Independent People (62 page)

A
ND SO,
to the ever increasing prosperity of the land and its inhabitants, the World War proceeded. For four lucrative years and more it went on, and the longer it lasted, the greater was the
gratification it aroused in the hearts of the community. All good men hoped and prayed that it might go on till doomsday. Many, especially those of a nice ingenuous nature, never called it by any other name than the Blessed War, for Icelandic goods were still rising in price abroad, and on the Continent whole nations were fighting, among other things, for the honour of importing them. These gifted but singular belligerents who hitherto had been content to turn a blind eye upon an Iceland racked with famine, slavery, merchants, and every other scourge conceivable, were now of a sudden falling over themselves in the rush to buy our exports and to help us onward and upward along the road to wealth and happiness. Many tenant farmers undertook the task of purchasing from their landlords the land they held, and those who already before the outbreak of hostilities had gone through fire and water to acquire theirs began now to think of renewing their buildings. Those who were in debt were given opportunities of incurring greater debts, while upon those who owed nothing, but who might be likely to require a loan for extensions, the banks smiled with an incredibly seductive sweetness. Folk began to farm on a larger scale, folk increased their livestock, folk even sent their children to be educated. In some houses there were to be seen not one but as many as four china dogs of the larger size, even musical instruments; womenfolk were walking about wearing all sorts of tombac rings, and many persons had acquired overcoats and Wellington boots, articles of apparel that had previously been contrabrand to working people. The government embarked upon a huge program of public works, and those who were fortunate enough to have an energetic idealist like Ingolfur Arnarson as their representative in Parliament were granted roads and bridges throughout their constituency. A highroad was built from Fjord up through Bjartur of Summerhouses’ valley all the way to the homesteads around Rauthsmyri, and soon the first automatic carriages were thundering along this road at unbelievable speed, scaring everyone’s horses so that they bolted under them.

Now, in this welter of money and joyous prosperity that had burst like a flood upon the country’s scattered homesteads, some, it was to be regretted, appeared to have lost their powers of sound judgment, for there was no disguising the fact that holdings were being bought at prices which were ridiculously high, that the passion for building was exceeding the bounds of good sense, and that many children were returning home from school both hurriedly educated and over-educated. There were, however, those
who preserved their sanity, men who took everything with the greatest calm. Such men made no changes in their mode of living, neither did they buy china dogs. They spent nothing on the education of their sons, rather increased their stock by steady degrees, exercised moderation in the improvement of their property, and kept jogging quietly along towards the higher goals they had set themselves. One such was Bjartur of Summerhouses. He was no fonder of needless luxuries now than he had ever been, but with every year that passed he was spending more and more money on the hiring of work-people and the buying of sheep. Time was when he had based his calendar upon the arrival of an old bitch named Fritha, as grim a misfortune as any that had to do with a cow, but those days were over now; in less than no time he had reached two hundred and fifty sheep, two cows, and three horses and was employing hired labour, male and female, in the summer, and a housekeeper and a herd in the winter. Furthermore, to house all these new people he had adapted the old stable under the living-room, and where once there had been a hole in the wall as an exit for the dung, there was now a little window with four panes. Many a little makes a mickle, as the saying goes, and this was the sure and trusty growth that proceeds without revolution, without noise, and as if of itself alone, the healthy development. The man himself remained unaltered. He allowed himself no greater luxury in his mode of life than that of sprawling on a haycock for four minutes during the daytime, in the hope that he would soon roll off, preferably into a puddle. Of his work-people he demanded a suitable degree of exertion in their labours winter and summer, and he still had the habit of muttering crafty verse to himself on any occasion when he was alone.

