The Bondman: A New Saga

"Because I may have certain plans for her future welfare that you might try to spoil."

"Do they concern Michael Sunlocks?"

"No, indeed," said Mrs. Fairbrother, with a toss of the head.

"Then they concern young Jason, the Icelander," said Adam.

"If so, it is my concernment," said Mrs. Fairbrother.

"And that is your condition?"

"Yes."

"And you ask me to part from her forever? Think of it, she is my only daughter. She has been the light of my eyes. You have never loved her as I have loved her. You know it is the truth. And you ask me to see her no more, and never more to hear from her. Now, God punish you for this, you cold-hearted woman!"

"Take care, sir. Fewer words, or mayhap I will recall my offer. If you are wise you will be calm for the girl's sake."

"You are right," he said, with his head down. "It is not for me to take the bread out of my child's mouth. She shall choose for herself."

Then he twisted about to where Greeba stood in silence behind his chair. "Greeba," he said, with a world of longing in his eyes, "my darling, you see how it is. I am old and very poor, and heaven pity my blind folly, I have no home to offer you, for I have none to shelter my own head. Don't fear for me, for I have no fear for myself. I will be looked to in the few days that remain to me, and, come what may, the sorry race of my foolish life will soon be over. But you have made no mistakes that merit my misfortunes. So choose, my child, choose. It is poverty with me or plenty with your mother. Choose, my child, choose; and let it be quickly, let it be quickly, for my old heart is bursting."

Then the brave girl drew herself proudly up, her brilliant eyes aflame, and her whole figure erect and quivering.

"Choose?" she cried, in a piercing voice; "there is no choice. I will go with my father, and follow him over the world, though we have no covering but the skies above us."

And then Adam leapt from his chair to his feet, and the infirmity of his years seemed gone in an instant, and his wet face shone with the radiance of a great joy. "Do you hear that, you people?" he cried. "There's grace, and charity, and unselfishness, and love left in the world still. Thank heaven, I have not yet to curse the day her body brought forth children. Come, Greeba, we will go our ways, and God's protection will go with us. 'I have been young and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.'"

He strode across to the door, then stopped and looked back to where his sons stood together with the looks of whipped dogs.

"And you, you unnatural sons," he cried, "I cast you out of my mind. I give you up to your laziness and drunkenness and vain pleasures. I am going to one who is not flesh of my flesh, and yet he is my son indeed."

Again he made for the door, and stopped on the threshold, and faced about towards his wife. "As for you, woman, your time will come. Remember that! Remember that!"

Greeba laid one hand softly on his shoulder and said, "Come, father, come," but again he looked back at his sons and said, "Farewell, all of you! Farewell! You will see me no more. May a day like this that has come to your father never, never come to you."

And then all his brave bearing, his grand strength broke down in a moment, and as the girl laid hold of his arm, lest he should reel and fall, he stumbled out at the threshold, sobbing beneath his breath, "Sunlocks, my boy; Sunlocks, I am coming to you – I am coming to you."

Chalse A'Killey followed them out, muttering in an under-breath some deep imprecations that no one heeded. "Strange," said he, "the near I was to crucifying the Lord afresh and swearing a mortal swear, only I remembered my catechism and the good John Wesley."

At the gate to the road they met Jason, who was coming down from Barrule with birds at his belt. With bewildered looks Jason stood and looked at them as they came up, a sorry spectacle, in the brightness of the midday sun. Old Adam himself strode heavily along, with his face turned down and his white hair falling over his cheeks. By his side Greeba walked bearing herself as proudly as she might, with her head thrown back and her wet eyes trying hard to smile. A pace or two behind came Chalse with his pony and cart grunting hoarsely in his husky throat. Not a word of greeting did they give to Jason, and he asked for no explanation, for he saw it all after a moment: they being now homeless had drifted back to their old home and had just been turned away from it. And not a word of pity did he on his part dare to offer them, but in the true sympathy of silence he stepped up to Adam and gave him his strong arm to lean upon, and then turned himself about to go their way.

