Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/44

 "Sweden? Norway?"——

"Issland," said the man.

He was an Icelander.

Two rude portraits hung on the walls, one of a fair boy, the other of a woman in the early bloom of womanhood—Adam's young wife and first child. The Governor pointed to the boy, and the man shook his head.

He had no family.

The Governor pointed to the woman, and the man hesitated, seemed about to assent, and then, with the look of one who tries to banish an unwelcome thought, shook his head again.

He had no wife. What was his name?

The Governor took down from the shelf a Bible covered in green cloth, and opened at the writing on the fly-leaf between the Old and New Testaments. The writing ran:—"Adam Fairbrother, son of Jo: Fairbrother, and Mar: his wife, was born August the 11th, 17—, about 5 o'clock in the morning, half flood, wind at south-west, and christened August 18th." To this he pointed, then to himself, and finally to the stranger. An abrupt change came over the man's manner. He grew sullen and gave no sign. But his eyes wandered with a fierce eagerness to the table, where the remains of the Governor's supper were still lying.

Adam drew up a chair and motioned the stranger to sit and eat. The man ate with frightful voracity, the perspiration breaking out in beads over his face. Having eaten, he grew drowsy, fell to nodding where he sat, and in a moment of recovered consciousness pointed to the stuffed head of a horse that hung over the door. He wished to sleep in the stable.

The Governor lit a lantern and led the way to the stable loft. There the man stretched himself on the straw, and soon his long and measured breathing told that he slept.

Hardly had the Governor got back to the house when his boys, his men, and the maids returned from Ramsey. Very full were they all of the doings of the day; and Adam, who never asked that son or servant of his should check the flow of talk for his presence, sat with his face to the fire and smoked, dozed, dreamt or thought, and left his people to gossip on. What chance had brought the poor man to his door that night? An Icelander, dumb for all uses of speech, who had lain in the chains of some tyrant captain—a lone man, a seaman without wife or child in his own country, and a fugitive, a runaway, a hunted dog in this one! What angel