Читать книгу: «The Bondman: A New Saga», страница 6

At that Adam was shaken to his depths. The taunt passed him by, but the threat touched him sorely.

"It would be but a poor business," he said, "to part now after so many years of life together, with seven children that should be as bonds between us, in our age and looking to a longer parting."

But Mrs. Fairbrother was resolved to go with her sons, and never again to darken her husband's doors.

"You have been a true wife to me and led a good life," said Adam, "and have holpen me through many troubles, and we have had cheerful hours together despite some crosses."

But Mrs. Fairbrother was not to be pacified.

"Then let us not part in anger," said Adam, "and though I will not do your bidding, and send away the lad – no, nor let him go of himself, now that for sake of peace he asks it – yet to show you that I mean no wrong by my own flesh and blood, this is what I will do: I have my few hundreds for my office, but all I hold that I can call my own is Lague. Take it – it shall be yours for your lifetime, and our sons' and their sister's after you."

At these terms the bad bargain was concluded, and Mrs. Fairbrother went away to Lague, leaving Adam with Michael Sunlocks at Government House.

And the old man, being now alone with the lad, though his heart never wavered or rued the price he had paid for him, often turned yearningly towards thoughts of his daughter Greeba, so that at length he said, speaking of her as the child he had parted from, "I can live no longer without my little lass, and will go and fetch her."

Then he wrote to the Duchess at her house in London, and a few days afterwards he followed his letter.

He had been a week gone when Michael Sunlocks, having now the Governor's routine work to do, was sent for out of the north of the island to see to the light on the Point of Ayre, where there was then no lighthouse, but only a flase stuck out from a pole at the end of a sandstone jetty, a poor proxy, involving much risk to ships. Two days he was away, and returning home he slept a night at Douglas, rising at sunrise to make the last stage of his journey to Castletown. He was riding Goldie, the Governor's little roan; the season was spring, and the morning, fresh from its long draught of dew, was sweet and beautiful. But Michael Sunlocks rode heavily along, for he was troubled by many misgivings. He was asking himself for the hundredth time whether it was right of him, and a true man's part, to suffer himself to stand between Adam Fairbrother and his family. The sad breach being made, all that he could do to heal it was to take himself away, whether Adam favored that course or not. And he had concluded that, painful as the remedy would be, yet he must needs take it, and that very speedily, when he came up to the gate of Government House, and turned Goldie down the path to the left that led to the stables.

He had not gone far when over the lowing of the cattle in the byres, and the steady munching of the sheep on the other side of the hedge, and through the smell of the early grass there came to him the sweetest sounds he had ever heard, and some of the queerest and craziest. Without knowing what he did, or why he did it, but taking himself at his first impulse, he drew rein, and Goldie came to a stand on the mossgrown pathway. Then he knew that two were talking together a little in front of him, but partly hidden by a turn of the path and the thick trammon that bordered it. Rising in his stirrups he could see one of them, and it was his old friend, Chalse A'Killey, the carrier, a shambling figure in a guernsey and blue seaman's cap, with tousled hair and a simple vacant face, and lagging lower lip, but eyes of a strange brightness.

And "Aw, yes," Chalse was saying, "he's a big lump of a boy grown, and no pride at all, at all, and a fine English tongue at him, and clever extraordinary. Him and me's same as brothers, and he was mortal fond to ride my ould donkey when he was a slip of a lad. Aw, yes, him and me's middlin' well acquent."

Then some linnets that were hiding in the trammon began to twitter, and what was said next Michael Sunlocks did not catch, but only heard the voice that answered old Chalse, and that seemed to make the music of the birds sound harsh.

"'What like is he?' Is it like it is?" old Chalse said again. "Aw, straight as the backbone of a herrin' and tall and strong; and as for a face, maybe there's not a man in the island to hold a candle to him. Och, no, nor a woman neither – saving yourself, maybe. And aw, now, the sweet and tidy ye're looking this morning, anyway: as fresh as the dewdrop, my chree."

Goldie grew restless, began to paw the path, and twist his round flanks into the leaves of the trammon, and at the next instant Michael Sunlocks was aware that there was a flutter in front of him, and a soft tread on the silent moss, and before he could catch back the lost consciousness of that moment, a light and slender figure shot out with a rhythm of gentle movement, and stood in all its grace and lovely sweetness two paces beyond the head of his horse.

"Greeba!" thought Michael Sunlocks; and sure enough it was she, in the first bloom of her womanhood, with gleams of her child face haunting her still and making her woman's face luminous, with the dark eyes softened and the dimpled cheeks smoothed out. She was bareheaded, and the dark fall of her hair was broken over her ears by eddies of wavy curls. Her dress was very light and loose, and it left the proud lift of her throat bare, as well as the tower of her round neck, and a hint of the full swell of her bosom.

