“For why? The Lord our God is good,”
rolled out the majestic notes of Old Hundred.
“What's the matter, mother?” whispered Hughie, who was standing up in the seat that he might look on his mother's book.
“Nothing, darling,” said his mother, her face radiant through her tears. After long months of toil and waiting, they were actually singing praise to God in the new church.
When the professor arose, it was an eager, responsive congregation that waited for his word. The people were fully prepared for a sermon that would shake them to their souls' depths. The younger portion shivered and shrank from the ordeal; the older and more experienced shivered and waited with not unpleasing anticipations; it did them good, that remorseless examination of their hearts' secret depravities. To some it was a kind of satisfaction offered to conscience, after which they could more easily come to peace. With others it was an honest, heroic effort to know themselves and to right themselves with their God.
The text was disappointing. “Above all these things, put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness,” read the professor from that exquisite and touching passage which begins at the twelfth verse of the fifteenth chapter of Colossians. “Love, the bond of perfectness,” was his theme, and in simple, calm, lucid speech he dilated upon the beauty, the excellence, and the supremacy of this Christian grace. It was the most Godlike of all the virtues, for God was love; and more than zeal, more than knowledge, more than faith, it was “the mark” of the new birth.
Peter McRae was evidently keenly disappointed, and his whole bearing expressed stern disapproval. And as the professor proceeded, extolling and illustrating the supreme grace of love, Peter's hard face grew harder than ever, and his eyes began to emit blue sparks of fire. This was no day for the preaching of smooth things. The people were there to consider and to lament their Original and Actual sin; and they expected and required to hear of the judgments of the Lord, and to be summoned to flee from the wrath to come.
Donald Ross sat with his kindly old face in a glow of delight, but with a look of perplexity on it which his furtive glances in Peter's direction did not help to lessen. The sermon was delighting and touching him, but he was not quite sure whether this was a good sign in him or no. He set himself now and then to find fault with the sermon, but the preacher was so humble, so respectful, and above all, so earnest, that Donald Ross could not bring himself to criticise.
The application came under the third head. As a rule, the application to a Fast Day sermon was delivered in terrifying tones of thunder or in an awful whisper. But to-day the preacher, without raising his voice, began to force into his hearers' hearts the message of the day.
“This is a day for self-examination,” he said, and his clear, quiet tones fell into the ears of the people with penetrating power. “And self-examination is a wise and profitable exercise. It is an exercise of the soul designed to yield a discovery of sin in the heart and life, and to induce penitence and contrition and so secure pardon and peace. But too often, my friends,” and here his voice became a shade softer, “it results in a self-righteous and sinful self-complaisance. What is required is a simple honesty of mind and spiritual illumination, and the latter cannot be without the former. There are those who are ever searching for 'the marks' of a genuinely godly state of heart, and they have the idea that these marks are obscure and difficult for plain people to discover. Make no mistake, my brethren, they are as easily seen as are the apples on a tree. The fruits of the spirit are as discernible to any one honest enough and fearless enough to look; and the first and supreme of all is that which we have been considering this morning. The question for you and for me, my brethren, is simply this: Are our lives full of the grace of love? Do not shrink from the question. Do not deceive yourselves with any substitutes; there are many offering zeal, the gift of prayer or of speech, yea, the gift of faith itself. None of these will atone for the lack of love. Let each ask himself, Am I a loving man?”
With quiet persistence he pursued them into all their relations in life—husbands and wives, fathers and sons, neighbor and neighbor. He would not let them escape. Relentlessly he forced them to review their habits of speech and action, their attitude toward each other as church members, and their attitude toward “those without.” Behind all refuges and through all subterfuges he made his message follow them, searching their deepest hearts. And then, with his face illumined as with divine fire, he made his final appeal, while he reminded them of the Infinite love that had stooped to save, and that had wrought itself out in the agonies of the cross. And while he spoke his last words, all over the church the women were weeping, and strong men were sitting trembling and pale.
After a short prayer, the professor sat down. Then the minister rose, and for some little time stood facing his people in silence, the gleam in his eyes showing that his fervent Highland nature was on fire.
