Читать книгу Guest the One-Eyed онлайн

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He made a curious picture, this fourteen-year-old peasant lad, as he sat there, clad in rough homespun, his clothes fitting clumsily, and hiding the lithe beauty of his frame. The clear-cut face, the strong chin resting on the violin, and the lean hand with its supple fingers running over the strings, contrasted strangely with the everyday coat, darned and patched in many places.

Often he fell into a reverie, his dark eyes gazing on the distant mountains, the fingers relaxing, and the slender brown hand with the bow resting on his knee. The face, too thin for a boy of his age, bore a grave and thoughtful expression, with a touch of melancholy. The black masses of curling, unruly hair, and the faint coppery tinge in the skin, suggested Celtic descent.

Yet despite the trace of something foreign in his appearance, he was at heart a true child of his country. The wistful, dreamy thoughts that burned in his dark, passionate eyes, betrayed that rich and abundant imagination peculiar to the sons of Iceland, fostered by the great solitude and desolate yet fertile grandeur of the land itself. So deeply is the sense of that grandeur rooted in their hearts, that even those who have roamed the world over, and lived most of their lives in milder and richer climes, will yet declare that Iceland is the most beautiful of all.