The old woman lived on in her own peculiar fashion, like a candle the Lord has forgotten to snuff. She mumbled her psalms and knitted, never noticing the existence of a new era and refusing to admit that a carriage-way had been laid through the valley, or that automobiles could reach the fjord in forty-five and Uti-rauthsmyri in fifteen minutes. The fact was that she did not believe there was any way at all, except at most the way of the Lord. And there’s a world war on too, cried folk joyfully. But she said there was no world war; she said that at most it was just the same old war that had been going on abroad ever since she could remember; world war, what nonsense! This she said because she did not believe that the world existed. But she still persisted in maintaining that there was a curse over the croft. Sooner or later it
would be fulfilled, and those who lived to see it would know it to their cost; Kolumlrilli has rarely allowed anyone who hung on to this hut to escape scot-free. But the sunsets were lovely in Urtharsel, I lived there forty years and nothing ever happened. She was always wanting to get back home.

And now we come to the co-operative society, that flourishing business concern of the farmers’ own which renders middlemen superfluous and guarantees the rural producer a fair return for what he has to sell. Before long these societies will have saved the country’s peasantry and made all poor farmers into affluent people, as they are said to have done in Denmark. The co-operative society in Fjord flourished, co-operative societies everywhere flourished. The nation’s parasites, the merchants, either went completely under or struggled on with heads barely above water; the farmers were taking a firmer and firmer grip on all their own affairs, trade, agriculture, building, even electricity, and the farmers’ newspapers in the south said that the foundations were now being laid for large-scale agriculture in Iceland, agriculture of an order fully capable of keeping abreast of the times, agriculture that would be the principal occupation of the people and the cornerstone of the community’s freedom. Those who oppose the farmers’ interests are the nation’s worst enemies. Down with the middlemen. You save twenty-five per cent by dealing with the co-operative societies, the co-operative societies were founded to resist the tyranny of capitalism and to safeguard the interests of the small producer and the common man. But the most important point is still to mention. The co-operative societies aim at a higher ideal than that of mere financial gain. They seek to better mankind itself, to widen man’s horizons, educate him, make him kindlier in his dealings with those of inferior status.

In connection with all this, peasant culture had suddenly become the great gospel preached by the newspapers in the south. Everything for the farmers. The peasantry are the life-blood and the backbone of the nation. The mountain valleys are the cradle of all that is most admirable in the race. The countryman walks out to his green meadows in an atmosphere clear and pure, and as he breathes it into his lungs some unknown power streams through his limbs, invigorating body and soul. Townsfolk have no conception of the peace that Mother Nature bestows, and while this peace is yet unfound, the spirit allays its thirst with ephemeral novelties. The shepherd, on the other hand, is filled with the heroic spirit, for the frozen blast hardens him and steels him. Such
is the beauty of the rustic life. It is the nation’s finest educational institution. And the peasants bear the rural culture on their shoulders. A wise prudence sits enthroned beside them, a perpetual fount of blessing to the land and its people. And nature, yes, the Icelandic scene is beautiful with its hillsides, its dingles, its waterfalls, and its mountains; no wonder that those who dwell in the mountain valleys are the true people, the people of nature, the only true people. Their life is spent in the service of God.

The dignity of the peasant’s life and the virtues of his culture had hitherto been only a peculiar sort of gospel that the lady of Rauthsmyri had preached at social gatherings, especially wedding feasts, probably because she so much regretted ever having left the town herself. No one had ever bothered to pay it any particular attention; it had made no more impression and evoked no more response than, for instance, the minister’s sermons. But now it was appearing in fine newspapers that were printed in the south and sent to every household in the country, every week it turned up in some form or other. It was as if one met Madam Myri on every page that was published, with a motherly face like the Pope. And people in general began to believe in this gospel, and soon rural culture was in great demand in the country districts; away with the traditional niggardliness, away with the heritage of spectres—Kolumkilli, who can be bothered to listen to such rubbish nowadays? No, the Icelandic crofter had waked from the sleep of centuries. It was even a matter of great doubt whether he had ever slept at all. In less than no time he had formed his own political party in the land, a party whose endeavours were directed against conservatives, egoists, middlemen, and thieves; the party of co-operators, small producers, common people, and progressive reformers, the party of justice and ideals. One of the first who went into Parliament with the express aim of wiping out injustice and fighting for the ideals of the new golden age that was dawning was Ingolfur Arnarson Jonsson; one of those who voted for him was Bjartur of Summerhouses, The credit that stood to his name in the books of the co-operative society was mounting year by year. Then had he begun to believe in Ingolfur Arnarson and the rest of the Rauthsmyrians? Whether he had actually begun to have any real faith in them I cannot say, but this much is certain: that when the State roadmen were building a bridge over the ravine that cuts the ridge, the spring after Ingolfur Arnarson had persuaded the government to build a highroad through the valley and to bridge all the rivers, he took a stroll as far as the ridge one
evening just before the roadmen ceased work, and there entered into conversation with them. That conversation reflected in some measure the state of his faith in these times.