“My people,” he began, and his magnificent voice pealed forth like a solemn bell, “this is the message of the Lord. Let none dare refuse to hear. It is a message to your minister, it is a message to you. You are anxious for 'the marks.' Search you for this mark.” He paused while the people sat looking at him in fixed and breathless silence. Then, suddenly, he broke forth into a loud cry: “Where are your children at this solemn time of privilege? Fathers, where are your sons? Why were they not with you at the Table? Are you men of love? Are you men of love, or by lack of love are you shutting the door of the Kingdom against your sons with their fightings and their quarrelings?” Then, raising his hands high, he lifted his voice in a kind of wailing chant: “Woe unto you! Woe unto you! Your house is left unto you desolate, and the voice of love is crying over you. Ye would not! Ye would not! O, Lamb of God, have mercy upon us! O, Christ, with the pierced hands, save us!” Again he paused, looking upward, while the people waited with uplifted white faces.
“Behold,” he cried, in a soul-thrilling voice, “I see heaven open, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and I hear a voice, 'Turn ye, turn ye. Why will ye die?' Lord Jesus, they will not turn.” Again he paused. “Listen. Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire. Depart ye! Nay, Lord Jesus! not so! Have mercy upon us!” His voice broke in its passionate cry. The effect was overwhelming. The people swayed as trees before a mighty wind, and a voice cried aloud from the congregation: “God be merciful to me, a sinner!”
It was Macdonald Dubh. At that loud cry, women began to sob, and some of the people rose from their seats.
“Be still,” commanded the minister. “Rend your hearts and not your garments. Let us pray.” And as he prayed, the cries and sobs subsided and a great calm fell upon all. After prayer, the minister, instead of giving out a closing psalm, solemnly charged the people to go to their homes and to consider that the Lord had come very near them, and adjured them not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Then he dismissed them with the benediction.
The people went out of the church, subdued and astonished, speaking, if at all, in low tones of what they had seen and heard.
Immediately after pronouncing the benediction, the minister came down to find Macdonald Dubh, but he was nowhere to be seen. Toward evening Mrs. Murray rode over to his house, but found that he had not returned from the morning service.
“He will be at his brother's,” said Kirsty, “and Ranald will drive over for him.”
Immediately Ranald hitched up Lisette and drove over to his uncle's, but as he was returning he sent in word to the manse, his face being not yet presentable, that his father was nowhere to be found. It was Macdonald Bhain that found him at last in the woods, prone upon his face, and in an agony.
“Hugh, man,” he cried, “what ails you?” But there were only low groans for answer.
“Rise up, man, rise up and come away.”
Then from the prostrate figure he caught the words, “Depart from me! Depart from me! That is the word of the Lord.”
“That is not the word,” said Macdonald Bhain, “for any living man, but for the dead. But come, rise, man; the neighbors will be here in a meenute.” At that Black Hugh rose.
“Let me away,” he said. “Let me not see them. I am a lost man.”
And so his brother brought him home, shaken in spirit and exhausted in body with his long fast and his overpowering emotion. All night through his brother watched with him alone, for Macdonald Dubh would have no one else to see him, till, from utter exhaustion, toward the dawning of the day, he fell asleep.
In the early morning the minister and his wife drove over to see him, and leaving his wife with Kirsty, the minister passed at once into Macdonald Dubh's room. But, in spite of all his reasoning, in spite of all his readings and his prayers, the gloom remained unbroken except by occasional paroxysms of fear and remorse.
“There is no forgiveness! There is no forgiveness!” was the burden of his cry.
In vain the minister proclaimed to him the mercy of God. At length he was forced to leave him to attend the “Question Meeting” which was to be held in the church that day. But he left his wife behind him.
Without a word, Mrs. Murray proceeded to make the poor man comfortable. She prepared a dainty breakfast and carried it in to him, and then she sat beside him while he fell into a deep sleep.
It was afternoon when Macdonald Dubh awoke and greeted her with his wonted grave courtesy.
“You are better, Mr. Macdonald,” she said, brightly. “And now I will make you a fresh cup of tea”; and though he protested, she hurried out, and in a few moments brought him some tea and toast. Then, while he lay in gloomy silence, she read to him, as she did once before from his Gaelic psalm book, without a word of comment. And then she began to tell him of all the hopes she had cherished in connection with the opening of the new church, and how that day she had felt at last the blessing had come.
“And, O, Mr. Macdonald,” she said, “I was glad to hear you cry, for then I knew that the Spirit of God was among us.”
“Glad!” said Macdonald Dubh, faintly.
