Seven Icelandic Short Stories Part 5

It was they who decided the size of the flocks they undertook to feed this winter, not I. Besides, they could have cut as much hay as I did, even more, for they still have their eyesight. Their failure is due to their own laziness and bad judgment. That's what ails them! Ruins them!

But you won't be able to take this great big haystack with you into the life eternal, said Jon. The time is coming when you will have to part with it. Then it will be used as the needs require. And what good will it do you? What are you going to do with it?

I am going to keep it, answered Brandur. I intend to keep it right here on the knoll, keep it in case the haying should be poor next summer. There may be a poor growth of gra.s.s and a small hay crop; there may be a volcanic eruption and the ashes may poison the gra.s.s, as they have done in former years. Now, do you understand me?

So saying, Brandur tottered off towards the house to indicate that the conversation was at an end. His countenance was as cold as the sky in the evening after the sun has set, and the hard lines in it resembled the streaks in the ice on rocks and ledges where the sun's rays had shone that day and laid bare the frozen ground.

Brandur entered the house, while Jon mounted again. They scarcely said a word of farewell, so angry were they both.

Jon's horse set off at a brisk pace, eager to reach home, and galloped swiftly over the hard, frozen ground. After the sun had gone down, the wind rose and a searing cold settled over the valley, whitening Jon's moustache where his breath pa.s.sed over it.

Jon's anger grew as he sped along. Naturally hightempered, he had lately had many reasons for anger since he took over his official duties. The people in his district were like people the world over: they blamed the Board constantly, accusing it of stupidity and favouritism. Yet most of them paid their taxes reluctantly and only when long overdue. Sometimes they were almost a year in arrears.

Jon reviewed the matter of the hay in his mind, also the other vexations of the past. He was sick and tired of all the trouble. And now the life of the whole district hung on a thin thread, the fate of which depended upon the whims of the weather. Jon's nose and cheekbones smarted from the cold; his shoes were frozen stiff, and pinched his feet, and his throat burned with the heat of anger rising from his breast.

Jon was rather quiet when he reached home that evening, although he did tell his wife of his attempt to deal with her father.

Yes, said Gudrun, papa sets great store by that hay. He cannot bear to part with it at any price. That is his nature.

Tomorrow you must go, Jon told her, and try to win the old man over in some way. I'd hate to be obliged to take the hay from him by force, but that will be necessary if everything else fails.

The following day Gudrun went to see her father. The weather still remained cold. When Gudrun dismounted before the house at Holl, there was no one outside to greet her or announce her arrival, and so she entered, going straight into the bastofa. There she found her father sitting on his bed, knitting a seaman's mitten, crooning an old ditty the while:

Far from out the wilderness Comes raging the cold wind; And the bonds of heaven's king It doth still tighter bind.

Gudrun leaned over her father and kissed him.

Is that you, Gunna dear? he asked.

Yes papa, she said, at the same time slipping a flask of brandy into the bosom of his s.h.i.+rt.

This greatly pleased the old man.

Gunna dear, he said, you always bring me something to cheer me up.

Not many nowadays take the trouble to cheer the old man. No indeed.

Any news? It's so long since you have been to see me, a year or more.

No news everyone hasn't heard: hard times, shortage of hay, and worry everywhere. That is only to be expected. It's been a hard winter, the stock stall-fed for so long, at least sixteen weeks, on some farms twenty.

Quite true, said Brandur. It's been a cold winter, and the end is not yet. The cold weather may not break up before the first of June, or even Midsummer Day. The summer will be cold, the hay crop small, and the cold weather will probably set in again by the end of August, then another cold hard winter, and ...

He meant to go on, foretelling yet worse things to come, but Gudrun broke in: Enough of that, father. Things can't be as bad as that It would be altogether too much. I hope for a change for the better with the new moon next week, and mark you, the new moon rises in the southwest and on a Monday; if I remember right, you always thought a new moon coming on a Monday brought good weather.

I did, conceded Brandur. When I was a young man, a new moon coming on a Monday was generally the very best kind of moon. But like everything else, that has changed with the times. Now a Monday new moon is the worst of all, no matter in what quarter of the heavens it appears, if the weather is like this--raging sad carrying on so; that is true.

But things are in a pitiful state, said Gudrun, what with the hay shortage, almost everyone is badly off, and not a single farmer with a sc.r.a.p of hay to spare, except you, papa.

Yes, I! answered Brandur. I, a poor, blind, decrepit old man! But what of you? Jon has enough hay, hasn't he? How is that? Doesn't he have enough?

Yes, we do have enough for ourselves, admitted Gudrun. But we can't hold onto it. Jon lends it to those in need until it is all gone and there is none left for us. He thinks of others as well as of himself.

