The Bondman: A New Saga

"Gracious heavens, my lord," cried the little spokesman, "what reason have we to assume that this prisoner is ignorant of either? With a life to guard that is prized by friends and precious to the State shall we let this man go free who had sworn before witnesses to destroy it?"

"God forefend!" said the Bishop.

It was lawful to question the prisoner, and so he was questioned.

"Is it true that you have been lying in wait to kill the President?" asked the spokesman.

But Jason made no answer.

"Is it true that you have done so from a desire for personal vengeance?"

No answer.

"Or from political motives?"

No answer.

"Or both?"

Still no answer.

Then the spokesman turned back to the Court. "The stubborn persistence of the prisoner is easy to understand," he said, and smiled.

"Wait," said the old Bishop, and he turned towards Jason.

"Have you any valid plea?"

But Jason gave no sign.

"Listen," said the Bishop. "Though the man who compasses the destruction of a single life is as though he had destroyed a world, for the posterity of him who is dead might have filled a world, yet have all laws of men since the Pentateuch recognized certain conditions that limit the gravity of the crime. If the man who is slain has himself slain the near kindred of his slayer, though the law of Iceland would no longer hold him guiltless, as in the ancient times when evil for evil was the rule and sentence, neither would it punish him as a murderer, who must eat the bread and drink the water of misery all his days. Now what is true of murder must be true of intent to murder, and though I am loth to believe it possible in this instance, honoring and loving as we all do that good man whom you are charged with lying in wait to kill, yet in my duty must I ask you the question – Has Michael Sunlocks spilled blood of your blood, and is it as a redeemer of blood that you go about to slay him?"

There was a dead hush in the little crowded courthouse as Jason lifted his heavy, bloodshot eyes to the Bishop's face and answered, in a weary voice, "I have nothing to say."

Then an aged Lutheran priest, who had sat within the rail, with a snuffbox in his hand and a red print handkerchief across his knee, hobbled up to the witness stool and tendered evidence. He could throw light on the prisoner's hatred of the President, if it was true that the President was a son of Stephen Orry. He knew the prisoner, and had named him in his baptism. He had known the prisoner's mother also, and had sat with her at her death. It was quite true that she was a daughter of the late Governor, and had been badly treated by her father. But she had been yet more badly treated by her husband, who married again while she was still alive, and had another son by the other wife. On her deathbed she had heard of this, and told the prisoner, who then and there, this witness being present, made an awful vow of vengeance upon his father and his father's son.

The old priest was heard in silence, and his words sent a quiver through the courthouse. Even Jason, who had shown no interest save when Greeba was removed, lifted up his bloodshot eyes again and listened.

And the Bishop, visibly moved, turned to the Court and said, "Let us put this prisoner back to be tried by the High Court and the Lagmann."

"What, my lord!" cried the little spokesman, with a lofty look, "and set him at liberty in the meantime, to carry out the crime he threatens?"

"Heaven forbid!" said the Bishop.

"Remember, until he has been condemned we have no power to hold him," said the spokesman.

The Bishop turned to an usher and said, "Bring me the Statute Book," and the great tome was brought. The Bishop opened it and again turned to the prisoner. "The Almighty," said he, "created one man at the beginning to teach us that all men are brethren, and the law of our old country provides that when two have had disputes and pursued each other on account of hatred, even as brethren they shall make peace before their neighbors. Now listen to the words I shall read to you, and be ready to say if you will swear to them."

Then a great silence fell upon the people, while in solemn tones the old Bishop read the Peace Oath.

"Ye two shall be set at one and live friendly together, at meat and at drink, in the Althing and at meetings, at kirk prayers and in King's palace; and in whatever place else men meet together, there shall ye be so set at one, as if this quarrel had never come between you. Ye shall share knife and meat together, and all things besides, as friends and not as enemies."

The Bishop paused and looked over his spectacles at Jason, who stood as before, with the cloud on his brow and the slow fire in his deep eyes, but with no sign of feeling or interest.

"Will you promise to swear to this, when he shall have returned who should swear to it with you?" said the Bishop.