In a moment Michael Sunlocks dropped from the saddle, and held out his hand to Greeba, afraid to look into her face as yet, and she put out her hand to him and blushed: both frightened more than glad. He tried to speak, but never a word would come, and he felt his cheeks burn red. But her eyes were shy of his, and nothing she saw but the shadow of Michael's tall form above her and a glint of the uncovered shower of fair hair that had made him Sunlocks. She turned her eyes aside a moment, then quickly recovered herself and laughed a little, partly to hide her own confusion and partly in joy at the sight of his, and all this time he held her hand, arrested by a sudden gladness, such as comes with the first sunshine of spring and the scent of the year's first violet.

There was then the harsh scrape on the path of old Chalse A'Killey's heavy feet going off, and, the spell being broken, Greeba was the first to speak.

"You were glad when I went away – are you sorry that I have come back again?"

But his breath was gone and he could not answer, so he only laughed, and pulled the reins of the horse over its head and walked before it by Greeba's side as she turned towards the stable. In the cowhouse the kine were lowing, over the half-door a calf held out his red and white head and munched and munched, on the wall a peacock was strutting, and across the paved yard the two walked together, Greeba and Michael Sunlocks, softly, without words, with quick glances and quicker blushes.

Adam Fairbrother saw them from a window of the house, and he said within himself, "Now God grant that this may be the end of all partings between them and me." That chanced to be the day before Good Friday, and it was only three days afterwards that Adam sent for Michael Sunlocks to see him in his room.

Sunlocks obeyed, and found a strange man with the Governor. The stranger was of more than middle age, rough of dress, bearded, tanned, of long flaxen hair, an ungainly but colossal creature. When they came face to face, the face of Michael Sunlocks fell, and that of the man lightened visibly.

"This is your son, Stephen Orry," said old Adam, in a voice that trembled and broke. "And this is your father, Michael Sunlocks."

Then Stephen Orry, with a depth of languor in his slow gray eyes, made one step towards Michael Sunlocks, and half opened his arms as if to embrace him. But a pitiful look of shame crossed his face at that moment, and his arms fell again. At the same instant Michael Sunlocks, growing very pale and dizzy, drew slightly back, and they stood apart, with Adam between them.

"He has come for you to go away into his own country," Adam said, falteringly.

It was Easter Day, nineteen years after Stephen Orry had fled from Iceland.

CHAPTER VII.
The Vow of Stephen Orry

Stephen Orry's story was soon told. He desired that his son, being now of an age that suited it, should go to the Latin school at Reykjavik, to study there under old Bishop Petersen, a good man whom all Icelanders venerated, and he himself had known from his childhood up. He could bear the expense of it, and saying so he hung his head a little. An Irish brig, hailing from Belfast, and bound for Reykjavik, was to put in at Ramsey on the Saturday following. By that brig he wished his son to sail. He should be back at the little house in Port-y-Vullin between this and then, and he desired to see his son there, having something of consequence to say to him. That was all. Fumbling his cap, the great creature shambled out, and was gone before the others were aware.

Then Michael Sunlocks declared stoutly that come what might he would not go. Why should he? Who was this man that he should command his obedience? His father? Then what, as a father, had he done for him? Abandoned him to the charity of others. What was he? One whom he had thought of with shame, hoping never to set eyes on his face. And now, this man, this father, this thing of shame, would have him sacrifice all that was near and dear to him, and leave behind the only one who had been, indeed, his father, and the only place that had been, in truth, his home. But no, that base thing he should not do. And, saying this, Michael Sunlocks tossed his head proudly, though there was a great gulp in his throat and his shrill voice had risen to a cry.

And to all this rush of protest old Adam, who had first stared out at the window with a look of sheer bewilderment, and then sat before the fire to smoke, trying to smile though his mouth would not bend, and to say something more though there seemed nothing to say, answered only in a thick under-breath, "He is your father, my lad, he is your father."

Hearing this again and again repeated, even after he had fenced it with many answers, Michael Sunlocks suddenly bethought himself of all that had so lately occurred, and the idea came to him in the whirl of his stunned senses that perhaps the Governor wished him to go, now that they could part without offence or reproach on either side. At that bad thought his face fell, and though little given to woman's ways he had almost flung himself at old Adam's feet to pray of him not to send him away whatever happened, when all at once he remembered his vow of the morning. What had come over him since he made that vow, that he was trying to draw back now? He thought of Greeba, of the Governor, and again of Greeba. Had the coming of Greeba altered all? Was it because Greeba was back home that he wished to stay? Was it for that the Governor wished him to go, needing him now no more? He did not know, he could not think; only the hot flames rose to his cheeks and the hot tears to his eyes, and he tossed his head again mighty proudly, and said as stoutly as ever, "Very well – very well – I'll go – since you wish it."

