Sigurd’s wealth, if it could be called so, was in a small flock of sheep, the pasture for which was scattered in patches for miles up and down the river. The care of these sheep had been intrusted chiefly to Jon, ever since he was eight years old, and he had learned their natures and ways—their simple animal virtues and silly animal vices—so thoroughly that they acquired a great respect for him, and very rarely tried to be disobedient. Even Thor, the ram, although he sometimes snorted and tossed his horns in protest, or stamped impatiently with his forefeet, heeded his master’s voice. In fact, the sheep became Jon’s companions, in the absence of human ones; he talked to them so much during the lonely days that it finally seemed as if they understood a great deal of his speech.
There was a rough bridle-path leading up the valley of the Thiörvǎ; but it was rarely travelled, for it struck northward into the cold, windy, stony desert which fills all the central part of Iceland. For a hundred and fifty miles there was no dwelling, no shelter from the fierce and sudden storms, and so little grass that the travellers who sometimes crossed the region ran the risk of losing their ponies from starvation. There were lofty plains of black rock, as hard as iron; groups of bare, snowy-headed mountains; and often, at night, you could see a pillar of fire in the distance, showing that one of the many volcanoes was in action. Beyond this terrible wilderness the grassy valleys began again, and there were houses and herds, increasing as you came down to the bright bays along the northern shore of the island.
“In fact the sheep became Jon’s companions in the absence of human ones”
More than once, a trader or government messenger, after crossing the desert, had rested for a night under Sigurd’s roof; and many were the tales of their adventures which Jon had treasured up in his memory. Sometimes they spoke of the _trolls_ or mischievous fairies who came over with the first settlers from Norway, and were still supposed by many persons to lurk among the dark glens of Iceland. Both Sigurd and the pastor at Kyrkedal had declared that there were no such creatures, and Jon believed them faithfully; yet he could not help wondering as he sat upon some rocky knoll overlooking his sheep, whether a strange little figure _might_ not come out of the chasm opposite, and speak to him. The more he heard of the terrors and dangers of the desert to the northward, the more he longed to see them with his own eyes and know them through his own experience. He was not the least afraid; but he knew that his father would never allow him to go alone, and to disobey a father was something of which he had never heard, and could not have believed to be possible.
