Jason paid the last of his debts in the Isle of Man, and then set sail for Iceland with less money in his pocket than Adam Fairbrother had carried there. He knew nothing of the whereabouts or condition of the man he was going to seek, except that Michael Sunlocks was at Reykjavik; for so much, and no more, he had read of the letter that the Fairbrothers put into his hands at Lague. The ship he first sailed by was a trader between Copenhagen and the greater ports of Scotland, and Ireland, and at the Danish capital he secured a passage in a whaler bound for Reykjavik. His double voyage covered more than six weeks though there was a strong fair wind from the coast of Scotland to the coast of Denmark, and again from Denmark to Iceland. The delay fretted him, for his heart was afire; but there was no help for it, he had to submit. He did so with no cheer of spirit, or he might have learned something from the yarns of the seamen. All the gossip that came his way was a chance remark of the master, a Dane, who one day stopped in front of him as he lay by the hatches, and asked if he was an Icelander born. He answered that he was. Was he a seagoing man? Yes. Ship-broken, maybe, in some foreign country? That was so. How long had he been away from Iceland? Better than four years.
"You'll see many changes since that time," said the master, "Old Iceland is turned topsy-turvy."
Jason understood this to mean some political revolution, and turned a deaf ear to it, for such things seemed but sorry trifling to one with work like his before him.
They had then just sighted the Westmann Islands, through a white sea vapor, and an hour later they lay three miles off a rocky point, while an open boat came out to them over the rough water from the island called Home.
It was the post-boat of that desolate rock, fetching letters from the mainland, and ready to receive them from Denmark. The postman was little and old, and his name was Patricksen.
"Well, Patricksen, and what's the latest from the old country?" sang out the master, after two newspapers had been thrown down and one letter taken up.
"Why, and haven't you heard it?" shouted the postman.
"What's that?" cried the master.
"They've put up the young Manxman," shouted the postman. "I knew his father," he added, and laughed mockingly, as he bent to the oars and started back with his newspapers over his three miles of tumbling sea.
Jason's mind threw off its torpor at the sound of those words. While the boat lay alongside he leaned over the gunwale and listened eagerly. When it sheered off he watched it until it had faded into the fog. Then he turned to the master and was about to ask a question, but quickly recovered himself and was silent. "Better not," he thought. "It would be remembered when all should be over."