“Yes, glad. For a cry like that never comes but when the Spirit of God moves in the heart of a man.”
“Indeed, I will be thinking that He has cast me off forever,” he said, wondering at this new phase of the subject.
“Then you must thank Him, Mr. Macdonald, that He has not so done; and the sure proof to you is that He has brought you to cry for mercy. That is a glad cry, in the ears of the Saviour. It is the cry of the sheep in the wilderness, that discovers him to the shepherd.” And then, without argument, she took him into her confidence and poured out to him all her hopes and fears for the young people of the congregation, and especially for Ranald, till Macdonald Dubh partly forgot his own fears in hers. And then, just before it was time for Kirsty to arrive from the “Question Meeting,” she took her Gaelic Bible and opened at the Lord's Prayer, as she had done once before.
“It is a terrible thing to be unforgiven, Mr. Macdonald,” she said, “by man or by God. And God is unwilling that any of us should feel that pain, and that is why he is so free with his offer of pardon to all who come with sorrow to him. They come with sorrow to him now, but they will come to him some day with great joy.” And then she spoke a little of the great company of the forgiven before the throne, and at the very last, a few words about the gentle little woman that had passed out from Macdonald Dubh's sight so many years before. Then, falling on her knees, she began in the Gaelic,
“Our Father which art in Heaven.”
Earnestly and brokenly Macdonald Dubh followed, whispering the petitions after her. When they came to
“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,”
Macdonald Dubh broke forth: “Oh, it is a little thing, whatever! It is little I have to forgive.” And then, in a clear, firm voice, he repeated the words after her to the close of the prayer.
Then Mrs. Murray rose, and taking him by the hand to bid him good by, she said, slowly: “'For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you your trespasses.' You have forgiven, Mr. Macdonald.”
“Indeed, it is nothing,” he said, earnestly.
“Then,” replied Mrs. Murray, “the Lord will not break his promise to you.” And with that she went away.
On Saturday morning the session met before the service for the day. In the midst of their deliberations the door opened and Macdonald Bhain and his brother, Macdonald Dubh, walked in and stood silent before the elders. Mr. Murray rose astonished, and coming forward, said to Macdonald Bhain: “What is it, Mr. Macdonald? You wish to see me?”
“I am here,” he said, “for my own sake and for my brother's. We wish to make confession of our sins, in that we have not been men of love, and to seek the forgiveness of God.”
The minister stood and gazed at him in amazed silence for some moments, and then, giving his hand to Macdonald Dubh, he said, in a voice husky with emotion: “Come away, my brother. The Lord has a welcome for you.”
And there were no questions that day asked in the session before Macdonald Dubh received his token.
The first communion in the new church was marked by very great solemnity. There were few new members, but among the older men who had hitherto kept “back from the table” there was a manifest anxiety, and among the younger people a very great seriousness. The “coming forward” of Macdonald Dubh was an event so remarkable as to make a great impression not only upon all the Macdonald men who had been associated with him so many years in the lumbering, but also upon the whole congregation, to whom his record and reputation were well known. His change of attitude to the church and all its interests, as well as his change of disposition and temperament, were so striking as to leave in no one's mind any doubt as to the genuineness of his “change of heart,” and every week made this more apparent. A solemn sense of responsibility and an intensity of earnestness seemed to possess him, while his humility and gentleness were touching to see.
On the evening of Monday, the day of thanksgiving in the Sacrament Week, a great congregation assembled for the closing meeting of the Communion Season. During the progress of the meeting, Mr. Murray and the ministers assisting him became aware that they were in the presence of some remarkable and mysterious phenomenon. The people listened to the Word with an intensity, response, and eagerness that gave token of a state of mind and heart wholly unusual. Here and there, while the psalms were being sung or prayers being offered, women and men would break down in audible weeping; and in the preaching the speaker was conscious of a power possessing him that he could not explain.
At length the last psalm was given out, and the congregation, contrary to their usual custom, by the minister's direction, rose to sing. As John “Aleck” led the people in that great volume of praise, the ministers held a hasty consultation in the pulpit. The professor had never seen anything so marvelous; Mr. Murray was reminded of the days of W. C. Burns. The question was, What was to be done? Should the meetings be continued, or should they close tonight? They had a great fear of religious excitement. They had seen something of the dreadful reaction following a state of exalted religious feeling. It was the beginning of harvest, too. Would it be advisable to call the people from their hard work in the fields to nightly meetings?
