The Prodigal Son

by Sir Hall Caine

"We shall have snow before the year's out, sir," said one of a group of fishermen who were stamping their feet and beating their arms at the bottom of the Bank steps.

"No time to lose!" thought Christian Christiansson. "I must send for horses immediately and start off without delay."

But before going to Thingvellir there was something to do in Reykjavik, and that was the most important thing of all--by some excuse or subterfuge he had to see his child as a first step toward claiming and recovering her. She had been ten years at the farm, but he thought she was still at the Factor's, and he bent his steps in that direction.

Of the Factor himself he knew no more than he had been able to glean at breakfast without betraying a particular interest--that he was still alive, that enough had been saved out of the wreck of his fortunes to enable him to keep his house, and that he lived the life of a misanthrope, blaming the whole world for his misfortunes and all the trouble of his days.

Christian Christiansson might have walked to the Factor's blindfold, but the house itself when he came in front of it seemed strangely unfamiliar. The once bright little villa looked like a witless man who has lost his place in the world and all hope and all respect for himself. The white paint of the walls was cracked and dirty, the windows were smeared with the salt which is borne on the breath of the sea, the garden was wild, and the cobbled path was overgrown with grass.

It was hardly like a house a young girl might live in, but after he had rung the bell he listened for a light step in the hall. The door was opened by a withered old woman in white ringlets, with her gown tucked up in front. It was Aunt Margret, but the little old maid, once so pert and dainty, had the neglected and frightened look of a cat in an empty house, left behind and forgotten.

Her face was the first he had yet seen of the faces of his own people, and so hard did he find it to play his part that he had mentioned her name before he was aware of it, and she had started perceptibly, as if at the sound of a familiar voice.

"Is your brother at home, Margret Neilsen?" he asked.

"He is always at home," she answered, "but he never receives anybody now. Who shall I say wishes to see him?"

"Say that Christian Christiansson would like to speak to him."