rable, and the girl's eyes wandered from the spectacle to the
spectators. From that instant her indifference fell away.

By the outskirts of the crowd, on one of the lower mounds of the
Mount of Laws, a man sat with his head in his hand, with elbow on
his knee. His head was bare, and from his hairy breast his woolen
shirt was thrown back by reason of the heat. He was a magnificent
creature--young, stalwart, fair-haired, broad-chested, with limbs
like the beech tree, and muscles like its great gnarled round heads.
His coat, a sort of sailor's jacket, was coarse and torn; his
stockings, reaching to his knees, were cut and brown. He did not seem
to heed the wrestling, and there rested upon him the idle air of the
lusty Icelander--the languor of the big, tired animal. Only, when at
the close of a bout a cheer rose and a way was made through the crowd
for the exit of the vanquished man, did he lift up his great slow
eyes--gray as those of a seal, and as calm and lustreless.

The wrestling came to an end. Patricksen justified his Irish blood,
was proclaimed the winner, and stepped up to the foot of the Mount
that the daughter of the Governor might buckle about him his
champion's belt. The girl went through her function listlessly, her
eyes wandering to where the fair-haired giant sat apart. Then the
Westmann islander called for drink that he might treat the losing
men, and having drunk himself, he began to swagger afresh, saying
that they might find him the strongest and lustiest man that day at
Thingvellir, and he would bargain to throw him over his back. As he
spoke he strutted by the bottom of the Mount, and the man who sat
there lifted his head and looked at him. Something in the glance
arrested Patricksen and he stopped.

"This seems to be a lump of a lad," he said. "Let us see what we can
do with him."

And at that he threw his long arms about the stalwart fellow, squared
his broad hips before him, thrust down his head into his breast until
his red neck was as thick as a bullock's, and threw all the strength
of his body into his arms that he might lift the man out of his seat.
But he moved him not an inch. With feet that held the earth like the
hoofs of an ox, the young man sat unmoved.

Then those who had followed at the islander's heels for the liquor he
was spending first stared in wonderment at his failure, and next
laughed in derision of his bragging, and shouted to know why, before
it was too late, the young