Stephen Orry was waiting for him, having been there three days, not living in the little hut, but washing it, cleaning it, drying it, airing it, and kindling fires in it, that by such close labor of half a week it might be worthy that his son should cross its threshold for half an hour. He had never slept in it since he had nailed up the door after the death of Liza Killey, and as an unblessed place it had been safe from the intrusion of others.
He saw Michael Sunlocks riding up, and raised his cap to him as he alighted, saying, "Sir" to him, and bowing as he did so. There were deep scars on his face and head, his hands were scratched and discolored, his cheeks were furrowed with wrinkles, and about his whole person there was a strong odor as of tobacco, tar, and bilge water.
"I shall not have ought to ask you here, sir," he said, in his broken English.
"Call me Michael," the lad answered, and then they went into the hut.
The place was not much more cheerful than of old, but still dark, damp and ruinous; and Michael Sunlocks, at the thought that he himself had been born there, and that his mother had lived her shameful life and died her dishonored death there, found the gall again in his throat.
"I have something that I shall have to say to you," said Stephen Orry, "but I cannot well speak English. Not all the years through I never shall have learn it." And then, as if by a sudden thought, he spoke six words in his native Icelandic, and glanced quickly into the face of Michael Sunlocks.
At the next instant the great rude fellow was crying like a child. He had seen that Michael understood him. And Michael, on his part, seemed at the sound of those words to find something melt at his heart, something fall from his eyes, something rise to his throat.
"Call me Michael," he said once more. "I am your son;" and then they talked together, Stephen Orry in the Icelandic, Michael Sunlocks in English.
"I've not been a good father to you, Michael, never coming to see you all these years. But I wanted you to grow up a better man than your father before you. A man may be bad, but he doesn't like his son to feel ashamed of him. And I was afraid to see it in your face, Michael. That's why I stayed away. But many a time I felt hungry after my little lad, that I loved so dear and nursed so long, like any mother might. And hearing of him sometimes, and how well he looked, and how tall he grew, maybe I didn't think the less about him for not coming down upon him to shame him."
"Stop, father, stop," said Michael Sunlocks.