Now old Adam saw but too plainly what mad strife was in the lad's heart to be wroth with him for all the ingratitude of his thought, so, his wrinkled face working hard with many passions – sorrow and tenderness, yearning for the lad and desire to keep him, pity for the father robbed of the love of his son, who felt an open shame of him – the good man twisted about from the fire and said, "Listen, and you shall hear what your father has done for you."

And then, with a brave show of composure, though many a time his old face twitched and his voice faltered, and under his bleared spectacles his eyes blinked, he told Michael Sunlocks the story of his infancy – how his father, a rude man, little used to ways of tenderness, had nursed him when his mother, being drunken and without natural feelings, had neglected him; how his father had tried to carry him away and failed for want of the license allowing them to go; how at length, in dread of what might come to the child, yet loving him fondly, he had concluded to kill him, and had taken him out to sea in the boat to do it, but could not compass it from terror of the voice that seemed to speak within him, and from pity of the child's own artless prattle; and, last of all, how his father had brought him there to that house, not abandoning him to the charity of others, but yielding him up reluctantly, and as one who gave away in solemn trust the sole thing he held dear in all the world.

And pleading in this way for Stephen Orry, poor old Adam was tearing at his own heart woefully, little wishing that his words would prevail, yet urging them the more for the secret hope that, in spite of all, Michael Sunlocks, like the brave lad he was, would after all refuse to go. But Michael, who had listened impatiently at first, tramping the room to and fro, paused presently, and his eyes began to fill and his hands to tremble. So that when Adam, having ended, said, "Now, will you not go to Iceland?" thinking in his heart that the lad would fling his arms about him and cry, "No, no, never, never," and he himself would then answer, "My boy, my boy, you shall stay here, you shall stay here," Michael Sunlocks, his heart swelling and his eyes glistening with a great new pride and tenderness, said softly, "Yes, yes – for a father like that I would cross the world."

Adam Fairbrother said not a word more. He blew out the candle that shone on his face, sat down before the fire, and through three hours thereafter smoked in silence.

The next day, being Monday, Greeba was sent on to Lague, that her mother and brothers might see her after her long absence from the island. She was to stay there until the Monday following, that she might be at Ramsey to bid good-bye to Michael Sunlocks on the eve of his departure for Iceland.

Three days more Michael spent at Government House, and on the morning of Friday, being fully ready and his leather trunk gone on before in care of Chalse A'Killey, who would suffer no one else to carry it, he was mounted for his journey on the little roan Goldie when up came the Governor astride his cob.

"I'll just set you as far as Ballasalla," he said, jauntily, and they rode away together.

All the week through since their sad talk on Easter Day old Adam had affected a wondrous cheerfulness, and now he laughed mightily as they rode along, and winked his gray eyes knowingly like a happy child's, until sometimes from one cause or other the big drops came into them. The morning was fresh and sweet, with the earth full of gladness and the air of song, though Michael Sunlocks was little touched by its beauty and thought it the heaviest he had yet seen. But Adam told how the spring was toward, and the lambs in fold, and the heifers thriving, and how the April rain would bring potatoes down to sixpence a kishen, and fetch up the grass in such a crop that the old island would rise – why not? ha, ha, ha! – to the opulence and position of a State.

But, rattle on as he would, he could neither banish the heavy looks of Michael Sunlocks nor make light the weary heart he bore himself. So he began to rally the lad, and say how little he would have thought of a trip to Iceland in his old days at Guinea; that it was only a hop, skip and a jump after all, and, bless his old soul, if he wouldn't cut across some day to see him between Tynwald and Midsummer – and many a true word was said in jest.

Soon they came by Rushen Abbey at Ballasalla, and then old Adam could hold back no longer what he had come to say.

"You'll see your father before you sail," he said, "and I'm thinking he'll give you a better reason for going than he has given to me; but, if not, and Bishop Petersen and the Latin School is all his end and intention, remember our good Manx saying that 'learning is fine clothes to the rich man, and riches to the poor one.' And that minds me," he said, plunging deep into his pocket, "of another good Manx saying, that 'there are just two bad pays – pay beforehand and no pay at all;' so to save you from both, who have earned yourself neither, put you this old paper into your fob – and God bless ye!"

So saying, he thrust into the lad's hand a roll of fifty Manx pound notes, and then seemed about to whip away. But Michel Sunlocks had him by the sleeve before he could turn his horse's head.

"Bless me yourself," the lad said.

