Thor’s Emerald
I The Shibboleth of Liberty
Far out, toward the eternal ice cap, there was once a spot of earth so glowing with delicate verdure that it was called Thor’s Emerald. One can scarce imagine how it came there, unless, indeed, it dropped, by some celestial mischance, from a Titanic diadem. It lay bedded between the sea and mountain, and overlooked by the glacier. Yet, these enemies were kept at bay by a south wind rifled from an inconstant current which visited the fjord. Fair to the eye, it was a Dead Sea apple. One might grind one’s heel into the soil and find the primeval shingle left by the receding waters. And, always, there had been the threat of the glacier. For, when the inconstant current should cease, at the bar itself was making before the mouth of the fjord, the glacier would come down.
It was scarce fivescore acres. Yet it has its little history, whose beginning no man knows, whose end it is mine to relate.
In the dim past some castaways had here found a good refuge from the icy waters, and, having no hope of another country, had here set up their households. Their names perished. But their descendants, bound to the soil by an heredity stronger than either will or circumstance, kept their graves on the mountain side, which outnumbered many times the living.
For, each year, the sea and the glacier claimed their several victims.
The narrow strip of beach which led out to the south had been wider in the time of the castaways. Yet none had cared to pass by it into the better world that lay beyond—nor did they sail to it across the sea which had been so deadly to them all.
Thus the sum of their lives had been compassed in the Emerald of Thor. The sum of their necessities had ever been to keep life within and covering without their bodies. And these simple things had been hard to accomplish always. For the glacier encroached when the bar and the ice kept the warm current away, and the fish went with the current.
That duress of fear, which held the castaways, had passed upon their children. They coveted no more of the world than they saw about them. I think they scarce knew, in the passage of time, that there was else to the world than what they had.
In time this became patriotism. It was their unwritten treason to wish for another country.
This life, too, isolated in the deep heart of nature, had bred a habitude as simple as nature itself. They were true because they knew no falsehood. They were good because for them there was no evil. Wrong was the simple negation of right and needed no defining for the simple. Each had the obsession of it.
More and more precarious had their life become. In the last winter the ice had hung over them with an ominous menace. The current which was to bring their little summer was delayed very long, the fish were gone, and hunger come, so that they had begun to look each other in the eyes and ask:
“Brother in the Lord, is it now?”
For this was with them always—this certainty of their blotting out.
But suddenly, almost in an hour, the summer came. The fish returned with opulence. The ice receded with muttered curses. The streams fell down from it, the harvest grew, and there was a song on every happy lip.
It was their last harvest. For, when it was gathered, and the winds were become chill, they hastened into the boats and out to sea, that they might have their winter’s fish before the glacier came back.
All went who could, but Christof and Christine, who, though yearning to go, were commanded to remain and care for blind Agra and simple Lars, the old and the maimed and the little children.
“For, Brother in the Lord,” said the priest, when he had doffed his vestments and put on his smock, “we may not return, and thy charge is, therefore, greater than ours. Behold, I adjure thee, that thou care for them well.”
And Christof answered that he would. Whereupon the priest put his arms about his shoulders and kissed his forehead, in their simple way, and said:
“As thou doest unto them, so will the Lord to thee. We trust in thee.”
Christof again answered with assent. For always on their going forth was this charge committed to some one.
But there was something greater yet.
“And, more than all,” charged the priest, with solemn affection, “we leave thee and Christine, that there may be successors in our land; that the graves may be kept; that until, in the time of God, this land shall be blotted from the earth by the ice, there shall be lips to praise Him, and souls to pray to Him. Life is a hard thing here, yea! But it would not be so if God had not so ordained it. Therefore are we God’s children, therefore do we obey him. For had He no purpose in keeping us here, He would have found for us another land. Dost thou believe this?”
“All this I believe,” said Christof.
“Thou art the bravest, and Christine the most splendid, our little race has yet produced. We see in thee, again, all that our fathers were who lived amidst the ice, when the world was new. For that we save and keep thee, that the issue of your loins may be the noblest in our little world. But in thee we see ofttimes, with sorrow, the spirit of unrest. Thou hast said that thou wouldst wish to try thy brawn out in that world we know lies yonder. Thou hast said that thou art great as any there. That much is true. Yet be not deceived. There is no world for thee but this. There never can be. God in His thought designed it so. Thou canst not escape God’s purposes. Dost thou believe this, too?”
And Christof bowed his head.
“Wilt thou, then, obey the law, and keep and do all this which I have charged?”
And Christof answered:
“Yea.”
“If thou dost not,” the priest said, “I do fear the things that will come upon thee and our land. Yet I am sure thou wilt. I go forth with an even heart. And all—all of thy brethren—go forth with peace in their hearts because of thee. And, now, farewell, and all the grace of God Almighty stay with thee,—so, farewell.”
He kissed the head of Christof.
And Christof answered, as the custom was:
“Fare thee all well, my Brother in the Lord,” and kissed his head.
“Fare thee all well,” the priest said again. “If we return no more, thou wilt be governor and priest, and father and mother to thy country—to the old and young, the simple and the maimed. And so, again, beloved Brother in the Lord, be faithful—and fare thee all well.”
So they went forth to fish, and the sea rose mightily between them and the land, so that they came not back for many days. And, even then, their wrecked boats came in before them, wherefore, like a tender message in advance of death, Christof and Christine knew.
Yet, all came back, each one, as if at the end they would not be denied their land.
But on each face the purple hue of death had long since passed. And Christof and Christine, and Simple Olaf and blind Agra, and the little children, dug their graves on the mountain side.