Then all eyes turned towards Jason, and there came across his face at that moment the look of a bated dog.

"No," he growled.

The spokesman shifted in his seat and the people grew restless.

"Listen again," said the Bishop, and his long white beard shook and his solemn voice rose to a shrill cry as he twisted back to the book and read: —

"But if one of you be so mad that he breaks this truce thus made, and slays after pledges have been made and his blade has reddened, he shall be an outlaw, accursed and driven away, so far as men drive wolves farthest away. He shall be banished of God and all good Christian men, as far as Christian men seek churches, as mothers bring forth sons, son calls mother, flames blaze up, mankind kindle fire, earth is green, sun shines, and snow covers the ground; he shall flee from kirk and Christian men, God's house and mankind, and from every home save hell."

Then there was a pause and a great hush, and the Bishop lifted his eyes from the book, and said —

"Will you swear to it?"

Again all eyes turned towards Jason, and again his face, which had been impassive, took the look of a bated dog.

"No, no, no!" he cried in a loud voice, and then the great silence was broken by deep murmurs.

"It is useless," said the spokesman. "Warnings and peace oaths, though still valid, are the machinery of another age. This prisoner is not ignorant of the gravity of the crime he contemplates, nor yet of the penalty attaching to it."

There was an audible murmur of assent from the people.

"That's true," said one. "It's the truest word spoken to-night," said another. "The old man is all for mercy," said a third. "It isn't safe," said a fourth. And there was other whispering, and much nodding of heads and shuffling of feet.

Encouraged by these comments the little spokesman added —

"In any other country at this age of the world a man who tacitly admitted a design to take life would be promptly clapped into prison."

"Ay, ay," the people muttered, but the Bishop drew himself up and said, "In any other country a criminal who showed no fear of the death that hung over him would be straightway consigned to a madhouse."

"We have no madhouse in this island, my lord," said the little spokesman, "save the Sulpher Mines, and there he must go."

"Wait," said the Bishop, and once again he turned to the prisoner. "If this Court should agree to ship you out of Iceland will you promise never more to return to it?"

For the third time all eyes were turned on Jason, but he did not seem to hear the Bishop's question.

"Will you promise?" said the Bishop again.

"No," said Jason.

"Dangerous trifling," said the spokesman. "When you seize a mad dog you strangle it."

"Ay, ay," cried many voices at once, and great excitement prevailed.

The old Bishop drew back with a sigh of relief. He loved Michael Sunlocks and had been eager to save him. He pitied Greeba, and for her sake also had been anxious to protect her husband. But from the moment he saw Jason and thought, "That man's heart is dead within him," his love had struggled with his sense of duty. As the trial went on he had remembered Jason and recalled his bitter history, and seized with a strong sympathy he had strained every nerve to keep back his punishment. He had done all he could do, he had nothing to reproach himself with, and full of a deep and secret joy at the certainty of the safety of Sunlocks, he now fell back that the law might take its course.

The Court was counted out, and then the Bishop turned for the last time to Jason, and delivered judgment. "The sentence of this Court," he said "is that you be removed from here to the Sulpher Mines, and be kept there six months certain, and as long thereafter as you refuse to take the Oath of Peace pledging yourself forever, as long as you live or the world endures, to be at one with your enemy as brothers before all men living."

Now Greeba alone knew the truth about Jason. When she had fled from Mann without word or warning it had not been out of fear of him, but of her brothers. Her meeting with Michael Sunlocks, her short stay with the good old Bishop Petersen, her marriage and the festival that followed, had passed her by like a dream. Then came the first short parting with Sunlocks when he had said, "I must leave you for a fortnight, for the men I sent in search of your father have blundered and returned without him." She had cried a little at that, and he had kissed her, and made a brave show of his courage, though she could see the tears in his own big shining eyes. But it was all a dream, a sweet and happy dream, and only by the coming of Jason had the dream been broken.

Then followed her terror, her plea, her fear for her husband's life, her defiance of Jason, and the charge she made against him.

