Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/85

 then, and saying to myself how some day he'd go back for me to my own country, when I had made the money to send him."

Michael trembled visibly.

"And how he'd look for her, and find her, and save her, if she was alive. And if she wasn't—if she was dead, poor girl, with all her troubles over, how he'd look for the child that was to come when I left her—my child and hers—and find it where it would surely be, in want and dirt and misery, and then save it for its mother's sake and mine. Michael, will you go?"

But still Michael Sunlocks made him no answer.

"It's fourteen years since God spared your life to me; just fourteen years to-night, Michael. I remembered it, and that's why we are here now. When I brought you back in my arms was there at my feet, lying dead, who had been my rod and punishment. Then I vowed, as I should answer to the Lord at the last day, that if  could not go back,  should."

Michael covered his face with his hands.

"My son, my son—Michael, my little Sunlocks, I want to keep my vow. Will you go?"

"Yes, yes," cried Michael, rising suddenly. His doubt and pride and shame were gone. He felt only a great tenderness now for the big rude man, who had sinned deeply and suffered much, and found that all he could do alone would avail him nothing.

"Father, where is she?"

"I left her at Reykjavík, but I don't know where she is now."

"No matter; I will hunt the world over until I find her, and when I have found her, I will be as a son to her, and she shall be as a mother to me."

"My boy, my boy!" cried Stephen.

"If she should die, and we should never meet, I will hunt the world over until I find her child, and when I have found it I will be as a brother to it for my father's sake."

"My son, my son!" cried Stephen. And in the exultation of that moment, when he tried to speak but no words would come, and only his rugged cheeks glistened and his red eyes shone, it seemed to Stephen Orry that the burden of twenty heavy years had been lifted away.