artly out of the
Governor's position and the wealth the honest man was supposed to
have amassed in the rigorous exercise of a place of power, and partly
out of the daughter's own comeliness, which was not to be despised.
At first the girl, on her part, neither assisted her father's designs
nor resisted them, but showed complete indifference to the weighty
questions of whom she should marry, when she should marry, and how
she should marry; and this mood of mind contented her down to the
last week in June that followed the anniversary of her twenty-first
birthday.

That was the month of Althing, the national holiday of fourteen days,
when the people's law-givers--the Governor, the Bishop, the Speaker,
and the Sheriffs--met the people's delegates and some portion of the
people themselves at the ancient Mount of Laws in the valley of
Thingvellir, for the reading of the old statutes and the promulgation
of the new ones, for the trial of felons and the settlement of
claims, for the making of love and the making of quarrels, for
wrestling and horse-fighting, for the practice of arms and the
breaking of heads. Count Trollop was in Iceland at this celebration
of the ancient festival, and he was induced by Jorgen to give it
the light of his countenance. The Governor's company set out on
half-a-hundred of the native ponies, and his daughter rode between
himself and the Count. During that ride of six or seven long Danish
miles Jorgen settled the terms of the intended transfer to his own
complete contentment. The Count acquiesced and the daughter did not
rebel.

The lonely valley was reached, the tents were pitched, the Bishop
hallowed the assembly with solemn ceremonies, and the business of
Althing began. Three days the work went on, and Rachel wearied of it;
but on the fourth the wrestling was started, and her father sent for
her to sit with him on the Mount and to present at the end of the
contest the silver-buckled belt to the champion of all Iceland. She
obeyed the summons with indifference, and took a seat beside the
Judge, with the Count standing at her side. In the space below there
was a crowd of men and boys, women and children, gathered about the
ring. One wrestler was throwing everyone that came before him. His
name was Patricksen, and he was supposed to be descended from the
Irish, who settled, ages ago, on the Westmann Islands. His success
became monotonous; at every fresh bout his self-confidence grew more
insuffe