They took the road to Ramsey, and little was said by any of them throughout the long two miles of the journey, save only by Chalse, who never ceased to mutter dark sayings to himself, whereof the chief were praises to God for delivering them without loss of life or limb or hand or even out of a den of lions, for, thanks be to the Lord! He had drawn their teeth.

Now though the world is hard enough on a good man in the hour of his trouble, there are ever more tender hearts to compassionate his distresses than bitter ones to triumph over his adversity, and when Adam Fairbrother came to Ramsey many a door was thrown open to him by such as were mindful of his former state and found nothing in his fall to merit their resentment. No hospitality would he accept, however, but took up his abode with Greeba in a little lodging in the market place, with its face to the cross and its back towards the sea. And being safely housed there, he thanked Jason at the door for the help of his strong arm, and bade him come again at ten o'clock that night, if so be that he was in the way of doing a last service for a poor soul who might never again have it in his power to repay. "I'll come back at ten," said Jason, simply, and so he left them for the present.

And when he was gone Adam said to Greeba as he turned indoors, "A fine lad that, and as simple as a child, but woe to the man who deceives him. Ay, or to the woman either. But you'll never do it, girl? Eh? Never? Never?"

"Why, father, what can you mean? Are we not going away together?" said Greeba.

"True, child, true," said Adam; and so without further answer to her question, twice repeated, he passed with her into the house.

But Adam had his meaning as well as his reason for hiding it. Through the silent walk from Lague he had revolved their position and come to a fixed resolution concerning it. In the heat of his emotion it had lifted up his heart that Greeba had chosen poverty with him before plenty with her mother and her brothers, but when his passion had cooled he rebuked himself for permitting her to do so. What right had he to drag her through the slough of his own necessities! He was for going away, not knowing the fate that was before him, but on what plea made to his conscience dare he take her with him? He was old, his life was behind him, and, save herself, he had no ties. What did it matter to him how his struggle should end? But she was young, she was beautiful, she might form new friendships, the world was before her, the world might yet be at her feet, and life, so sweet and so sad, and yet so good a thing withal, was ready and waiting for her.

Once he thought of Michael Sunlocks, and that the arms that would be open to himself in that distant land would not be closed to Greeba. And once he thought of Jason, and that to leave her behind was to help the schemes that would bring them together. But put it as he would, no farther could he get than this, that she must stay, and he must go away alone.

Yet, knowing the strength of her purpose, he concealed his intention, and his poor bewildered old head went about its work of preparation very artfully. It was Friday, and still not far past noon, when they reached their lodging by the cross. After a hasty meal he set out into the town, leaving Greeba to rest, for she had walked far since early morning. At the quay he inquired the date of a vessel that called there sometimes in summer on its passage from Ireland to Iceland, and to his surprise he found that she was even then in the harbor, and would go out with the first tide of the next day, which would flow at one o'clock in the morning.

Thereupon he engaged his berth, and paid for his passage. It cost six pounds, besides a daily charge of four shillings for rations. The trip was calculated to last one month with fair wind and weather, such as then promised. Adam counted the cost, and saw that with all present debts discharged, and future ones considered, he might have somewhat between six and seven pounds in his pocket when he set foot in Reykjavik. Being satisfied with this prospect, he went to the High Bailiff for his license to leave the island.

Greeba had heard nothing of this, and as soon as night fell in she went up to bed at her father's entreaty. Her room was at the back of the house and looked out over the sea, and there she saw the young moon rise over the waters as she undressed and laid down to sleep.

Prompt to his hour Jason came, and then Adam told him all.

"I am going away," he said, "far away, indeed into your own country. I go to-night, though my daughter, who is asleep, knows nothing of my intention. Will you do me a service?"

"Try me," said Jason.

And then Adam asked him to stay in Ramsey over night, that he might be there when Greeba came down in the morning, to break the news to her that her father had gone, and to take her back with him to Lague.

"They will not say no to her, seeing her father is not with her; and the time is coming when she will hold her right to a share of all they have, and none of them dare withhold it."

Jason who had been up to Lague, had heard of all that had passed there, and played his own part too, though he said nothing of that. He was now visibly agitated. His calm strength had left him. His eyes were afire, his face twitched, his hands trembled, and he was plainly struggling to say what his quivering lips refuse to utter.

