The Prodigal Son

by Sir Hall Caine

The father of Oscar Stephenson was Stephen Magnusson (according to his Icelandic patronymic), and he had been Governor-General of Iceland for more than twenty years. He was a man of the highest integrity and of the firmest mind. In his public character he was zealous and incorruptible, and his private life was without stain. His chief characteristics were dignity and pride.

The father of Thora was Oscar Neilsen, commonly called Factor Neilsen (of Icelandic birth, but Danish descent), and he was the chief merchant and one of the richest citizens of the capital. His business methods had often been a subject for discussion, and his domestic history a cause of gossip. He was a man of untiring industry and great frugality, amounting almost to greed.

These two men had been lifelong friends. Their friendship had not been founded on any hollow commercial league, but nevertheless it had been cemented by community of interest, and it was a common saying that the man who could break it could break the constitution. It was one of those friendships that are young after fifty years, and are constantly growing younger because they are always growing older--a peculiarity of all friendships that are true and constant, and the reason why new friendships can never take the place of old ones. Half a word explained a meaning, half a look provoked a laugh. Their friendship was the unwritten history of their past, a living obituary of memories and ideas that were dead. It began in boyhood, and notwithstanding varying fortunes, and some family differences, it had never been darkened by so much as the shadow of a cloud. But people said that if Stephen Magnusson and Oscar Neilsen ever ceased to be friends they would become the bitterest of enemies.

They went through the Latin School together as boys, and were two of four Icelandic students who were sent with stipends to the University at Copenhagen. That was in the days when student life was not so regular as it might have been, but three of them got through without serious damage, while the fourth made a slip which was perhaps the first cause of the present story.

When the time came to separate, one of the four went to Oxford as an assistant in the library, and became a University lecturer, and another went to London to be clerk in a bank, and rose to be manager. The other two remained faithful to their nationalities, and Stephen Magnusson returned to Iceland to practise law, while Oscar Neilsen stayed in Denmark to follow commerce.

Within ten years the friends had made rapid progress. Stephen had risen from advocate to assessor, from assessor to deputy-governor, and from deputy-governor to governor-general, while Neilsen had re-established himself in Iceland, first as factor for a firm in Copenhagen, and afterward as a merchant on his own responsibility.

In the meantime both men had married. The Governor married the daughter and only child of Grim, owner of the farm at Thingvellir, one of the largest farms in Iceland. The Factor, to everybody's surprise, married before he returned home, and nobody knew anything of his wife except that she came from Copenhagen. But scandal seldom loses its way in the dark, and it was whispered that the Factor's wife had been a little actress of the lighter sort, and had been compelled to marry.

The wife of the Governor had borne him two sons. He christened the first of them Magnus, after his father, but the second he called Oscar, after his friend, who had arrived in time to stand godfather at the baptism. In like manner the wife of the Factor had borne two daughters. She brought the eldest in her arms when she arrived in Iceland, and the Factor called her Thora, after his mother. The second, born soon afterward, he would have called Anna, after his friend's wife, but his own wife objected, and it was christened Helga, after herself. There were not many years between the births of the children, but Magnus was the eldest and Helga the youngest, while Oscar and Thora were almost of one age.

The wives of the two friends could hardly have been more unlike each other. Anna was homely in looks, dress, and habits. In practical matters she was a typical Iceland housewife, thrifty and economical. Although the position of Governor-General was one of considerable dignity it was far from a fat living, and Anna set her sail according to the draught of her husband's ship. She was shrewd, but not well educated, and wise, but not enlightened, and she governed the Governor by obeying him. Stephen found his wife his safest steward and most faithful counsellor. He had a profound respect for her instinct, but not too much reverence for her intellect. When in doubt he always consulted her, and while she told him what he ought to do he sat and listened attentively, but as soon as she began to explain her reasons he got up and fled.

The Factor's wife was distinctly comely, volatile, and vain, and her conduct on coming to Iceland might have been calculated to justify the scandal that was coupled with her name. She was extravagant in her dress, unthrifty in her home, restless in her habits, and romantic in her tastes, and after a while she began to gird at the monotony and dreariness of the life about her. A light wife makes a heavy husband, and the Factor, who was not then rich, was made to realize that in marrying his Danish beauty he had bought a commodity which he could neither exchange nor return--a housekeeper who neglected his house, and a mother who cared little for his children.