So, to put an end to the torture of such questionings, and escape from himself, he turned back from the shore to where the crowds looked thickest in the town. He went as he came, by the bank of the river, and when he was crossing the bridge some one shot past him on a horse. It was a man, and he drew up sharply at the Bishop's Palace, threw his reins over the pier of the gate, and bounded into the house with the light foot that goes with a light heart. "The new Governor," thought Jason, though he had seen him only as a shadow. "Who is he, I wonder?" he thought again, and with a sigh for his own condition within sight of this man's happiness he pushed heavily along.
Hardly had he got back into the town when he was seen and recognized, for with a whoop and a spring and a jovial oath a tipsy companion of former days came sweeping down upon him from the open door of a drinking-shop.
"What? Jason? Bless my soul! Come in," the fellow cried, embracing him; and to avoid the curious gaze of the throng that had gathered on the pavement Jason allowed himself to be led into the house.
"Well, God save us! So you're back! But I heard you had come. Old Jon Olafsson told us. He was down at the jetty. Boys," the fellow shouted to a little company of men who sat drinking in the hot parlor, "he's another Lazarus, come back from the dead."
"Here's to his goot healt, den," said a fat Dutch captain, who sat on the hearth, strumming a fiddle to tune it.
And while the others laughed and drank, a little deformed dwarf in a corner with an accordion between his twisted fingers began to play and sing.
"This is the last thing that should have happened," thought Jason, and with many excuses he tried to elbow his way out. But the tipsy comrade held him while he rattled on:
"Been away--foreign, eh? Married since? No? Then the girls of old Iceland are best, eh? What? Yes? And old Iceland's the fairest land the sun shines upon, eh? No? But, Lord bless me, what a mess you made of it by going away just when you did!"
At that Jason, while pushing his way through, turned about with a look of inquiry.
"Didn't know it? What? That after the mother died old Jorgen went about looking for you? No? Wanted? Why, to make a man of you, boy. Make you his son and the like of that, and not too soon either. And when he couldn't find you he took up with this Michael Sunlocks."