with not objecting from the first, for "Och," they would say, "one
of these fine days the ship will be wrecked and scuttled before yer
very eyes, and not a pound of cargo left at her; and all along of
that cursed young imp that's after sniffin' and sniffin' abaft of the
ould man," a figure of speech which meant that Adam would will
his belongings to Michael Sunlocks. And at that conjecture,
Thurstan. the fourth son, a black-bearded fellow in top boots,
always red-eyed with much drinking, but strong of will and the
ruler of his brethren, would say: "Aw, well, let the little beach-
comber keep his weather eye liftin' " ; and Jacob, the fifth son,
sandy as a fox, and as sly and watchful, and John, the youngest,
known as Gentleman Johnny, out of tribute to his love of dress,
would shake their heads together, and hint that they would yet find
a way to cook the goose of any smooth-faced hypocrite shamming
Abraham.

Many a device they tried to get Michael Sunlocks turned away.
They brought bad stories of his father, Stephen Orry, now a name
of terror to good people from north to south of the island, a secret
trader running between the revenue cutters in the ports and the
smugglers outside, perhaps a wrecker haunting the rough channels
of the Calf, an outlaw growing rich by crime, and, maybe, by
blood. The evil rumors made no impression on old Adam, but they



THE BONDMAN 53

produced a powerful effect where no effect had been expected. Bit
by bit, as his heart went out to the Governor, there grew upon
Michael Sunlocks a deep loathing of the very name and thought
of his father. The memory of his father was now a thing of the
mind, not the affections; and the chain of the two emotions, love
for his foster father and dread of his natural one, slowly but surely
tightened about him, so that his strongest hope was that he might
never again set eyes on Stephen Orry. By this weakness he fell
at length into the hands of the six Fairbrothers, and led the way
to a total rupture of old Adam's family.

One day when Michael Sunlocks was eighteen years old a man
came to him from Kirk Maughold with an air of wondrous mys-
tery, ft was Nary Crowe, the innkeeper, now bald, bottled-nosed,
and in a bad state of preservation. His story, intended for
Michael's ear alone, was that Stephen Orry, flying from the officers
of the revenue cutters, was on the point of leaving the island for-
ever, and must see his son before going. If the son would not go
to the father, then the father must come to the son. The meeting-
place proposed was a schooner lying outside the Calf Sound, and
the hour midnight of the day following.

It was as base a plot as the heart of an enemy ever concocted,
for the schooner was a smuggler, and the men of the revenue cutter
were in hiding under the Black Head to watch her movements.
The lad, in fear of his father, fell into the trap, and was taken
prisoner on suspicion in a gig making for the ship. He confessed
all to the Governor, and Nary Crowe was arrested. To save his
own carcass Nary gave up his employers. They were Ross and
Stean Fairbrother, and Ross and Stean being questioned pointed to
their brothers Jacob and Gentleman Johnny as the instigators of
the scheme.

When the revelation was complete, and the Governor saw that
all but his whole family was implicated, and that the stain on his
house was so black that the island would ever remember it against
him, his placid spirit forsook him and his wrath knew no bounds.
But the evil was not ended there, for Mrs. Fairbrother took sides
with her sons, and straightway vowed to live no longer under the
same roof with an unnatural father, who found- water thicker than
blood.

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."



54



THE BONDMAN



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. Fair-
brother 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 toward 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 afterward 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 flare 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 Gov-
ernor's little roan; the season was spring, and the morning, fresh
from its long draft of dew, was sweet and beautiful. But Michael
Sunlocks rode heavily along, for he was troubled by many mis-
givings. 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



THE BONDMAN 55

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, Chaise 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," Chaise 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 Chaise, and that seemed
to make the music of the birds sound harsh.

"What like is he?' Is it like it is?" old Chaise 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 morn-
ing, 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



5 6 THE BONDMAN

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 con-
fusion 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 Chaise
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 toward the stable. In the
cow-house 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 to 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 afterward 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 Sun-
locks."



THE BONDMAN 57

Then Stephen Orry, with a depth of languor in his slow gray
eyes, made one step toward 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 say-
ing so he hung his head a little. An Irish brig, hailing from Bel-
fast, 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 con-
sequence 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



S 8 THE BONDMAN

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 him-
self 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 offense 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 ten-
derness, had nursed him when his mother, being drunken and with-
out 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



THE BONDMAN 59

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 wofully, 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 follow-
ing, that she might be at Ramsey to bid good-by to Michael Sun-
locks 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 Chaise 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'l 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 heav-
iest 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.



<5o THE BONDMAN

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 Michael
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 whim-
sies 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 Sun-
locks 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 BONDMAN 61

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 hiir
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 of tobacco,
tar, and bilge water.

"I shall not have aught 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 can not 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



62 THE BONDMAN

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