The Bondman: A New Saga. Hall Sir Caine

a terrible voice.

      "Woman, she is my wife."

      That word, like a thunderbolt, left a heavy silence behind it. Liza stood looking in terror at Stephen's face, unable to utter a cry.

      But next day she went to Parson Gell and told him all. She got small comfort. Parson Gell had himself had two wives; the first had deserted him, and after an interval of six years, in which he had not heard from her, he had married the second. So to Liza he said,

      "He may have sinned against the law, but what proof have you? None."

      Then she went to the Deemster at Ramsey. It was Deemster Lace – a bachelor much given to secret gallantries.

      She got as little cheer from this source, but yet she came away with one drop of solace fermenting in the bitterness of her heart.

      "Tut, woman, it's more common than you think for. And where's the harm? Och! it's happened to some of the best that's going. Now, if he'd beaten you, or struck you" – and the good man raised both hands and shook his head.

      Then the thought leapt to her mind that she herself could punish Stephen a hundredfold worse than any law of bishop or deemster. If she could she would not now put him away. He should live on with her, husband or no husband, and she with him, wife or no wife.

      On her way home she called at the house of Kane Wade, sat down with old Bridget, shed some crocodile tears, vowed she daren't have tould it on no occount to no other morthal sowl, but would the heart of woman belave it? her man had a wife in his own counthry!

      Bridget, who had herself had four husbands, lifted her hands in horror, and next day when Stephen Orry went down to the boats Kane Wade, who had newly turned Methodist, was there already, and told him – whittling a stick as he spoke – that the fishing was wonderful lean living gettin', and if he didn't shorten hands it would be goin' begging on the houses they'd all be, sarten sure.

      Stephen took the hint in silence, and went off home. Liza saw him coming, watched him from the door, and studied his hard set face with a grim smile on her own.

      Next day Stephen went off to Matt Mylechreest, the net maker, but Matt shook his head, saying the Manxmen had struck against foreign men all over the island, and would not work with them. The day after that Stephen tried Nary Crowe, the innkeeper, but Nary said of course it wasn't himself that was partic'lar, only his customers were gettin' nice extraordinary about a man's moral character.

      As a last hope Stephen went up to Cleave Kinley, who had land, and asked for a croft of five acres that ran down to the beach of Port-y-Vullin.

      "Nothing easier," said Kinley, "but I must have six pounds for it, beginning half-quarter day."

      The rent was high, but Stephen agreed to it, and promised to go again the following day to seal his bargain. Stephen was prompt to his engagement, but Kinley had gone on the mountains after some sheep. Stephen waited, and four hours later Kinley returned, looking abashed but dogged and saying he must have good security or a year's rent down.

      Stephen went back home with his head deep in his breast. Again the woman saw him coming, again she studied his face, and again she laughed in her heart.

      "He will lift his hand to me," she thought, "and then we shall see."

      But he seemed to read her purpose, and determined to defeat it. She might starve him, herself, and their child, but the revenge she had set her mind upon she should not have.

      Yet to live with her and to contain himself at every brutal act or bestial word was more than he could trust himself to do, and he determined to fly away. Let it be anywhere – anywhere, if only out of the torture of her presence. One place was like another in Man, for go where he would to any corner of the island, there she would surely follow him.

      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