"Is there no other way?" he asked. "Must she go back to Lague? Is there no help for it?"

"None," said Adam; "for she is penniless, God forgive me, and beggars may not be choosers."

At that word Jason was unable to support any longer the wild laboring of his heart.

"Yes, yes, but there is a way," he cried, "for there is one to whom she is rich enough though he is poor himself, for he would give his life's blood if so be that he could buy her. Many a day he has seen all and stood aside and been silent, because afraid to speak, but he must speak now, or never."

Hearing this, Adam's face looked troubled, and he answered —

"I will not misdoubt you, my good lad, or question whom you mean."

And Jason's tongue being loosed at last, the hot words came from him like a flood.

"I have been an idle fellow, sir, I know that; good for nothing in the world, any more than the beasts of the field, and maybe it's because I've had nobody but myself to work for; but give me the right to stand beside her and you shall see what I can do, for no brother shall return her cold looks for her sweetness, and never again shall she go back where she will only be despised."

"You are a brave lad, Jason," said Adam, as best he could for the tears that choked him; "and though I have long had other thoughts concerning her, yet could I trust her to your love and keeping and go my ways with content. But no, no, my lad, it is not for me to choose for her; and neither is for her to choose now."

Pacified by that answer Jason gave his promise freely, faithfully to do what Adam had asked of him. And the night being now well worn towards midnight, with the first bell of the vessel rung, and old Chalse fussing about in busy preparation, the time had come for Adam to part from Greeba. To bid her farewell was impossible, and to go away without doing so was well-nigh as hard. All he could do was to look upon her in her sleep and whisper his farewell in his heart. So he entered on tiptoe the room where she lay. Softly the moon shone through the window from across the white sea, and fell upon the bed. Pausing at the door he listened for her breathing, and at last he heard it, for the night was very still, and only by the sea's gentle plash on the beach was the silence broken. Treading softly he approached the bedside, and there she lay, and the quiet moonlight lay over her – the dear, dear girl, so brave and happy-hearted. Her lips seemed to smile; perhaps she was dreaming. He must take his last look now. Yet no, he must kiss her first. He reached across and lightly touched her pure forehead with his lips. Then she moved and moaned in her sleep, and then her peaceful breathing came again. "Now, peace be with her," Adam murmured, "and the good hand to guard her of the good Father of all."

So Adam Fairbrother went his way, leaving Greeba behind him, and early the next morning Jason took her back to Lague.

CHAPTER III.

The Wooing of Jason

Now the one thing that Jason did not tell to Adam Fairbrother was that, on hearing from Jacob, as spokesman of his brothers, the story of their treatment of Greeba and their father, he had promised to break every bone in their six worthless bodies, and vowed never to darken their door again. His vow he could not keep if he was also to keep his word with Adam, and he deferred the fulfilment of his promise; but from that day he left Lague as a home, and pitched his tent with old Davy Kerruish in Maughold village, at a little cottage by the Sundial that stood by the gates of the church. Too old for the sea, and now too saintly for smuggling, Davy pottered about the churchyard as gravedigger – for Maughold had then no sexton – with a living of three and sixpence a service, and a marvellously healthy parish. So the coming of Jason to share bed and board with him was a wild whirl of the wheel of fortune, and straightway he engaged an ancient body at ninepence a week to cook and clean for them.

By this time Jason had spent nearly half his money, for he had earned nothing, but now he promptly laid his idle habits aside. No more did he go up to the mountains, and no longer out on to the sea. His nets were thrown over the lath of the ceiling, his decoy was put in a cage, his fowling piece stood in the corner, and few were the birds that hung at his belt. He was never seen at the "Hibernian," and he rarely scented up the house with tobacco smoke. On his first coming he lay two days and nights in bed without food or sleep, until Davy thought surely he was sick, and, willy-nilly, was for having his feet bathed in mustard and hot water, and likewise his stomach in rum and hot gruel. But he was only settling his plans for the future, and having hit on a scheme he leaped out of bed like a grayhound, plunged his head up to the neck in a bucket of cold water, came out of it with gleaming eyes, red cheeks and a vapor rising from his wet skin, and drying himself with a whir on a coarse towel, he laid hold with both hands of a chunk of the last hare he had snared, and munched it in vast mouthfuls.