The men were driving wedges into the rock and breaking it off in small blocks, which they then proceeded to dress with their chisels. The river was being bridged far above the ford, at a place where it fell into a narrow gully, so that high piers were needed and a great deal of stone to make them up.

“You’re dressing stones, lads,” said Bjartur, proud of the benefit that the State was deriving from the rocks on his property.

“Yes, but we’d rather be undressing the ladies,” they replied.

“Now look here, damn you,” he said, “do you think I’ve walked all this way to swap dirty jokes with you?”

“No, of course not. What’s the use of a dirty joke to you, a weakling who hasn’t had the strength to beget a daughter or two to brighten up the landscape for us?”

“Weakling?” snorted Bjartur. “If you would like to pit your strength against mine, you’d better practise on something tougher than that stuff there. It’s softer than whey cheese.”

“Were you wanting anything?” they inquired.

“It is not yours to ask—on this estate anyway,” he said. “It is mine to ask, yours to answer.”

“Hum, quite the little king, isn’t he?”

“He who is without debt is as good as any king,” replied Bjartur. “And if I take a man into my employment, I pay him at rates as good as the government’s. But while I remember, I don’t suppose any of you fellows could chisel me a headstone?”

“A headstone?” the men asked gravely, for they had an immense respect for sorrow. “That’s really a finer type of work than we’re accustomed to, you know.”

“Oh, it needn’t be anything particularly fine. All I want is something more or less in the shape of a headstone, just for the sake of appearances, something a little thinner at the top than it is at the bottom, you know.”

“That goes without saying,” said the men, “but naturally no one takes on such a job unless it’s at overtime rates.”

He said he had never had a reputation for cheese-paring, and least of all in such matters. This they fully understood, the graves of one’s loved ones are holy ground, a man doesn’t count his coppers in such circumstances, they stopped talking filth.

Bargaining then began. Neither party had much experience of such deals, so progress was slow. For some considerable time
they haggled. There was caution on both sides, even courtesy, especially on the part of the stonemasons; but an agreement was reached eventually. Bjartur emphasized repeatedly that fine work was unnecessary. Did he want an inscription? Yes, an inscription. Ah, that made matters complicated, they were by no means expert in the art of lettering.

“Oh, it needn’t be anything very ornamental,” said Bjartur. The initials would do, or the Christian name, together with the name of the person who had the stone raised for her.”

“Is it for your wife?” they asked.

“Oh no,” replied Bjartur, “not exactly. But it is for a woman, though. A woman whom both I and others have wronged for many a long year—perhaps. A man is often unfair in his judgments, and consequently, perhaps, in his deeds. One is afraid of other men’s bread.”

“Is she buried in Rauthsmyri?” they asked.

“In Rauthsmyri? Her?” he repeated, greatly offended. And added, proud of his woman: “No, oh no, she was never very fond of the Rauthsmyrians, or their churchyard either. She lies in my land; she lies, let me tell you, a bare stone’s throw away along the ridge here, on the brink of the gully.”

For a few moments they stared at him in astonishment, uncertain what to make of these tidings, till eventually one of them said: “Surely you don’t mean the old ghoul, do you?” and another: “Are you trying to make fun of us, blast you?”