trump.

There were two parties in the Senate--the Church party, that wanted
religion to be the basis of the reformed government; and the
Levellers, who wished the distinctions of clergy and laity to be
abolished so far as secular power could go. The Church party was led
by the Bishop, who was a member of the higher chamber, the Council,
by virtue of his office; the Levellers were led by the little man
with piercing eyes and the square brush of iron-gray hair who had
acted as spokesman to the Court at the trial of Red Jason. As each of
these arrived there was a faint commotion through the house.

Presently the Speaker came shuffling in, wiping his brow with his red
handkerchief, and at the same moment the thud of a horse's hoofs on
the hard snow outside, followed by a deep buzz as of many voices--not
cheering nor yet groaning--told of the coming of the President.

Then, amid suppressed excitement, Michael Sunlocks entered the
house, looking weary, pale, much older, and stooping slightly under
his flaxen hair, as if conscious of the gaze of many eyes fixed
steadfastly upon him.

After the Speaker had taken his chair, Michael Sunlocks rose in his
place amid dead stillness.

"Sir, and gentlemen," he said in a tense voice, speaking slowly,
calmly and well, "you are met here at my instance to receive a
message of some gravity. It is scarcely more than half a year since
it was declared and enacted by this present Council of Althing that
the people of Iceland were and should be constituted, established and
confirmed to be a Republic or Free State, governed by the Supreme
Authority of the Nation, the people's representatives. You were then
pleased to do me the honor of electing me to be your first President,
and though I well knew that no man had less cause to put himself
forward in the cause of his country than I, being the youngest among
you, the least experienced, and, by birth, an Englishman, yet I
undertook the place I am now in because I had taken a chief hand in
pulling down the old order, and ought, therefore, to lend the best
help I could towards putting up the new. Other reasons influenced me,
such as the desire to keep the nation from falling amid many internal
dissensions into extreme disorder and becoming open to the common
enemy. I will not say that I had no personal motives, no private
aims, no selfish ambitions in stepping in where your confidence
opened the way, but you will bear me witness that in the emp