age
in a whaler bound for Reykjavik. His double voyage covered more than
six weeks though there was a strong fair wind from the coast of
Scotland to the coast of Denmark, and again from Denmark to Iceland.
The delay fretted him, for his heart was afire; but there was no help
for it, he had to submit. He did so with no cheer of spirit, or he
might have learned something from the yarns of the seamen. All the
gossip that came his way was a chance remark of the master, a Dane,
who one day stopped in front of him as he lay by the hatches, and
asked if he was an Icelander born. He answered that he was. Was he a
seagoing man? Yes. Ship-broken, maybe, in some foreign country? That
was so. How long had he been away from Iceland? Better than four
years.

"You'll see many changes since that time," said the master, "Old
Iceland is turned topsy-turvy."

Jason understood this to mean some political revolution, and turned a
deaf ear to it, for such things seemed but sorry trifling to one with
work like his before him.

They had then just sighted the Westmann Islands, through a white sea
vapor, and an hour later they lay three miles off a rocky point,
while an open boat came out to them over the rough water from the
island called Home.

It was the post-boat of that desolate rock, fetching letters from the
mainland, and ready to receive them from Denmark. The postman was
little and old, and his name was Patricksen.

"Well, Patricksen, and what's the latest from the old country?" sang
out the master, after two newspapers had been thrown down and one
letter taken up.

"Why, and haven't you heard it?" shouted the postman.

"What's that?" cried the master.

"They've put up the young Manxman," shouted the postman. "I knew his
father," he added, and laughed mockingly, as he bent to the oars and
started back with his newspapers over his three miles of tumbling
sea.

Jason's mind threw off its torpor at the sound of those words. While
the boat lay alongside he leaned over the gunwale and listened
eagerly. When it sheered off he watched it until it had faded into
the fog. Then he turned to the master and was about to ask a
question, but quickly recovered himself and was silent. "Better not,"
he thought. "It would be remembered when all should be over."

Late the same day they came for the first time in full view of the
southeast coast of Iceland. The fog had lifted before a strong breeze
from the west, where the red sun was dippin