his childhood, and never to be forgotten. They are a grand and inspiring sight, some of our mountains. Few things can have had such a deep and lasting influence on your hearts as their pure, dignified contours. They give us shelter in their valleys and bid us give shelter, too, to those who have neither our size nor our strength. Where,” asked the poetess, “is there bliss so bountiful as in these tranquil, flowery mountain glades, where the flowers, those angels’ eyes, if I may so express myself, point to heaven and bid us kneel in reverence to the Almighty, to beauty, wisdom, and love?”

“Yes, verily all these influences are great in their power and far-reaching in their scope.” Madam considered that it was of no small value to live one’s life subject to such forces.

“It was considered chivalrous in the Middle Ages to protect the helpless,” she continued. “Why should it not be so considered still?” She would define as helpless all those who are weaker than ourselves, who need shelter beneath our protecting wing. “And when I say these words, there accompany them many and, sincere
thanks to you, Bjartur, from our sheep in Utirauthsmyri. It was a great and lofty role that you played on the estate as shepherd. ‘Love the shepherd as thine own blood,’ says the old rhyme.

“The shepherd rises early and goes out into the cold to see to the dumb animals in their stalls. But he does not shrink,” she said. “The frozen blast hardens him and steels his nerve. He feels a force within him which he knew not before. The heroic temper is roused in the struggle with the storm as the roots of his heart warm to the thought that his exertion is for the sake of the helpless. Such is the beauty of the countryman’s life. It is the nation’s greatest educational institution. And our rural culture is borne on the shoulders of our peasants. A wise prudence sits enthroned beside them in their seat of honour, a perpetual fount of blessing to the land and its people.”

The poetess read her speech with conviction and ardour, to which was added the heat in the tent; the sweat left the broad forehead and coursed down the blooming cheeks in streams. Fishing out a handkerchief, she dried her face. Then she continued:

“I don’t know whether you are acquainted with the religious beliefs of the Persians.

“This race believed that the god of light and the god of darkness waged eternal warfare, and that man’s part was to assist the god of light in his struggle by the tilling of the fields and the improvement of the land. This is precisely what farmers do. They help God, if one may say so; work with God in the cultivation of plants, the tending of livestock, and the care of their fellow men. There exists no calling of greater nobility here on earth. Therefore I would direct these words to all husbandmen, but first and foremost to our bridegroom of today: You sons of the soil whose labour is unending and leisure scanty, know, I bid you, how exalted
is
your vocation. Agriculture is work in co-operation with the Creator Himself, and in you is He well pleased.

“And never forget that it is He who gives the fruits.

“And now,” said Madam, “I should like to say a few words specially to Rosa, that well-bred, sober-minded girl from Nithurkot here whom we have all learned to love so much and to hold in such esteem during the two years that she has helped us in Utirauthsmyri—our bride of today, the future housewife of Summerhouses.

“It is no easy matter to be a housewife, no easy matter to know that one’s lot is to perform the loftiest function that there is.

“I do not doubt that many a woman will think it an impossible task to make her home such that wherever one looks is one radiant smile; to invest everything indoors with such tranquillity and bliss that all hate and bitterness disappear, and everyone feels equal to the greatest of obstacles; to make everyone feel that he is free and pure and courageous, and to make him conscious of his affinity with God and Love. All this is certainly difficult and perplexing. But that is your part, housewife; the part that God Himself has given you to play. And you have the strength for it, though you may not know it yourself. You are capable of it, if only you do not lose faith in the love within you. Not only the woman whose good fortune it is to tread the sunnier paths of life and who has benefited from a good education, but also she who has had little schooling and who lives on the shadowy side of life in a small house with little to choose from; in her too it dwells, this power, for you are all of the same high birth: God’s children all of you. The power of a woman whose home glows with the radiance of earthly bliss is such as to make the low-roofed cottage and the high-timbered mansion equal. Equally bright. Equally warm. This power is the true socialism.

“Remember, Rosa, that every day you quicken into motion waves that undulate on to the very confines of existence; you stir up waves that break upon the shores of eternity itself. And it is of much importance whether they are waves of brightness that are radiated, bearing light and fragrance far and wide, or whether they are waves of gloom, carrying misery and misfortune to loosen pent-up glaciers that will create an Ice Age of the national heart.

“Consider love in its perfect form, in its unconditional sacrifice, its affinity with all that is loftiest and most magnanimous in the soul of man. Consider the force it opposes to everything evil and impure. Consider the power of love, how the hovel is transformed into a palace, how chill winter becomes radiant summer, how poverty itself becomes a very bed of roses.”

The bridal pair and the guests listened to this oration in silence perfect but for the chirping of summer birds outside, the hum of two blowflies buzzing round the top of the tent-pole and the snoring, obstructed breathing of nostrils occluded by snuff. Not before the poetess had sat down did anyone dare to blow his nose. A few of the womenfolk discussed the speech in admiring whispers. Then there was silence again. The guests sat staring vacantly at the spot
opposite them, heavy with the heat and sluggish with much coffee, hypnotized by the canvas walls glaring in the sun and by the droning of the blowflies.

At last the silence was once more broken. It was Hrollaugur of Keldur, an old crofter with a big nose and a grey beard, who, turning to Bjartur, said, for no apparent reason:

“Any sign of the staggers with you folk at Myri this spring, Bjartur?”

This opportune inquiry roused the gathering from torpor and trance, restoring it once more to an interest in life. The menfolk conscientiously retailed every case of staggers that had occurred in the district during the spring, and gave vent to some less than courteous observations regarding tapeworms. All were agreed that the purging of the dogs had been disgracefully muddled during the past two years, a state of affairs for which some were inclined to blame the Fell King and parish clerk, a man who had managed to worm his way into the office of dog-doctor on the minister’s recommendation.

“I for one have made up my mind that I’m going to clean my dog at my own expense this autumn,” declared the bridegroom.

Opinion was unanimous that a healthy dog was one of the essentials of life, and that it was scandalous how careless people could be with cysts, and that even on good farms.

“If people knew how to look after a cyst properly,” said Thorir of Gilteig, whom experience had given wisdom, “then there would be nothing to fear. But it’s the same thing whether it’s a cyst or a human being, thoughtlessness
is
the root of most misfortune, and if only people could see that when they’re looking after a cyst the main thing
is
to know how to do it properly, then the dogs would be all right and there would be nothing to fear. A fellow has only himself to blame.”

The theme was discussed from every angle possible, various people contributing their opinions. Einar of Undirhlith declared his lack of faith in human measures, in the first place because the world was headed for calamity and destruction, and, as our own times so amply showed, neither medicines nor doctors nor any science could deflect its course one inch; in the second place because dogs were always dogs, cysts cysts, and sheep sheep. Olafur of Yztadale refused to accept this, maintaining that tapeworm in dogs and the consequent staggers in sheep and hydatid disease in human beings only went to prove that the medicine for the
dogs was not scientific from the beginning. “Because,” said he, “anyone can see that if the medicine was scientific from the beginning the dogs would never get constipated.”