CHAPTER XI.A DISCONSOLATE LOVER.
Toresume the thread of our narrative. Taking it up where it was dropped some chapters back, I must first recall the day and the situation.
Our lunch was spread under the ample shelter of a tent, which screened us from the rays of the sun, and formed a no bad substitute for the protecting trees under which our picnics are enjoyed in other lands. There seemed to be but one drawback to complete enjoyment. The noonday heat rose above 70°, and started great quantities of small flies and mosquitoes. From these pestiferous insects we thought we surely had escaped when we came to Greenland. But no! this was not to be. They attacked us in perfect clouds during the afternoon, and before I had quite completed my survey most of the party had betaken themselves to the oomiak, and hauled out into the middle of the fiord to escape their assaults. But the day was then well spent, and the pleasure-seekers had by this time enough of sport to satisfy them. All had enjoyed the day, Marcus alone excepted. That youth could never restrain his mortification at the havoc he at heart believed the Prince was making with his matrimonial prospects. For that young gentleman persistently devoted himself to the lively Concordia, despite the heat and mosquitoes, while she, in grateful appreciation of his attentions, wove wreaths of wild flowers for his cap, sung for him in irreproachable Esquimaux, and performed other coquettish acts of that kind with which recognized lovers are not unfrequently tantalized in other places than Greenland.
CONCORDIA AT THE PICNIC.
CONCORDIA AT THE PICNIC.
Whether Marcus would sensibly have staid at home, had he not been ordered to go by the pastor, I can not pretend to say; but having gone, he was certainly deserving (or at least he evidently thought so, like any other lover would have done) of better treatment from his inamorata; and, to look at him, you would have thoughtso too, for he was really a fine-looking fellow—at least for a half-breed. The stolid mask of the Esquimaux did not suit his frank, open face at all, and it was quite impossible for him to show himself at ease when he was not. Whether the Prince discovered the disturbed state of his feelings is not certain, but it is certain that he did not treat the matter with much attention. He never allowed Marcus to approach the object of his devotion to speak with her except once, and then Marcus was overheard to reproach her with flirting with the American—an opinion which was very generally entertained. The lively young lady of the seal-skin pantaloons grew indignant, declaring very pointedly that it was none of his business what she did with the American. Quite taken aback, the young man began to remonstrate with her, evidently under the impression that the Prince had already installed himself deep in the affections which, until this most unhappy day, he thought he had possessed all to himself. Then he began to institute comparisons between himself and the Prince. “Look at him,” exclaimed the much-injured lover, “with his pockets full of beads and jewelry! Look at him there, with his pop-gun of a rifle! Do you imagine he could shoot a seal? No, never! And if he did, could he get it home? No! Can he go in the fleet kayak? Can he climb the cliffs of the kittiwake, or gather the eggs of the lumme? Can he dart the spear at the eider-duck? Can he scale the mountain-sides in pursuit of the reindeer? Look at his pale face, and answer me!” and by this time fairly boiling over with rage and vexation as he recounted the Prince’s negative qualifications, he exclaimed, “No! he can do none of these things. He is good for nothing!” Then he straightened himself and said, with great self-complacency, “Look at me!”
“I don’t want to,” said the girl; “I won’t!” which terminatedthe colloquy, for the Prince himself came up at that very moment, and, addressing himself to the indignant lover, desired to know if his mother was intimately acquainted with his whereabouts—an inquiry which might have resulted in serious consequences had the lover understood even so much as a word of it. Without wasting much time, however, upon the injured youth, the Prince called for the music (the boy who steered our oomiak had brought up a cracked fiddle), and then, seizing Concordia by the waist, he whirled her through the old Norseman’s grave-yard in a fantastic waltz that must have made the very bones of the dead heroes fairly rattle again. Could those ancient priests, with the bishops at their head, have arisen then and there, they would doubtless have anathematized the whole party on the spot; for others were not slow to follow, and the dance did not wind up until they had gone through with several hornpipes and Greenland reels of a kind, I dare avow, never dreamed of by Terpsichore. Meanwhile Marcus, leaning against the old church wall, looked on in a most disconsolate and defiant manner, with his fists thrust far down into his pockets, as if that were the only safe place for them.
Whatever may have been Marcus’s recollections of the day, certainly all the rest of the party had a thoroughly good time of it. The day, however, lost something of its romantic character when the shades of evening began to trail over us, and the sun going down behind the distant glacier-crowned hills left the chilliness of evening to succeed the warmth of noon, as fatigue succeeded to the freshness of the morning.
When, therefore, we had completed our survey of the spot, we were a much more orderly party than we had been previously; and, when once more afloat in our oomiak, we went about from place to place in the fiord, visitingother ruins, with a solemnity more befitting explorers. The jealous Marcus had not now so much cause of complaint against the Prince, yet he did not recover his liveliness of disposition. He paddled along at his post of duty, looking neither to the right nor to the left, saying never a word, but evidently thinking very hard.
As he appeared to be of a very simple and gentle nature, I could but sympathize with him in his present trouble. There could be no doubt that he looked upon his hopes of happiness as forever gone. He had discovered his lady-love to be mercenary—her mind carried away by the Prince’s lavish expenditure of beads, ribbons, and jewelry; and all this for a young foreigner with a fair face, who could neither shoot a seal, nor go in a kayak, nor cast a spear! It was altogether most unaccountable. He seemed to be all the time, and naturally enough, comparing himself with his rival, to the great disparagement, of course, of the said rival, else he would not have been a lover, and with great wonderment as to what she possibly could see to admire in the other man. That Concordia meant to run off to America, Marcus evidently did not have a doubt, and his face seemed to indicate at times that he was capable of any deed of desperation in order to prevent so dire a catastrophe. Should he spear him, or put a bullet through him, or any thing of that sort? Especially did his countenance assume a malignant expression when, upon the homeward journey, the coquette would break out with her favorite song, the chorus of which was, “Tesseinowah, tesseinowah,” repeated over and over again. At this the Prince always manifested great delight, while Marcus grew correspondingly gloomy.
When we had at length reached Julianashaab, and had thanked the good pastor, to whom we were so much indebted, and had said “good-night” to our oarswomen, Itook the unhappy Marcus aside to condole with him. “Are you not,” said I, “son of the head man of Bungetak?”
“Ab,” said Marcus, and I thought a glow of satisfaction overspread his features at being reminded of his superior parentage.
“Concordia is very pretty,” I continued.
“Ab!” said Marcus again, his countenance falling at the recollection of his previous hopes and present discomfiture.
I asked him, “Do you know what pretty girls do in my country?”
“Na-mik” (no), he answered, his countenance falling still more at the further mention of the pretty girl that he had lost.
“When the pretty girl has the chance, she always marries the son of the head man,” said I.
Then his countenance assumed a joyous expression, and he went his way with a smile, which said plainly that, if he thought it was not much to be Marcus, it was good to be the son of the head man of Bungetak.