Page:Early Reminiscences.djvu/374

 312 EARLY REMINISCENCES But I will record one little incident not given in that book. At Thingvalla I saw a man in shabby garments, rather lame who came up to me and conversed in English with a foreign accent. I congratulated him on speaking English so correctly. He smiled but said nothing. Not till after I left did I hear that he called himself Milbanke, and had been travelling in Iceland the foregoing year when, on reaching Grimstunga, he tripped on a lava-field, fell and dislocated his thigh. He was nursed at the pastor's manse by the pastor's daughter, and he fell desperately in love with her, and remained at Grimstunga through the winter to prosecute his suit. But it proved unavailing ; she had set her fancy on a dirty, shock-headed fellow, who, some days later, took charge of my horse when I reached Grimstunga, and who from the energetic manner in which he scratched himself all over his person I concluded was greatly populated. Milbanke, disconsolate as a rejected lover, was on his way back to England when I encountered him. He was actually Ralph Gordon Noel, second son of the Earl of Lovelace. His eldest brother, Lord Ockham, was peculiar, and lived at Chatham, where he worked as a dock-labourer. Ockham died unmarried, and then Ralph Gordon Noel Milbanke became Viscount Ockham, and finally Earl of Lovelace. The girl was pleasing, but not pretty. Had she known what prospect opened before her of being a Countess, and been able to appreciate what that meant, possibly she might have discarded the Grimstunga ostler. But would she have been happier as a transplanted flower ? There had not been much written on the natives of Iceland before I visited it, and when I started to explore the island, I took with me a box full of trinkets as presents. Soon after my arrival, and in journeying on horseback through the centre of the island, I was at one place very hospitably received, and, wishing to make some acknowledgment beyond the usual piece of gold, I opened my box and produced a ring with a sparkling artificial diamond in it, intending to present it to the daughter of the house. Just in time my guide arrested me. " To present a ring," said he, " is to make an offer of marriage ; and—she is sure to accept you, for she has the sheep-disease." " The sheep-disease," echoed I, hastily replacing the ring in the box, " what is that ? " " Oh, sores and that sort of thing. The Danish doctors don't