At length, as the congregation were nearing the close of the psalm, the professor spoke. “Brethren,” he said, “this is not our work. Let us leave it to the Lord to decide. Put the question to the people and abide by their decision.”
After the psalm was sung, the minister motioned the congregation to their seats, and without comment or suggestion, put before them the question that had been discussed in the pulpit. Was it their desire that the meetings should be continued or not? A deep, solemn silence lay upon the crowded church, and for some time no one moved. Then the congregation were startled to see Macdonald Dubh rise slowly from his place in the middle of the church.
“Mr. Murray,” he said, in a voice that vibrated strangely, “you will pardon me for letting my voice be heard in this place. It is the voice of a great sinner.”
“Speak, Mr. Macdonald,” said the minister, “and I thank God for the sound of your voice in His house.”
“It is not for me to make any speeches here. I will only make bold to give my word that the meetings be continued. It may be that the Lord, who has done such great things for me, will do great things for others also.” And with that he sat down.
“I will take that for a motion,” said the minister. “Will any one second it?”
Kenny Crubach at once rose and said: “We are always slow at following the Lord. Let us go forward.”
The minister waited for some moments after Kenny had spoken, and then said, in a voice grave and with a feeling of responsibility in it: “You have heard these brethren, my people. I wait for the expression of your desire.”
Like one man the great congregation rose to their feet. It was a scene profoundly impressive, and with these serious-minded, sober people, one that indicated overwhelming emotion.
And thus the great revival began.
For eighteen months, night after night, every night in the week except Saturday, the people gathered in such numbers as to fill the new church to the door. Throughout all the busy harvest season, in spite of the autumn rains that filled the swamps and made the roads almost impassable, in the face of the driving snows of winter, through the melting ice of the spring, and again through the following summer and autumn, the great revival held on. No fictitious means were employed to stir the emotions of the people or to kindle excitement among them. There were neither special sermons nor revival hymns. The old doctrines were proclaimed, but proclaimed with a fullness and power unknown at other times. The old psalms were sung, but sung perhaps as they had never been before. For when John “Aleck's” mighty voice rolled forth in its full power, and when his band of trained singers followed, lifting onward with them the great congregation—for every man, woman, and child sang with full heart and open throat—the effect was something altogether wonderful and worth hearing. Each night there was a sermon by the minister, who, for six months, till his health broke down, had sole charge of the work. Then the sermon was followed by short addresses or prayers by the elders, and after that the minister would take the men, and his wife the women, for closer and more personal dealing.
As the revival deepened it became the custom for others than the elders to take part, by reading a psalm or other Scripture, without comment, or by prayer. There was a shrinking from anything like a violent display of emotion, and from any unveiling of the sacred secrets of the heart, but Scripture reading or quoting was supposed to express the thoughts, the hopes, the fears, the gratitude, the devotion, that made the religious experience of the speaker. This was as far as they considered it safe or seemly to go.
One of the first, outside the ranks of the elders, to take part in this way was Macdonald Dubh; then Long John Cameron followed; then Peter McGregor and others of the men of maturer years. A distinct stage in the revival was reached when young Aleck McRae rose to read his Scripture. He was quickly followed by Don, young Findlayson, and others of that age, and from that time onward the old line that had so clearly distinguished age from youth in respect to religious duty and privilege, was obliterated forever. It had been a strange, if not very doubtful, phenomenon to see a young man “coming forward,” or in any way giving indication of religious feeling. But this would never be again.
It was no small anxiety and grief to Mrs. Murray that Ranald, though he regularly attended the meetings, seemed to remain unmoved by the tide of religious feeling that was everywhere surging through the hearts of the people. The minister advised letting him alone, but Mrs. Murray was anxiously waiting for the time when Ranald would come to her. That time came, but not until long months of weary waiting on her part, and of painful struggle on his, had passed.
From the very first of the great movement his father threw himself into it with all the earnest intensity of his nature, but at the same time with a humility that gave token that the memory of the wild days of his youth and early manhood were never far away from him. He was eager to serve in the work, and was a constant source of wonder to all who had known him in his youth and early manhood. At all the different meetings he was present. Nothing could keep him away. “Night cometh,” he said to his brother, who was remonstrating with him. His day's work was drawing to its close.
