Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/55

 And then it flashed upon him that what he was now suffering from this woman was, after all, no more than the 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 against 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 colour 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 daydawn into this lone man's prison-house, how soon was your