"It would be but a poor business," he said, "to part now after so many years of life together, with seven children that should be as bonds between us in our age, and looking to a longer parting."
But Mrs. Fairbrother was resolved to go with her sons, and never again to darken her husband's doors.
"You have been a true wife to me and led a good life," said Adam, "and have holpen me through many troubles, and we have had cheerful hours together despite some crosses."
But Mrs. Fairbrother was not to be pacified.
"Then let us not part in anger," said Adam, " and though I will not do your bidding, and send away the lad—no, nor let him go of himself, now that for sake of peace he asks it—yet to show you that I mean no wrong by my own flesh and blood, this is what I will do: I have my few hundreds for my office, but all I hold that I can call my own is Lague. Take it—it shall be yours for your lifetime, and our sons' and their sister's after you."
On these terms the bad bargain was concluded, and Mrs. Fairbrother went away to Lague, leaving Adam with Michael Sunlocks at Government House.
And the old man, being now alone with the lad, though his heart never wavered or rued the price he had paid for him, often turned yearningly towards thoughts of his daughter Greeba, so that at length he said speaking of her as the child he had parted from, "I can live no longer without my little lass, and will go and fetch her."
Then he wrote to the Duchess at her house in London, and a few days afterwards he followed his letter.
He had been a week gone, when Michael Sunlocks, having now the Governor's routine work to do, was sent for out of the north of the island to see to the light on the Point of Ayre, where there was then no lighthouse, but only a flare stuck out from a pole at the end of a sandstone jetty, a poor proxy, involving much risk to shipping. Two days he was away, and returning home he slept a night at Douglas, rising at sunrise to make the last stage of his journey to Castletown. He was riding Goldie, the Governor's little roan; the season was spring, and the morning, fresh from its long draught of dew, was sweet and beautiful. But Michael Sunlocks rode heavily along, for he was troubled by many misgivings. He was asking himself for the hundredth time whether it was a true man's part to suffer himself to stand between Adam Fairbrother and his