But Ranald would not let himself see the failing of his father's health, and when, in the harvest, the slightest work in the fields would send his father panting to the shade, Ranald would say, “It is the hot weather, father. When the cool days come you will be better. And why should you be bothering yourself with the work, anyway? Surely Yankee and I can look after that.” And indeed they seemed to be quite fit to take off the harvest.
Day by day Ranald swung his cradle after Yankee with all a man's steadiness till all the grain was cut; and by the time the harvest was over, Ranald had developed a strength of muscle and a skill in the harvest work that made him equal of almost any man in the country. He was all the more eager to have the harvest work done in time, that his father might not fret over his own inability to help. For Ranald could not bear to see the look of disappointment that sometimes showed itself in his father's face when weakness drove him from the field, and it was this that made him throw himself into the work as he did. He was careful also to consult with his father in regard to all the details of the management of the farm, and to tell him all that he was planning to do as well as all that was done. His father had always been a kind of hero to Ranald, who admired him for his prowess with the gun and the ax, as well as for his great strength and courage. But ever since calamity had befallen him, the boy's heart had gone out to his father in a new tenderness, and the last months had drawn the two very close together. It was a dark day for Ranald when he was forced to face the fact that his father was growing daily weaker. It was his uncle, Macdonald Bhain, who finally made him see it.
“Your father is failing, Ranald,” he said one day toward the close of harvest.
“It is the hot weather,” said Ranald. “He will be better in the fall.”
“Ranald, my boy,” said his uncle, gravely, “your father will fade with the leaf, and the first snow will lie upon him.”
And then Ranald fairly faced the fact that before long he would be alone in the world. Without any exchange of words, he and his father came to understand each other, and they both knew that they were spending their last days on earth together. On the son's side, they were days of deepening sorrow; but with the father, every day seemed to bring him a greater peace of mind and a clearer shining of the light that never fades. To his son, Macdonald Dubh never spoke of the death that he felt to be drawing nearer, but he often spoke to him of the life he would like his son to live. His only other confidant in these matters was the minister's wife. To her Macdonald Dubh opened up his heart, and to her, more than to any one else, he owed his growing peace and light; and it was touching to see the devotion and the tenderness that he showed to her as often as she came to see him. With his brother, Macdonald Bhain, he made all the arrangements necessary for the disposal of the farm and the payment of the mortgage.
Ranald had no desire to be a farmer, and indeed, when the mortgage was paid there would not be much left.
“He will be my son,” said Macdonald Bhain to his brother; “and my home will be his while I live.”
So in every way there was quiet preparation for Macdonald Dubh's going, and when at last the day came, there was no haste or fear.
It was in the afternoon of a bright September day, as the sun was nearing the tops of the pine-trees in the west. His brother was supporting him in his strong arms, while Ranald knelt by the bedside. Near him sat the minister's wife, and at a little distance Kirsty.
“Lift me up, Tonal,” said the dying man; “I will be wanting to see the sun again, and then I will be going. I will be going to the land where they will not need the light of the sun. Tonal, bhodaich, it is the good brother you have been to me, and many's the good day we have had together.”
“Och, Hugh, man. Are you going from me?” said Macdonald Bhain, with great sorrow in his voice.
“Aye, Tonal, for a little.” Then he looked for a few moments at Kirsty, who was standing at the foot of the bed.
“Come near me, Kirsty,” he said; and Kirsty came to the bedside.
“You have always been kind to me and mine, and you were kind to HER as well, and the reward will come to you.” Then he turned to Mrs. Murray, and said, with a great light of joy in his eyes: “It is you that came to me as the angel of God with a word of salvation, and forever more I will be blessing you.” And then he added, in a voice full of tenderness, “I will be telling her about you.” He took Mrs. Murray's hand and tremblingly lifted it to his lips.
“It has been a great joy to me,” said Mrs. Murray, with difficulty steadying her voice, “to see you come to your Saviour, Mr. Macdonald.”
“Aye, I know it well,” he said; and then he added, in a voice that sank almost to a whisper, “Now you will be reading the prayer.” And Mrs. Murray, opening her Gaelic Bible, repeated in her clear, soft voice, the words of the Lord's Prayer. Through all the petitions he followed her, until he came to the words, “Forgive us our debts.” There he paused.
