The Bondman: A New Saga. Sir Hall Caine
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Old Thurston Coobragh, of Ballacreggan, gave him work at draining a flooded meadow. It was slavery that no other Christian man would do, but for a month Stephen Orry worked up to his waist in water, and lived on barley bread and porridge. At the end of his job he had six and thirty shillings saved, and with this money in his pocket, and the child in his arms, he hurried down to the harbor at Ramsey, where an Irish packet lay ready to sail.
Could he have a passage to Ireland? Certainly he could, but where was his license?
Stephen Orry had never heard until then that before a man could leave the Isle of Man he must hold a license permitting him to do so.
"Go to the High Bailiff," said the captain of the packet; and to the High Bailiff Stephen Orry went.
"I come for a license to go away into Ireland," he said.
"Very good. But where is your wife?" said the High Bailiff. "Are you leaving her behind you to be a burden on the parish?"
At that Stephen's heart sank, for he saw that his toil had been wasted, and that his savings were worthless. Doomed he was for all his weary days to live with the woman who hated him. He was bound to her, he was leashed to her, and he must go begrimed and bedraggled to the dregs of life with her. So he went back home, and hid his money in a hole in the thatch of the roof, that the touch of it might vex his memory no more.
And then it flashed upon him that what he was now suffering from this woman was after all no more than the complement and counterpart of what Rachel had suffered from him in the years behind them. It was just—yes, it Was just—and because he was a man and Rachel a woman, it was less than he deserved. So thinking, he sat himself down in his misery with resignation if not content, vowing never to lift his hand to the woman, however tormented, and never to leave her, however tempted. And when one night after a storm an open boat came ashore, he took it and used it to fish with, and thus he lived, and thus he wore away his wretched days.
And yet he could never have borne his punishment but for the sweet solace of the child. It was the flower in his dungeon; the bird at its bars. Since that bad night, when his secret had burst from him, he had nursed it and cherished it, and done for it its many tender offices. Every day he had softened its oatcake in his broth; and lifted the barley out of his own bowl into the child's basin. In summer he had stripped off shoes and stockings to bathe the little one in the bay, and in winter he had wrapped the child in his jacket and gone bare-armed. It was now four years old and went everywhere with Stephen, astride on his broad back or perched on his high shoulders. He had christened it Michael, but because its long wavy hair grew to be of the color of the sun he called it, after the manner of his people, Sunlocks. And like the sun it was, in that hut in Port-y-Vullin, for when it awoke there was a glint of rosy light, and when it slept all was gloom.
He taught it to speak his native Icelandic tongue, and the woman, who found everything evil that Stephen did, found this a barrier between her and the child. It was only in his ignorance that he did it. But oh, strange destiny! that out of the father's ignorance was to shape the child's wisdom in the days that were to come!
And little Sunlocks was eyes and ears to Stephen, and hope to his crushed spirit and intelligence to his slow mind. At sight of the child the vacant look would die away from Stephen's face; at play with him Stephen's great hulking legs would run hither and thither in ready willingness; and at hearing his strange questions, his wondrous answers, his pretty clever sayings, Stephen's dense wit would seem to stand agape.
Oh, little Sunlocks—little Sunlocks—floating like the day-dawn into this lone man's prison house, how soon was your glad light to be overcast! For all at once it smote Stephen like a blow on the brain that though it was right that he should live with the woman, yet it was an awful thing that the child should continue to do so. Growing up in such an atmosphere, with such an example always present to his eyes, what would the child become? Soured, saddened, perhaps cunning, perhaps malicious; at least adopting himself, as his father had done before him, to the air he had to breathe. And thinking that little Sunlocks, now so sweet, so sunny, so artless, so innocent, must come to this, all the gall of Stephen Orry's fate rose to his throat again.
What could he do? Take little Sunlocks away? That was impossible, for he could not take himself away. Why had the child been born? Why had it not died? Would not the good God take it back to Himself even now, in all the sweetness of his childhood? No, no, no, not that either; and yet yes, yes, yes!
Stephen's poor slow brain struggled long with this thought, and at length a strange and solemn idea took hold of it: little Sunlocks must die, and he must kill him.
Stephen Orry did not wriggle with his conscience, or if he cozened it at all he made himself believe that it would not be sin but sacrifice to part with the thing he held dearest in all the world. Little Sunlocks was his life, but little Sunlocks must die! Better, better, better so!
And having thus determined, he went cautiously, and even cunningly, to work. When the little one had disappeared, he himself would never be suspected, for all the island would say he loved it too tenderly to do it a wrong, and he would tell everybody that he had taken it to some old body in the south who had wished to adopt a child. So, with Sunlocks laughing and crowing astride his shoulder, he called at Kane Wade's house on Ballure one day, and told Bridget how he should miss the little chap, for Sunlocks was going down to the Calf very soon, and would not come home again for a long time, perhaps not for many a year, perhaps not until he was a big slip of a lad, and, maybe—who can tell?—he would never come back at all.
Thus he laid his plans, but even when they were complete he could not bring himself to carry them through, until one day, going up from the beach to sell a basket of crabs and eels, he found Liza drinking at the "Hibernian."
How she came by the money was at first his surprise, for Nary Crowe had long abandoned her; and having bitter knowledge of the way she had once spent his earnings, he himself gave her nothing now. But suddenly a dark thought came, and he hurried home, thrust his hand into the thatch where he had hidden his savings, and found the place empty.
That was the day to do it, he thought; and he took little Sunlocks and washed his chubby face and combed his yellow hair, curling it over his own great undeft fingers, and put his best clothes on him—the white cotton pinafore and the red worsted cap, and the blue stockings freshly darned.
This he did that he might comfort the child for the last time, and also that he might remember him at his best.
And little Sunlocks, in high glee at such busy preparations, laughed much and chattered long, asking many questions.
"Where are we going, father? Out? Eh? Where?"
"We'll see, little Sunlocks; we'll see."
"But where? Church? What day is this?"
"The last, little Sunlocks; the last."
"Oh, I know—Sunday."
When all was ready, Stephen lifted the child to the old perch across his shoulders, and made for the shore. His boat was lying aground there; he pushed it adrift, lifted the child into it, and leapt after him. Then taking the oars, he pulled out for Maughold Head.
Little Sunlocks had never been out in the boat before, and everything was a wonder and delight to him.
"You said you would take me on the water some day. Didn't you, father?"
"Yes, little Sunlocks, yes."
It was evening, and the sun was sinking behind the land, very large and red in its setting.
"Do the sun fall down eve'y day, father?"
"It sets, little Sunlocks, it sets."
"What is sets?"
"Dies."
"Oh."
The waters lay asleep under the soft red glow, and over them the seafowl were sailing.
"Why are the white birds sc'eaming?"
"Maybe they're calling their young, little Sunlocks."
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