And the first burst of her passion over, she had thought to herself, "My husband is safe, but Jason will now tell all and I shall be a lost and ruined woman," for nothing had she yet said to Michael Sunlocks concerning the man who had wooed and won and released her during the long years of his silence and her trouble. "He will hear the story now," she thought, "and not from my lips but from Jason's."

Being then so far immersed she could not but go on, and so she had allowed herself to be led to the courthouse. No one there had thought to ask her if she had known anything of Jason before that day, and she on her part had said nothing of knowing him. But when Jason had looked at her with eyes of reproach that seemed to go through her soul, he seemed to be saying, "This is but half the truth. Dare you not tell the rest?"

Then listening to the lying of other witnesses, and looking up at Jason's face, so full of pain, and seeing how silent he was under cruel perjury, she remembered that this man's worst crime had been his love of her, and so she staggered to her feet to confess everything.

When she came to herself after that, she was back in her own home – her new home, the home of her happy dream, her husband's home and hers, and there her first fear returned to her. "He will tell all," she thought, "and evil tongues will make it worse, and shame will fall upon my husband, and I shall be lost, lost, lost."

She waited with feverish impatience for the coming of the Bishop to tell her the result of the trial, and at length he came.

"What have they done with him?" she cried; and he told her.

"What defence did he make?" she asked.

"None," said the Bishop.

"What did he say?" she asked again.

"Not a word but 'No,'" said the Bishop.

Then she drew a long breath of immense relief, and at the next instant she reproached herself. How little of soul she had been! And how great of heart had been Jason! He could have wrecked her life with a word, but he had held his peace. She had sent him to prison, and rather than smite he had suffered himself to be smitten. She felt herself small and mean.

And the Bishop, having, as he thought, banished Greeba's terror, hobbled to the door, for now the hour was very late, and the snow was still falling.

"The poor soul will do your good husband no mischief now. Poor lad! poor lad! After all, he is more fit for a madhouse than for a prison. Good-night, my child, good-night."

And so the good old man went his way.

It was intended that Jason should start for the Sulphur Mines on the following day, and he was lodged over night in a little house of detention that stood on the south of the High Street. But the snow continued to fall the whole night through, and in the morning the roads were impassable. Then it was decided to postpone the long journey until the storm should have passed, the frost set in, and the desolate white wastes to be crossed become hard and firm. It was now Wednesday of the second week in October – the Gore-month – and the people were already settling down to the long rest of the Icelandic winter. The merchants began to sleep the livelong day in their deserted stores in the cheapstead, and the bonders, who had come up with the last of their stock, to drink and doze in the taverns. All that day the snow fell in fine dust like flour, until, white as it was, the air grew dark with it. At the late dawn of the next day the snow was still falling, and a violent gale had then risen. Another and another and yet another day went by, and still the snow fell and the gale continued. For two days there was no daylight, and only at noon through the giddy air a fiery glow burned for an hour along the southern sky and then went out. Nothing could be seen of fell or fiord, and nothing could be heard save the baying of the hounds at night and the roar of the sea at all times, for the wind made no noise in the soft snow, but drove it along in sheets like silent ghosts.

Never before had Greeba seen anything so terrible; and still more fearful than the great snow itself was the anxiety it brought her. Where was Michael Sunlocks? Where was her father? There was only one other whose condition troubled her, and she knew too well where he was – he was lying in the dark cell of the dark house in the High Street.

While the storm lasted all Reykjavik lay asleep, and Greeba could do nothing. But one morning when she awoke and turned to the window, as was her wont, to learn if the weary snow was still falling, she could see nothing at first for the coating of ice and hoar frost that covered the glass. But the snow had ceased, the wind had fallen, the air was clear and the light was coming. The buildings of the town, from the Cathedral to the hovels of the fishing quarter, looked like snow mounds in the desert; the black waste of lava was gone; the black beach was gone; the black jokulls were gone; the black headland was gone that had stretched like a giant hand of many fingers into the black fiord; but height above height, and length beyond length, as far as from sea to sky, and from sea to sea, the world lay lifeless and silent and white around her.

