ght of
Greeba, of the Governor, and again of Greeba. Had the coming of
Greeba altered all? Was it because Greeba was back home that he
wished to stay? Was it for that the Governor wished him to go,
needing him now no more? He did not know, he could not think; only
the hot flames rose to his cheeks and the hot tears to his eyes, and
he tossed his head again mighty proudly, and said as stoutly as ever,
"Very well--very well--I'll go--since you wish it."

Now old Adam saw but too plainly what mad strife was in the lad's
heart to be wroth with him for all the ingratitude of his thought,
so, his wrinkled face working hard with many passions--sorrow and
tenderness, yearning for the lad and desire to keep him, pity for the
father robbed of the love of his son, who felt an open shame of
him--the good man twisted about from the fire and said, "Listen, and
you shall hear what your father has done for you."

And then, with a brave show of composure, though many a time his
old face twitched and his voice faltered, and under his bleared
spectacles his eyes blinked, he told Michael Sunlocks the story of
his infancy--how his father, a rude man, little used to ways of
tenderness, had nursed him when his mother, being drunken and without
natural feelings, had neglected him; how his father had tried to
carry him away and failed for want of the license allowing them to
go; how at length, in dread of what might come to the child, yet
loving him fondly, he had concluded to kill him, and had taken him
out to sea in the boat to do it, but could not compass it from terror
of the voice that seemed to speak within him, and from pity of the
child's own artless prattle; and, last of all, how his father had
brought him there to that house, not abandoning him to the charity of
others, but yielding him up reluctantly, and as one who gave away in
solemn trust the sole thing he held dear in all the world.

And pleading in this way for Stephen Orry, poor old Adam was tearing
at his own heart woefully, little wishing that his words would
prevail, yet urging them the more for the secret hope that, in spite
of all, Michael Sunlocks, like the brave lad he was, would after all
refuse to go. But Michael, who had listened impatiently at first,
tramping the room to and fro, paused presently, and his eyes began to
fill and his hands to tremble. So that when Adam, having ended, said,
"Now, will you not go to Iceland?" thinking in his heart that the lad
would