"Davy," he cried, with the white teeth still going, "are there many corn mills this side of the island?"

"Och, no, boy," said Davy; "but scarce as fresh herrings at Christmas."

"Any mill nearer than old Moore's at Sulby, and Callow's wife's down at Laxey?"

"Aw, no, boy, the like of them isn't in."

"Any call for them nearer, Davy?"

"Aw 'deed, yes, boy, yes; and the farmer men alwis keen for one in Maughold, too. Ay, yes, keen, boy, keen; and if a man was after building one here they'd be thinking diamonds of him."

"Then why hasn't somebody set up a mill before now, Davy?"

"Well, boy, ye see a Manxman is just the cleverest of all the people goin' at takin' things aisy. Aw, clever at it, boy, clever!"

There is a full stream of water that tumbles into the sea over the brows of Port-y-Vullin, after singing its way down from the heights of Barrule. Jason had often marked it as he came and went from the hut of Stephen Orry that contained his stuffed birds, and told himself what a fine site it was for anybody that wanted to build a water mill. He remembered it now with a freshened interest, and bowling away to Mrs. Fairbrother at Lague for the purchase of a rod of the land that lay between the road and the beach, to the Bailiff for the right of water, and to old Coobragh for the hire of a cart to fetch stones from the screes where the mountains quarried them, he was soon in the thick of his enterprise.

He set the carpenter to work at his wheel, the smith at his axle, and the mason at his stones, but for the walls and roof of the mill itself he had no help but old Davy's. Early and late, from dawn to dusk, he worked at his delving and walling, and when night fell in he leaned over the hedge and smoked and measured out with his eye the work he meant to do next day. When his skill did not keep pace with his ardor he lay a day in bed thinking hard, and then got up and worked yet harder. In less than two months he had his first roof – timbers well and safely pitched, and if he went no farther it was because the big hope wherewith his simple heart had been buoyed up came down with a woeful crash.

"Aw, smart and quick, astonishin'," said old Davy of Jason to Mrs. Fairbrother at Lague. "Aw 'deed, yes, and clever to, and steady still. The way he works them walls is grand. I'll go bail the farming men will be thinking diamonds of him when he makes a start."

"And then I wouldn't doubt but he'll be in the way of making a fortune, too," said Mrs. Fairbrother.

"I wouldn' trust, I wouldn' trust," said Davy.

"And he'll be thinking of marrying, I suppose. Isn't he, Davy?" said Mrs. Fairbrother.

"Marrying, is it?" said Davy; "aw, divil a marry, ma'am. The boy's innocent. Aw, yes, innocent as a baby."

Mrs. Fairbrother had her own good reasons for thinking otherwise, though Jason came to Lague but rarely. So with hint and innuendo she set herself to see how Greeba stood towards the future she had planned for her. And Greeba was not slow to see her mother's serious drift under many a playful speech. She had spent cheerful hours at Lague since the sad surprise that brought her back. Little loth for the life of the farm, notwithstanding Ross's judgment, she had seemed to fall into its ways with content. Her mother's hints touched her not at all, for she only laughed at them with a little of her old gayety; but one day within the first weeks she met Jason, and then she felt troubled. He was very serious, and spoke only of what he was doing, but before his grave face her gay friendliness broke down in an instant.

Hurrying home she sat down and wrote a letter to Michael Sunlocks. Never a word had she heard from him since he left the island four years ago, so she made excuse of her father's going away to cover her unmaidenly act, and asked him to let her know if her father had arrived, and how he was and where, with some particulars of himself also, and whether he meant to come back to the Isle of Man, or had quite made his home in Iceland; with many a sly glance, too, at her own condition, such as her modesty could not forbear, but never a syllable about Jason, for a double danger held her silent on that head. This she despatched to him, realizing at length that she loved him, and that she must hear from him soon, or be lost to him forever.

And waiting for Michael's answer she avoided Jason. If she saw him on the road she cut across the fields, and if he came to the house she found something to take her out of the kitchen. He saw her purpose quickly, and his calm eyes saddened, and his strong face twitched, but he did not flinch; he went on with his work, steadily, earnestly, only with something less of heart, something less of cheer. Her mother saw it, too, and then the playful hints changed to angry threats.

