The Bondman: A New Saga

by Sir Hall Caine

It was intended that Jason should start for the Sulphur Mines on the following day, and he was lodged over night in a little house of detention that stood on the south of the High Street. But the snow continued to fall the whole night through, and in the morning the roads were impassable. Then it was decided to postpone the long journey until the storm should have passed, the frost set in, and the desolate white wastes to be crossed become hard and firm. It was now Wednesday of the second week in October—the Gore-month—and the people were already settling down to the long rest of the Icelandic winter. The merchants began to sleep the livelong day in their deserted stores in the cheapstead, and the bonders, who had come up with the last of their stock, to drink and doze in the taverns. All that day the snow fell in fine dust like flour, until, white as it was, the air grew dark with it. At the late dawn of the next day the snow was still falling, and a violent gale had then risen. Another and another and yet another day went by, and still the snow fell and the gale continued. For two days there was no daylight, and only at noon through the giddy air a fiery glow burned for an hour along the southern sky and then went out. Nothing could be seen of fell or fiord, and nothing could be heard save the baying of the hounds at night and the roar of the sea at all times, for the wind made no noise in the soft snow, but drove it along in sheets like silent ghosts.

Never before had Greeba seen anything so terrible; and still more fearful than the great snow itself was the anxiety it brought her. Where was Michael Sunlocks? Where was her father? There was only one other whose condition troubled her, and she knew too well where he was—he was lying in the dark cell of the dark house in the High Street.

While the storm lasted all [Reykjavik] lay asleep, and Greeba could do nothing. But one morning when she awoke and turned to the window, as was her wont, to learn if the weary snow was still falling, she could see nothing at first for the coating of ice and hoar frost that covered the glass. But the snow had ceased, the wind had fallen, the air was clear and the light was coming. The buildings of the town, from the Cathedral to the hovels of the fishing quarter, looked like snow mounds in the desert; the black waste of lava was gone; the black beach was gone; the black jokulls were gone; the black headland was gone that had stretched like a giant hand of many fingers into the black fiord; but height above height, and length beyond length, as far as from sea to sky, and from sea to sea, the world lay lifeless and silent and white around her.

Then, the town being once more awake, Greeba had news of Jason. It came through a little English maid, whom Sunlocks had found for her, from Oscar, the young man who had gone out in search of her father and returned without him. Jason was ill. Five days he had eaten nothing, and nothing had he drunk except water. He was in a fever—a brain fever—and it was now known for certain that he was the man who had fainted outside the Cathedral on the marriage morning, that he had been ill ever since then, and that the druggist of the High Street had bled him.

With these tidings Greeba hurried away to the Bishop.

"The poor man has brain fever," she said. "He was ill when he made the threat, and when he recovers he will regret it; I am sure he will—I know he will. Set him at liberty, for mercy's sake," she cried; and she trembled as she spoke, [lest] in the fervor of her plea the Bishop should read her secret.

But he only shook his head and looked tenderly down at her, and said very gently, though every word went to her heart like a stab—

"Ah, it is like a good woman to plead for one who has injured her. But no, my child, no; it may not be. Poor lad, no one now can do anything for him save the President himself; and he is not likely to liberate a man who lies in wait to kill him."

"He is likely," thought Greeba, and straightway she conceived of a plan. She would go to Jason in his prison. Yes, she herself would go to him, and prevail with him to put away all thoughts of vengeance and be at peace with her husband. Then she would wait for the return of Michael Sunlocks, and plead with that dear heart that could deny her nothing, to grant her Jason's pardon. Thus it would come about that she, who had stood between these two to separate them, would at length stand between them to bring them together.

So thinking, and crying a little, like a true woman, at the prospect of so much joy, she waited for Jason's recovery that she might carry her purpose into effect. Meantime she contrived to send him jellies and soups, such as might tempt the appetite of a sick man. She thought she sent them secretly, but with less than a woman's wit she employed a woman on her errand. This person was the little English maid, and she handed over the duty to Oscar, who was her sweetheart. Oscar talked openly of what he was doing, and thus all Reykjavik knew that the tender-hearted young wife of the Governor held communications of some sort with the man whom she had sent to jail.