“Ranald, my man,” he said, raising his hand with difficulty and laying it upon the boy's head, “you will listen to me now. Some day you will find the man that brought me to this, and you will say to him that your father forgave him freely, and wished him all the blessing of God. You will promise me this, Ranald?” said Macdonald Dubh.
“Yes, father,” said Ranald, lifting his head, and looking into his father's face.
“And, Ranald, you, too, will be forgiving him?” But to this there was no reply. Ranald's head was buried in the bed.
“Ah,” said Macdonald Dubh, with difficulty, “you are your father's son; but you will not be laying this bitterness upon me now. You will be forgiving him, Ranald?”
“Oh, father!” cried Ranald, with a breaking voice, “how can I forgive him? How can I forgive the man who has taken you away from me?”
“It is no man,” replied his father, “but the Lord himself; the Lord who has forgiven your father much. I am waiting to hear you, Ranald.”
Then, with a great sob, Ranald broke forth: “Oh, father, I will forgive him,” and immediately became quiet, and so continued to the end.
After some moments of silence, Macdonald Dubh looked once more toward the minister's wife, and a radiant smile spread over his face.
“You will be finishing,” he said.
Her face was wet with tears, and for a few moments she could not speak. But it was no time to fail in duty, so, commanding her tears, with a clear, unwavering voice she went on to the end of the prayer—
“For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.”
“Glory!” said Macdonald Dubh after her. “Aye, the Glory. Ranald, my boy, where are you? You will be following me, lad, to the Glory. SHE will be asking me about you. You will be following me, lad?”
The anxious note in his voice struck Ranald to the heart.
“Oh, father, it is what I want,” he replied, brokenly. “I will try.”
“Aye,” said Macdonald Dubh, “and you will come. I will be telling HER. Now lay me down, Tonal; I will be going.”
Macdonald Bhain laid him quietly back on his pillow, and for a moment he lay with his eyes closed.
Once more he opened his eyes, and with a troubled look upon his face, and in a voice of doubt and fear, he cried: “It is a sinful man, O Lord, a sinful man.”
His eyes wandered till they fell on Mrs. Murray's face, and then the trouble and fear passed out of them, and in a gentler voice he said: “Forgive us our debts.” Then, feeling with his hand till it rested on his son's head, Macdonald Dubh passed away, at peace with men and with God.
There was little sadness and no bitter grief at Macdonald Dubh's funeral. The tone all through was one of triumph, for they all knew his life, and how sore the fight had been, and how he had won his victory. His humility and his gentleness during the last few weeks of his life had removed all the distance that had separated him from the people, and had drawn their hearts toward him; and now in his final triumph they could not find it in their hearts to mourn.
But to Ranald the sadness was more than the triumph. Through the wild, ungoverned years of his boyhood his father had been more than a father to him. He had been a friend, sharing a common lot, and without much show of tenderness, understanding and sympathizing with him, and now that his father had gone from him, a great loneliness fell upon the lad.
The farm and its belongings were sold. Kirsty brought with her the big box of blankets and linen that had belonged to Ranald's mother. Ranald took his mother's Gaelic Bible, his father's gun and ax, and with the great deerhound, Bugle, and his colt, Lisette, left the home of his childhood behind him, and with his Aunt Kirsty, went to live with his uncle.
Throughout the autumn months he was busy helping his uncle with the plowing, the potatoes, and the fall work. Soon the air began to nip, and the night's frost to last throughout the shortening day, and then Macdonald Bhain began to prepare wood for the winter, and to make all things snug about the house and barn; and when the first fall of snow fell softly, he took down his broad-ax, and then Ranald knew that the gang would soon be off again for the shanties. That night his uncle talked long with him about his future.
“I have no son, Ranald,” he said, as they sat talking; “and, for your father's sake and for your own, it is my desire that you should become a son to me, and there is no one but yourself to whom the farm would go. And glad will I be if you will stay with me. But, stay or not, all that I have will be yours, if it please the Lord to spare you.”
“I would want nothing better,” said Ranald, “than to stay with you and work with you, but I do not draw toward the farm.”
“And what else would you do, Ranald?”
“Indeed, I know not,” said Ranald, “but something else than farming. But meantime I should like to go to the shanties with you this winter.”
