Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/72

 rich by crime, and maybe by blood. The evil rumours made no impression on old Adam, but they produced a powerful effect where no effect had been expected. Bit by bit, as his heart went out to the Governor, there grew upon Michael Sunlocks a deep loathing of the very name and thought of his father. The memory of his father was now a thing of the mind, not the affections, and the chain of the two emotions, love for his foster-father and dread of his natural one, slowly but surely tightened about him, so that his strongest hope was that he might never again set eyes on Stephen Orry. By this weakness he fell at length into the hands of the six Fairbrothers, and led the way to a total rupture of old Adam's family.

One day, when Michael Sunlocks was eighteen years old, a man came to him from Kirk Maughold with an air of wondrous mystery. It was Nary Crowe, the innkeeper, now bald, bottle-nosed, and in a bad state of preservation. His story, intended for Michael's ear alone, was that Stephen Orry, flying from the officers of the revenue cutters, was on the point of leaving the island for ever, and must see his son before going. If the son would not go to the father, then the father must come to the son. The meeting-place proposed was a schooner lying outside the Calf Sound, and the hour midnight of the day following.

It was as base a plot as the heart of an enemy ever concocted, for the schooner was a smuggler, and the men of the revenue cutter were in hiding under the Black Head to watch her movements. The lad, in fear of his father, fell into the trap, and was taken prisoner on suspicion in a gig making for the ship. He confessed all to the Governor, and Nary Crowe was arrested. To save his own carcass Nary gave up his employers. They were Ross and Stean Fairbrother; and Ross and Stean being questioned, pointed to their brothers Jacob and Gentleman Johnny as the instigators of the scheme.

When the revelation was complete, and the Governor saw that all but his whole family was implicated, and that the stain on his house was so black that the island would ever remember it against him, his placid spirit forsook him and his wrath knew no bounds. But the evil was not ended there, for Mrs. Fairbrother took sides with her sons, and straightway vowed to live no longer under the same roof with an unnatural father, who found water thicker than blood.

At that Adam was shaken to his depths. The taunt passed him by, but the threat touched him solely.