"What has he done?" said Mrs. Fairbrother.

"Nothing," said Greeba.

"Have you anything against him?"

"No."

"Then why are you driving him from the house?"

Greeba could make no answer.

"Are you thinking of someone else?"

Again Greeba was silent.

"I'll beg of you to mend your manners," cried Mrs. Fairbrother. "It's full time you were wedded and gone."

"But perhaps I don't wish to leave home," said Greeba.

"Tush!" said Mrs. Fairbrother. "The lad is well enough, and if he hasn't land he has some money, and is like to have more. I'll give you a week to think of it, and if he ever comes and speaks for you I'll ask you to give him his civil answer. You will be three and twenty come Martinmas, and long before your mother was as old as that she had a couple of your brothers to fend for."

"Some of my brothers are nearly twice my age, and you don't ask them to marry," said Greeba.

"That's a different matter," said Mrs. Fairbrother.

It turned out that the week was more than enough to settle the difference between Greeba and her mother, for in less time than that Mrs. Fairbrother was stricken down by a mortal illness. It was only a month since she had turned Adam from her door, but her time was already at hand, and more than he predicted had come to pass. She had grown old without knowing a day's illness; her body, like a rocky headland that gives no sign of the seasons, had only grown harder every year, with a face more deeply seamed; but when she fell it was at one blow of life's ocean. Three little days she had lost appetite, on the morning of the fourth day she had found a fever in a neglected cattle trough that had drained into the well, and before night she had taken her death-warrant.

She knew the worst, and faced it, but her terror was abject. Sixty-five years she had scraped and scratched, but her time was come. She had thought of nothing save her treasure, and there it lay, yet it brought her no solace.

Two days she tossed in agony, remembering the past, and the price she had paid, and made others to pay, for all that she had held so dear and must leave so soon, for now it was nothing worth. Then she sent for the parson, Parson Gell, who was still living, but very old. The good man came, thinking his mission was spiritual comfort, but Mrs. Fairbrother would hear nothing of that. As she had lived without God in the world, even so did she intend to die. But some things that had gone amiss with her in her eager race after riches she was minded to set right before her time came to go. In lending she had charged too high an interest; in paying she had withheld too much for money; in seizing for mortgage she had given too little grace. So she would repay before it was too late, for Death was opening her hands.

"Send for them all," she cried; "there's Kinvig of Ballagawne, and Corlett's widow at Ballacreggan, and Quirk of Claughbane, and the children of Joughan the weaver at Sherragh Vane, and Tubman of Ginger Hall, and John-Billy-Bob at Cornah Glen, and that hard bargainer, old Kermode of Port-e-chee. You see, I remember them all, for I never forget anything. Send for them, and be quick fetching them, or it'll be waste of time for them to come."

"I'll do it, Mistress Fairbrother," mumbled the old parson through his toothless gums, "for right is right, and justice justice."

"Chut!" said Mrs. Fairbrother.

But the parson's deaf ears did not hear. "And, ah!" he said, "the things of this world seem worthless, do they not, when we catch a glimpse into eternity?"

"Less cry and more wool," said Mrs. Fairbrother, dryly. "I wouldn't trust but old as you are you'd look with more love on a guinea than the Gospel calls for."

The people answered the parson's summons quickly enough, and came to Lague next morning, the men in their rough beavers, the old women in their long blue cloaks, and they followed the old parson into Mrs. Fairbrother's room, whispering among themselves, some in a doleful voice others in an eager one, some with a cringing air, and others with an arrogant expression. The chamber was darkened by a heavy curtain over the window, but they could see Mrs. Fairbrother propped up by pillows, whereon her thin, pinched, faded face showed very white. She had slept never a moment of the night; and through all the agony of her body her mind had been busy with its reckonings. These she had made Greeba to set down in writing, and now with the paper on the counterpane before her, and a linen bag of money in her hand, she sat ready to receive her people. When they entered there was deep silence for a moment, wherein her eyes glanced over them, as they stood in their strong odors of health around her.