Then, the town being once more awake, Greeba had news of Jason. It came through a little English maid, whom Sunlocks had found for her, from Oscar, the young man who had gone out in search of her father and returned without him. Jason was ill. Five days he had eaten nothing, and nothing had he drunk except water. He was in a fever – a brain fever – and it was now known for certain that he was the man who had fainted outside the Cathedral on the marriage morning, that he had been ill ever since then, and that the druggist of the High Street had bled him.

With these tidings Greeba hurried away to the Bishop.

"The poor man has brain fever," she said. "He was ill when he made the threat, and when he recovers he will regret it; I am sure he will – I know he will. Set him at liberty, for mercy's sake," she cried; and she trembled as she spoke, lest in the fervor of her plea the Bishop should read her secret.

But he only shook his head and looked tenderly down at her, and said very gently, though every word went to her heart like a stab —

"Ah, it is like a good woman to plead for one who has injured her. But no, my child, no; it may not be. Poor lad, no one now can do anything for him save the President himself; and he is not likely to liberate a man who lies in wait to kill him."

"He is likely," thought Greeba, and straightway she conceived of a plan. She would go to Jason in his prison. Yes, she herself would go to him, and prevail with him to put away all thoughts of vengeance and be at peace with her husband. Then she would wait for the return of Michael Sunlocks, and plead with that dear heart that could deny her nothing, to grant her Jason's pardon. Thus it would come about that she, who had stood between these two to separate them, would at length stand between them to bring them together.

So thinking, and crying a little, like a true woman, at the prospect of so much joy, she waited for Jason's recovery that she might carry her purpose into effect. Meantime she contrived to send him jellies and soups, such as might tempt the appetite of a sick man. She thought she sent them secretly, but with less than a woman's wit she employed a woman on her errand. This person was the little English maid, and she handed over the duty to Oscar, who was her sweetheart. Oscar talked openly of what he was doing, and thus all Reykjavik knew that the tender-hearted young wife of the Governor held communications of some sort with the man whom she had sent to jail.

Then one day, on hearing that Jason was better, though neither was he so well as to travel nor was the snow hard enough to walk upon, Greeba stole across to the prison in the dark of the afternoon, saying nothing to anyone of her mission or intention.

The stuttering doorkeeper of the Senate was the jailor, and he betrayed great concern when Greeba asked to see his prisoner, showing by his ghastly looks, for his words would not come, that it would be rash on her part, after helping so much towards Jason's imprisonment, to trust herself in his presence.

"But what have I to fear?" she thought; and with a brave smile, she pushed her way through.

She found Jason in a square box built of heavy piles, laid horizontally both for walls and roof, dark and damp and muggy, lighted in the day by a hole in the wood not larger than a man's hand, and in the night by a sputtering candle hung from the rafters. He sat on a stool; his face was worn, his head was close-cropped to relieve the heat of his brain, and on the table by his side lay all his red hair, as long as his mother's was when it fell to the shears of the Jew on the wharf.

He gave no sign when Greeba entered, though he knew she was there, but sat with his face down and one hand on the table.

"Jason," she said, "I am ashamed. It is I who have brought you to this. Forgive me! forgive me! But my husband's life was in danger, and what was I to do?"

Still he gave no sign.

"Jason," she said again, "you have heaped coals of fire on my head; for I have done nothing but injure you, and though you might have done as much for me you never have."

At that the fingers of his hand on the table grasped the edge of it convulsively.

"But, Jason," she said, "all is not lost yet. No, for I can save you still. Listen. You shall give me your promise to make peace with my husband, and when my husband returns he will grant me your pardon. Oh, yes, I know he will, for he is tender-hearted, and he will forgive you; yes, he will forgive you – "

"My curse on him and his forgiveness," cried Jason, rising suddenly and bringing down his fist on the table. "Who is he that he should forgive me? It has not been for his sake that I have been silent, with the devil at my side urging me to speak. And for all that you have made me to suffer he shall yet pay double. Let it go on; let him send me away; let him bury me at his mines. But I shall live to find him yet. Something tells me that I shall not die until I have met with that man face to face."

And Greeba went back home with these mad words ringing in her ears. "It is useless to try," she thought, "I have done all I can. My husband is before everything. I shall say nothing to him now."

