The Bondman: A New Saga. Hall Sir Caine
recalled the lad from a painful reverie. He had been thinking of his own position, and that even his father's name, which an hour ago he had been ashamed to bear, was not his own to claim. But Stephen Orry had never once thought of this, or that the dead woman who stood between him and Rachel also stood between Rachel and her son.
"Promise me, promise me," he cried, seeing one thing only – that Michael was his son, that his son was as himself, and that the woman who was dead had been as a curse to both of them.
But Michael Sunlocks made him no answer.
"I've gone from bad to worse – I know that, Michael. I've done in cold blood what I'd have trembled at when she was by me. Maybe I was thinking sometimes of my boy even then, and saying to myself how some day he'd go back for me to my own country, when I had made the money to send him."
Michael trembled visibly.
"And how he'd look for her, and find her, and save her, if she was alive. And if she wasn't – if she was dead, poor girl, with all her troubles over, how he'd look for the child that was to come when I left her – my child, and hers – and find it where it would surely be, in want and dirt and misery, and then save it for its mother's sake and mine. Michael, will you go?"
But still Michael Sunlocks made him no answer.
"It's fourteen years since God spared your life to me; just fourteen years to-night, Michael. I remembered it, and that's why we are here now. When I brought you back in my arms she was there at my feet, lying dead, who had been my rod and punishment. Then I vowed, as I should answer to the Lord at the last day, that if I could not go back, you should."
Michael covered his face with hands.
"My son, my son – Michael, my little Sunlocks, I want to keep my vow. Will you go?"
"Yes, yes," cried Michael, rising suddenly. His doubt and pride and shame were gone. He felt only a great tenderness now for the big rude man, who had sinned deeply and suffered much and found that all he could do alone would avail him nothing.
"Father, where is she?"
"I left her at Reykjavik, but I don't know where she is now."
"No matter, I will hunt the world over until I find her, and when I have found her I will be as a son to her, and she shall be as a mother to me."
"My boy, my boy," cried Stephen.
"If she should die, and we should never meet, I will hunt the world over until I find her child, and when I have found it I will be as a brother to it for my father's sake."
"My son, my son," cried Stephen. And in the exultation of that moment, when he tried to speak but no words would come, and only his rugged cheeks glistened and his red eyes shone, it seemed to Stephen Orry that the burden of twenty heavy years had been lifted away.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Going of Sunlocks
It was then past noon. The Irish brig was in the harbor taking in Manx cloth and potatoes, a few cattle and a drove of sheep. At the flow of the tide it was to go out into the bay and anchor there, waiting for the mails, and at nine o'clock it was to sail. In the meantime Michael was to arrange for his passage, and at half-past eight he was to meet his father on the quay.
But he had also to see Greeba, and that was not easy to do. The family at Lague had heard the great news of his going, and had secretly rejoiced at it, but they refused to see him there, even for the shortest leave-taking at the longest parting. And at the bare mention of the bargain that Greeba had made with him, to bid him farewell on the eve of his departure, all the Fairbrothers were up in arms. So he had been sorely put to it to devise a means of meeting Greeba, if he could do so without drawing suspicion down on her; for come what might of risk or danger to himself he meant to see her again before ever he set foot on the ship. The expedient he could not hit on did not long elude a woman's wit, and Greeba found the way by which they were to meet.
A few of last year's heifers were grazing on Barrule and at nightfall somebody went up for them and brought them home. She would go that night, and return by the glen, so that at the bridge by the turn of the river and the low road to Lague, where it was quiet enough sometimes, she could meet anybody about dusk and nobody be the wiser. She contrived a means to tell Michael of this, and he was prompt to her appointment.
The day had been fair but close, with a sky that hung low, and with not a breath of wind, and in the evening when the mist came down from the mountain a fog came up from the sea, so that the air was empty and every noise went through it as if it had been a speaking-trumpet. Standing alone on the bridge under the quiet elms, Michael could hear the rattle of chains and the whistling of horns, and by that he knew that the brig had dropped anchor in the bay. But he strained his ears for other sounds, and they came at last; the thud of the many feet of the heifers, the flapping of their tails, the cattle-call in a girl's clear voice, and the swish of a twig that she carried in her hand.
Greeba came along behind the cattle, swinging her body to a jaunty gait, her whole person radiant with health and happiness, her long gown, close at the back and loose over her bosom, showing well her tall lithe form and firm bearing. She wore no bonnet, but a white silk handkerchief was tied about her head, half covering her mouth, and leaving visible in the twilight only the tip of her nose, a curl of her hair, and her bright dark eyes, with their long bright lashes. She was singing to herself as she came up to the bridge, with an unconcerned and unconscious air. At sight of Michael she made a start and a little nervous cry, so that he thought, poor lad, not knowing the ways of women, that for all the pains she had been at to fetch him she had somehow not expected him to be there.
She looked him over from head to foot, and her eyes gleamed from the white kerchief.
"So you are going, after all," she said, and her voice seemed to him the sweetest music he had ever heard. "I never believed you would," she added.
"Why not?" he asked.
"Oh, I don't know," she said, and laughed a little. "But I suppose there are girls enough in Iceland," and then she laughed outright. "Only they can't be of much account up there."
"But I've heard they are very fine girls," he answered; "and it's a fine country, too."
She tossed her head and laughed and swung her switch.
"Fine country! The idea! Fine company, fine people and a good time. That's what a girl wants if she's worth anything."
"Then I suppose you will go back to London some day," he said.
"That doesn't follow," she answered. "There's father, you see; and, oh, what a pity he can't live at Lague!"
"Do you like it so much?" he said.
"Like it?" she said, her eyes full of laughter. "Six big hungry brothers coming home three times a day and eating up everything in the house – it's delightful!"
She seemed to him magnificently beautiful.
"I dare say they'll spoil you before I come back," he said, "or somebody else will."
She gave him a deliberate glance from her dark eyes, and then threw back her head and laughed. He could see the heaving of her breast. She laughed again – a fresh, merry laugh – and then he tried to laugh too, thinking of the foolish thing he had said.
"But if there are plenty of girls up there," she said, slyly glancing under her long lashes, "and they're so very wonderful, maybe you'll be getting married before you come home again?"
"Maybe so," he said quietly, and looked vacantly aside.
There was a pause. Then a sharp snap or two broke the silence and recalled him to the maiden by his side. She was only breaking up the twig she had carried.
There was another pause, in which he could hear the rippling of the river and the leaping of a fish. The heifers were munching the grass by the roadside a little ahead.
"I must go now," she said, coldly, "or they'll be out seeking me."
"I'll walk with you as far as Lague – it's dark," he said.
"No, no, you must not!" she cried, and fumbling the loose fold