What nonsense! What sense is there in acting like that? Every man for himself, said the old man.

That's right. But for us that is not enough. Jon is in a position where he must think of others; he has to think of all the farmers in the district--and small thanks he gets for his pains. He is so upset, almost always on tenterhooks. He didn't sleep a wink last night--was almost beside himself. He takes it so hard.

So Jon couldn't sleep a wink last night! repeated Brandur. Why be so upset? Why lie awake nights worrying about this? That doesn't help matters any. It isn't his fault that they are all on the brink of ruin.

Quite true, answered Gudrun. He is not to blame for that, and lying awake nights doesn't help matters, but that is Jon's disposition.

He's tired to death of all the work for the Council and the everlasting fault-finding. He has had to neglect his own farm since he took up these public duties--and nothing for his time and trouble. Now this is too much. He is dead tired of it all, and so am I. In fact, I know it was worry about all this that kept Jon awake last night. We have been thinking of getting away from it all when spring comes and going to America.

Do you side with him in this? asked Brandur, grasping his daughter by the arm. Do you, too, agree to his giving away the hay you need for your own flocks, giving it away until you haven't enough for yourselves? Do you, too, want to go to America, away from your father who now has one foot in the grave?

Yes, I do, Gudrun replied. As a matter of fact, the plan was originally mine. If our flocks die, there will be no alternative; but if our sheep live and those of the neighbours die, our life will not be worth living because of the poverty and want round about us.

Yes, papa, it was I suggested our going. I could see no other way out.

On hearing this, Brandur's mood softened somewhat. I expected to be allowed to pa.s.s my last days with you and your children, he said. I cannot go on living in this fas.h.i.+on any longer.

Pa.s.s your last days with us! exclaimed Gudrun. Have you, then, thought of leaving Holl? Have you planned to come and live with us?

You've never said a word of this to me.

I have no intention of leaving Holl. That I have never meant to do.

But that is not necessary. I thought you might perhaps be willing to move over here and live with me. I could then let you have what miserable little property I have left, Gunna, my dear.

And what about the hay, papa? Will you turn the hay over to us, the hay in the old stack? Everything depends on that.

The hay! The hay! the old man said. Still harping on the hay--the hay which doesn't amount to anything and cannot be of any real help.

It's sheer nonsense to think that the hay in that stack is enough to feed the flocks of a whole district. There is no use talking about it I will not throw that tiny mouthful to all the four winds. It will do no good if divided among so many, but it is a comfort to me, to me alone. No, I will not part with it as long as there is a spark of life in me. That I will not, my love.

Brandur turned pale and the lines in his face became hard and rigid.

Looking at him, Gudrun knew from experience that he was not to be shaken in his determination when in this mood. His face was like a sky over the wilderness streaked with threatening storm clouds.

Gudrun gave up. The tears rushed to her eyes, as she twined her arms around her father's neck and said: Goodbye, papa. Forgive me if I have angered you. I shall not come here again.

The old man felt the teardrops on his face, the heavy woman's tears, hot with anger and sorrow.

Gudrun dashed out of the room and mounted. Brandur was left alone in the darkness at mid-day. Yet in his mind's eye he could see the haystack out on the knoll. He rose and went out to feel it. It was still there. Gudrun had not ridden away with it. Brandur could hear the horseshoes crunching the hard, frozen ground as Gudrun rode off.

He stood motionless for a long time, listening to the hoof beats.

Then he went into the house.

Brandur felt restless. He paced the floor awhile, stopped for a moment to raise to his lips the flask his daughter had brought him, and drained it at one gulp. All that day he walked the floor, fighting with himself until night fell.

Then he sent his foster-son with a message to his daughter. Jon, he said, had his permission to haul the hay away the very next day, but it was all to be removed in one day; there was not to be a sc.r.a.p of hay or a lump of sod left by evening.

But the weather changes quickly, says an old Icelandic adage. By morning, the weather had turned its spindle and the wind s.h.i.+fted to the south. Jon sent no message to anyone, nor did he proclaim that the old hay was available. He first wished to see what the thaw would amount to. By the following day, the whole valley was impa.s.sable because of slush and water, and the patches of earth appearing through the snowy blanket grew larger almost hourly.

Meanwhile, Brandur roamed through the house all day long, asking if anyone had come.--Aren't they going to take away these miserable hay sc.r.a.ps? About time they came and got them!--He seemed eager that the hay be removed at once.

That day he did not take his usual walk out to the stack to feel the hay. In fact, after that no one ever saw him show attachment to the old hay. His love of it seemed to have died the moment he granted his son-in-law permission to take it away.