And so, when the Macdonald gang went to the woods that winter, Ranald, taking his father's ax, went with them. And so clever did the boy prove himself that by the time they brought down their raft in the spring there was not a man in all the gang that Macdonald Bhain would sooner have at his back in a tight place than his nephew Ranald. And, indeed, those months in the woods made a man out of the long, lanky boy, so that, on the first Sabbath after the shantymen came home, not many in the church that day would have recognized the dark-faced, stalwart youth had it not been that he sat in the pew beside Macdonald Bhain. It was with no small difficulty that the minister's wife could keep her little boy quiet in the back seat, so full of pride and joy was he at the appearance of his hero; but after the service was over, Hughie could be no longer restrained. Pushing his way eagerly through the crowd, he seized upon Ranald and dragged him to his mother.
“Here he is, mother!” he exclaimed, to Ranald's great confusion, and to the amusement of all about him. “Isn't he splendid?”
And as Ranald greeted Mrs. Murray with quiet, grave courtesy, she felt that his winter in the woods and on the river had forever put behind him his boyhood, and that henceforth he would take his place among the men. And looking at his strong, composed, grave face, she felt that that place ought not to be an unworthy one.
The shantymen came back home to find the revival still going on. Not a home but had felt its mighty power, and not a man, woman, or even child but had come more or less under its influence. Indeed, so universal was that power that Yankee was heard to say, “The boys wouldn't go in swimmin' without their New Testaments”—not but that Yankee was in very fullest sympathy with the movement. He was regular in his attendance upon the meetings all through spring and summer, but his whole previous history made it difficult for him to fully appreciate the intensity and depth of the religious feeling that was everywhere throbbing through the community.
“Don't see what the excitement's for,” he said to Macdonald Bhain one night after meeting. “Seems to me the Almighty just wants a feller to do the right thing by his neighbor and not be too independent, but go 'long kind o' humble like and keep clean. Somethin' wrong with me, perhaps, but I don't seem to be able to work up no excitement about it. I'd like to, but somehow it ain't in me.”
When Macdonald Bhain reported this difficulty of Yankee's to Mrs. Murray, she only said: “'What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?'” And with this Macdonald Bhain was content, and when he told Yankee, the latter came as near to excitement as he ever allowed himself. He chewed vigorously for a few moments, then, slapping his thigh, he exclaimed: “By jings! That's great. She's all right, ain't she? We ain't all built the same way, but I'm blamed if I don't like her model.”
But the shantymen noticed that the revival had swept into the church, during the winter months, a great company of the young people of the congregation; and of these, a band of some ten or twelve young men, with Don among them, were attending daily a special class carried on in the vestry of the church for those who desired to enter training for the ministry.
Mrs. Murray urged Ranald to join this class, for, even though he had no intention of becoming a minister, still the study would be good for him, and would help him in his after career. She remembered how Ranald had told her that he had no intention of being a farmer or lumberman. And Ranald gladly listened to her, and threw himself into his study, using his spare hours to such good purpose throughout the summer that he easily kept pace with the class in English, and distanced them in his favorite subject, mathematics.
But all these months Mrs. Murray felt that Ranald was carrying with him a load of unrest, and she waited for the time when he would come to her. His uncle, Macdonald Bhain, too, shared her anxiety in regard to Ranald.
“He is the fine, steady lad,” he said one night, walking home with her from the church; “and a good winter's work has he put behind him. He is that queeck, there is not a man like him on the drive; but he is not the same boy that he was. He will not be telling me anything, but when the boys will be sporting, he is not with them. He will be reading his book, or he will be sitting by himself alone. He is like his father in the courage of him. There is no kind of water he will not face, and no man on the river would put fear on him. And the strength of him! His arms are like steel. But,” returning to his anxiety, “there is something wrong with him. He is not at peace with himself, and I wish you could get speech with him.”
“I would like it, too,” replied Mrs. Murray. “Perhaps he will come to me. At any rate, I must wait for that.”
At last, when the summer was over, and the harvest all gathered in, the days were once more shortening for the fall, Ranald drove Lisette one day to the manse, and went straight to the minister's wife and opened up his mind to her.
“I cannot keep my promise to my father, Mrs. Murray,” he said, going at once to the heart of his trouble. “I cannot keep the anger out of my heart. I cannot forgive the man that killed my father. I will be waking at night with the very joy of feeling my fingers on his throat, and I feel myself longing for the day when I will meet him face to face and nothing between us. But,” he added, “I promised my father, and I must keep my word, and that is what I cannot do, for the feeling of forgiveness is not here,” smiting his breast. “I can keep my hands off him, but the feeling I cannot help.”