And then Adam Fairbrother, with all his poor bankrupt whimseys gone from his upturned face, now streaming wet, and with his white hair gently lifted by the soft morning breeze, rose in the saddle and laid his hand on Michael's drooping head and blessed him. And so they parted, not soon to meet again, or until many a strange chance had befallen both.

It was on the morning of the day following that Michael Sunlocks rode into Port-y-Vullin. If he could have remembered how he had left it, as an infant in his father's arms, perhaps the task he had set himself would have been an easier one. He was trying to crush down his shame, and it was very hard to do. He was thinking that go where he would he must henceforth bear his father's name.

Stephen Orry was waiting for him, having been there three days, not living in the little hut, but washing it, cleaning it, drying it, airing it, and kindling fires in it, that by such close labor of half a week it might be worthy that his son should cross its threshold for half an hour. He had never slept in it since he had nailed up the door after the death of Liza Killey, and as an unblessed place it had been safe from the intrusion of others.

He saw Michael Sunlocks riding up, and raised his cap to him as he alighted, saying, "Sir" to him, and bowing as he did so. There were deep scars on his face and head, his hands were scratched and discolored, his cheeks were furrowed with wrinkles, and about his whole person there was a strong odor as of tobacco, tar, and bilge water.

"I shall not have ought to ask you here, sir," he said, in his broken English.

"Call me Michael," the lad answered, and then they went into the hut.

The place was not much more cheerful than of old, but still dark, damp and ruinous; and Michael Sunlocks, at the thought that he himself had been born there, and that his mother had lived her shameful life and died her dishonored death there, found the gall again in his throat.

"I have something that I shall have to say to you," said Stephen Orry, "but I cannot well speak English. Not all the years through I never shall have learn it." And then, as if by a sudden thought, he spoke six words in his native Icelandic, and glanced quickly into the face of Michael Sunlocks.

At the next instant the great rude fellow was crying like a child. He had seen that Michael understood him. And Michael, on his part, seemed at the sound of those words to find something melt at his heart, something fall from his eyes, something rise to his throat.

"Call me Michael," he said once more. "I am your son;" and then they talked together, Stephen Orry in the Icelandic, Michael Sunlocks in English.

"I've not been a good father to you, Michael, never coming to see you all these years. But I wanted you to grow up a better man than your father before you. A man may be bad, but he doesn't like his son to feel ashamed of him. And I was afraid to see it in your face, Michael. That's why I stayed away. But many a time I felt hungry after my little lad, that I loved so dear and nursed so long, like any mother might. And hearing of him sometimes, and how well he looked, and how tall he grew, maybe I didn't think the less about him for not coming down upon him to shame him."

"Stop, father, stop," said Michael Sunlocks.

"My son," said Stephen Orry, "you are going back to your father's country. It's nineteen years since he left it, and he hadn't lived a good life there. You'll meet many a one your father knew, and, maybe, some your father did wrong by. He can't undo the bad work now. There's a sort of wrong-doing there's no mending once it's done, and that's the sort his was. It was against a woman. Some people seem to be sent into this world to be punished for the sins of others. Women are mostly that way, though there are those that are not; but she was one of them. It'll be made up to them in the other world; and if she has gone there she has taken some of my sins along with her own – if she had any, and I never heard tell of any. But if she is in this world still, perhaps it can be partly made up to her here. Only it is not for me to do it, seeing what has happened since. Michael, that's why you are going to my country now."

"Tell me everything," said Michael.

Then Stephen Orry, his deep voice breaking and his gray eyes burning with the slow fire that had lain nineteen years asleep at the bottom of them, told his son the story of his life – of Rachel and of her father and her father's curse, of what she had given up and suffered for him, and of how he had repaid her with neglect, with his mother's contempt, and with his own blow. Then of her threat and his flight and his coming to that island; of his meeting with Liza, of his base marriage with the woman and the evil days they spent together; of their child's birth and his own awful resolve in his wretchedness and despair; and then of the woman's death, wherein the Almighty God had surely turned to mercy what was meant for vengeance. All this he told and more than this, sparing himself not at all. And Michael listened with a bewildered sense of fear and shame, and love and sorrow, that may not be described, growing hot and cold by turns, rising from his seat and sinking back again, looking about the walls with a chill terror, as the scenes they had witnessed seemed to come back to them before his eyes, feeling at one moment a great horror of the man before him, and at the next a great pity, and then clutching his father's huge hands in his own nervous fingers.

"Now you know all," said Stephen Orry, "and why it is not for me to go back to her. There is another woman between us, God forgive me, and dead though she is, that woman will be there forever. But she, who is yonder, in my own country, if she is living, is my wife. And heaven pity her, she is where I left her – down, down, down among the dregs of life. She has no one to protect and none to help her. She is deserted for her father's sake, and despised for mine. Michael, will you go to her?"

The sudden question 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.