65° - 01.09.1967, Blaðsíða 30

The other raised his eyebrows a little and said
all in good time but first he must have the papers
and a formal receipt, and there was some hunting
about in drawers accompanied by the sort of
whistling through the teeth that goes with the
grooming of horses, until finally that matter was
sealed and Jon’s signature appended to a snuff-
sprinkled paper, and he was led off to a loose-
box with a saddle and bridle slung across the
half-door. A thud of hoofs and the white flash of
an eye from the darkness inside, and he was
looking at the Gift Horse — the horse that was
now theirs, and the horse was looking at him.
Jon could have sworn that this exchanged look
of appraisal — and it was no less than that —
between animal and master was the moment of
truth, the decisive turning-point in their respect-
ive lives, the basis on which all their future rela-
tionship was to be founded.
The horse was of somewhat nondescript colour
and appearance -—- a kind of mousey bay, rather
pot-bellied through too much grass-eating, but
with a sturdy build and a head held high in spite
of the scraggy mane. But the eye — it was the
eye that held him, with its clear, intelligent,
questioning look, and the mobile ears that under-
lined and supplemented its expression.
The eye seemed to say, ‘Who do you suppose
you are, that are to be my lord and master?’ And
as it gazed into Jon’s own eye, exchanging look
for look, it was as though the answer it found
there was not much to its liking. ‘You ride me
at your peril,’ it seemed to say. ‘I was reared of
a proud breed, to be ridden by proud men.” And
involuntarily Jon found himself thinking of
Hrafnkel’s Freyfaxi, the horse dedicated to the
god Frey and one that no base-born man might
ride with impunity.
“Come on over, there, Bleikur,” said the riding-
club man, and he saddled and bridled the horse.
Faxi, said Jon in his mind — not Bleikur. A
proud name for a proud stallion. But his heart
was uneasy when he swung himself into the saddle
and got ready to ride away.
He need not have worried, though. Faxi-Bleikur
behaved like a perfect gentleman, moving off at
an easy amble before he had even touched the
rounded sides with his heels.
“I’ll see you down there,” he called to his wife
and children. “Give me a couple of hours. Better
take it easy until I’ve tried him out a bit.” He
touched the brim of his hat with the handle of
his whip in a lordly gesture of leave-taking, a
knightly salute. “Goodbye in the meanwhile!”
“Goodbye!”
A few minutes later the car passed him, turning
back along the main road, and they all waved;
but for some reason that he could not have de-
fined himself, he did not reply. He was no longer
of their world — the world of vulgar metal and
glass monsters that made noises and threw up
clouds of dust as they drove by, the world of
commonplace people who took transistor radios
with them and picknicked near the shining mon-
sters that were their life-line to the safety of their
insulated homes.
When he reached the road and turned south
along it, and the cars began to pass him, forcing
him into the narrow gravel margin, he cursed
them freely, feeling all the contempt of one who
is firmly based on the old values in face of the
rootless generation ... How could any man he a
true Icelander who had not experienced this older,
slower rhythm, with the sense of the saddle be-
tween your knees, and the smell of horse and
leather, and the road before you, seen from be-
hind your horse’s ears, and all about you the
mountains and rivers and windswept wastes of
this wild, wonderful country?
He passed some road-workers. They were drink-
ing their coffee by the roadside and waved at him
as he went by. He acknowledged, graciously, with
the whip, and rode on.
Then they reached the road-j unction where he
was to take the left fork, to continue along the
coast-road to Mosfellssveit; but it now transpired
that Faxi-Bleikur had ideas of his own about
their destination. Ignoring all indications of his
rider’s wishes and all attempts to hold him to the
intended course, he swung sharply to the right
and set off at a brisk trot along the road that
led to the South.
It was a simple conflict of wills. No amount of
tugging on the rein or application of the heel
produced the slightest effect on the horse. Jon’s
feeling of helpless frustration turned to one of
helpless wrath. He used his whip — and was
Continued on page 34.
65°
28