None the less she cried very bitterly, and was still crying when at bedtime her little English maid came up to her and chattered of the news of the day. It seemed that some Danish store-keepers on the cheapstead had lately been arrested as spies, brought to trial, and condemned.

When Greeba awoke next morning, after a restless night, while the town still lay asleep, and only the croak of the ravens from the rocks above the fiord broke the silence of the late dawn, she heard the hollow tread of many footsteps on the frozen snow of the Thingvellir road, and peering out through the window, which was coated with hoar frost, she saw a melancholy procession. Three men, sparsely clad in thin tunics, snow stockings and skin caps, walked heavily in file, chained together hand to hand and leg to leg, with four armed warders, closely muffled to the ears, riding leisurely beside them. They were prisoners bound for the sulphur mines of Krisuvik. The first of them was Jason, and he swung along with his long stride and his shorn head thrown back and his pallid face held up. The other two were old Thomsen and young Polvesen, the Danish store-keepers.

It was more than Greeba could bear to look upon that sight, for it brought back the memory of that other sight on that other morning, when Jason came leaping down to her from the mountains, over gorse and cushag and hedge and ditch. So she turned her head away and covered her eyes with her hands. And then one – two – three – four – the heavy footsteps went on over the snow.

The next thing she knew was that her English maid was in her bedroom, saying, "Some strangers in the kitchen are asking for you. They are Englishmen, and have just come ashore, and they call themselves your brothers."

CHAPTER X.

The Fairbrothers

Now when the Fairbrothers concluded that they could never give rest to their tender consciences until they had done right by their poor sister Greeba they set themselves straightway to consider the ways and means. Ballacraine they must sell in order that its proceeds might be taken to Greeba as her share and interest; but Ballacraine belonged to Jacob, and another provision would forthwith need to be made for him. So after much arguing and some nagging across the hearth of the kitchen at Lague it was decided that each of Jacob's five brothers should mortgage his farm to one-sixth its value, and that the gross sum of their five-sixths should be Jacob's for his share. This arrangement would have the disadvantage of leaving Jacob without land, but he showed a magnanimous spirit in that relation. "Don't trouble about me," said he, "it's sweet and nice to do a kindness to your own brothers."

And four of his brethren applauded that sentiment, but Thurstan curled up his red nose and thought, "Aw, yes, of coorse, a powerful big boiler of brotherly love the little miser keeps going under his weskit."

And having so decided they further concluded to see the crops off the ground, and then lose no time in carrying out their design. "Let's wait for the melya," said Asher, meaning the harvest-home, "and then off for Marky the Lord." The person who went by this name was one Mark Skillicorn, an advocate, of Ramsey, who combined the functions of pettifogger with those of money-lender and auctioneer. Marky the Lord was old, and plausible and facetious. He was a distant relative of the Fairbrothers by the side of their mother's French family; and it was a strange chain of circumstances that no big farmer ever got into trouble but he became a client of Marky the Lord's, that no client of Marky the Lord's did not in the end go altogether to the bad, and that poor Marky the Lord never had a client who did not die in his debt. Nevertheless Marky the Lord grew richer as his losses grew heavier, and more facetious as his years increased. Oh, he was a funny dog, was Marky the Lord; but there was just one dog on the island a shade or two funnier still, and that was Jacob Fairbrother. This thrifty soul had for many a year kept a nest of private savings, and even in the days when he and his brethren went down to make a poor mouth before their father at Castletown he had money secretly lent out on the conscientious interest of only three per cent. above the legal rate.

And thus it chanced that when Ballacraine was advertised in big letters on every barn door in the north of Mann, Jacob Fairbrother went down to Marky the Lord, and made a private bargain to buy it in again. So when the day of the sale came, and Marky the Lord strode over the fields with some thirty men – farmers, miners, advocates, and parsons – at his heels, and then drew up on the roadside by the "Hibernian," and there mounted the till-board of a cart for the final reckoning, little Jacob was too much moved to be present, though his brothers were there, all glooming around on the outside of the group, with their hands in their breeches pockets.