day the
strong man was laid under the shallow turf of the Church garth. His
little life's swaggering was swaggered out; he must sleep on to the
resurrection without one brag more.

The Governor's daughter did not leave the guest room of the parsonage
from the night of the wrestling onwards to the last morning of the
Althing holiday, and then, the last ceremonies done, the tents struck
and the ponies saddled, she took her place between Jorgen and the
Count for the return journey home. Twenty paces behind her the
fair-haired Stephen Orry rode on his shaggy pony, gaunt and peaky and
bearded as a goat, and five paces behind him rode the brother of the
dead man Patricksen. Amid five hundred men and women, and eight
hundred horses saddled for riding or packed with burdens, these three
had set their faces towards the little wooden capital.

July passed into August, and the day was near that had been appointed
by Jorgen Jorgensen for the marriage of his daughter to the Count
Trollop. At the girl's request the marriage was postponed. The second
day came nigh; again the girl excused herself, and again the marriage
was put off. A third time the appointed day approached, and a third
time the girl asked for delay. But Jorgen's iron will was to be
tampered with no longer. The time was near when the Minister must
return to Copenhagen, and that was reason enough why the thing in
hand should be despatched. The marriage must be delayed no longer.

But then the Count betrayed reluctance. Rumor had pestered him
with reports that vexed his pride. He dropped hints of them to the
Governor. "Strange," said he, "that a woman should prefer the
stink of the fulmar fish to the perfumes of civilization." Jorgen
fired up at the sneer. His daughter was his daughter, and he was
Governor-General of the island. What lowborn churl would dare to lift
his eyes to the child of Jorgen Jorgensen?

The Count had his answer pat. He had made inquiries. The man's name
was Stephen Orry. He came from Stappen under Snaefell, and was known
there for a wastrel. On the poor glory of his village voyage as an
athlete, he idled his days in bed and his nights at the tavern. His
father, an honest thrall, was dead; his mother lived by splitting and
drying the stock-fish for English traders. He was the foolish old
woman's pride, and she kept him. Such was the man whom the daughter
of the Governor had chosen before the Minister for Iceland.

At that Jorgen's hard face gr