For a long time Mrs. Murray let him go on without seeking to check the hot flow of his words and without a word of reproof. Then, when he had talked himself to silence, she took her Bible and read to him of the servant who, though forgiven, took his fellow-servant by the throat, refusing to forgive. And then she turned over the leaves and read once more: “'God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.'”
She closed the book and sat silent, waiting for Ranald to speak.
“I know,” he said, deliberately; “I have read that often through the winter, but it does not help the feeling I have. I think it only makes it worse. There is some one holding my arm, and I want to strike.”
“And do you forget,” said Mrs. Murray, and her voice was almost stern, “and do you forget how, for you, God gave His Son to die?”
Ranald shook his head. “I am far from forgetting that.”
“And are you forgetting the great mercy of God to your father?”
“No, no,” said Ranald; “I often think of that. But when I think of that man, something stirs within me and I cannot see, for the daze before my eyes, and I know that some day I will be at him. I cannot help my feeling.”
“Ranald,” said Mrs. Murray, “have you ever thought how he will need God's mercy like yourself? And have you never thought that perhaps he has never had the way of God's mercy put before him? To you the Lord has given much, to him little. It is a terrible thing to be ungrateful for the mercy of God; and it is a shameful thing. It is unworthy of any true man. How can any one take the fullness of God's mercy and his patience every day, and hold an ungrateful heart?”
She did not spare him, and as Ranald sat and listened, his life and character began to appear to him small and mean and unworthy.
“The Lord means you to be a noble man, Ranald—a man with the heart and purpose to do some good in the world, to be a blessing to his fellows; and it is a poor thing to be so filled up with selfishness as to have no thought of the honor of God or of the good of men. Louis LeNoir has done you a great wrong, but what is that wrong compared with the wrong you have done to Him who loved you to His own death?”
Then she gave him her last word: “When you see Louis LeNoir, think of God's mercy, and remember you are to do him good and not evil.”
And with that word in his heart, Ranald went away, ashamed and humbled, but not forgiving. The time for that had not yet come. But before he left for the shanties, he saw Mrs. Murray again to say good by. He met her with a shamed face, fearing that she must feel nothing but contempt for him.
“You will think ill of me,” he said, and in spite of his self-control his voice shook. “I could not bear that.”
“No, I could never think ill of you, Ranald, but I would be grieved to think that you should fail of becoming a noble man, strong and brave; strong enough to forgive and brave enough to serve.”
Once more Ranald went to the woods, with earnest thoughts in his mind, hoping he should not meet LeNoir, and fighting out his battle to victory; and by the time the drive had reached the big water next spring, that battle was almost over. The days in the silent woods and the nights spent with his uncle in the camp, and afterward in his cabin on the raft, did their work with Ranald.
The timber cut that year was the largest that had ever been known on the Upper Ottawa. There was great crowding of rafts on the drive, and for weeks the chutes were full, and when the rafts were all brought together at Quebec, not only were the shores lined and Timber Cove packed, but the broad river was full from Quebec to Levis, except for the steamboat way which must be kept open.
For the firm of Raymond & St. Clair this meant enormous increase of business, and it was no small annoyance that at this crisis they should have detected their Quebec agent in fraud, and should have been forced to dismiss him. The situation was so critical that Mr. St. Clair himself, with Harry as his clerk, found it necessary to spend a month in Quebec. He took with him Maimie and her great friend Kate Raymond, the daughter of his partner, and established himself in the Hotel Cheval Blanc.
On the whole, Maimie was not sorry to visit the ancient capital of Canada, though she would have chosen another time. It was rather disappointing to leave her own city in the West, just at the beginning of the spring gayeties. It was her first season, and the winter had been distinguished by a series of social triumphs. She was the toast of all the clubs and the belle of all the balls. She had developed a rare and fascinating beauty, and had acquired an air so distingue that even her aunt, Miss St. Clair, was completely satisfied. It was a little hard for her to leave the scene of her triumphs and to abandon the approaching gayeties.
But Quebec had its compensations, and then there were the De Lacys, one of the oldest English families of Quebec. The St. Clairs had known them for many years. Their blood was unquestionably blue, they were wealthy, and besides, the only son and representative of the family was now lieutenant, attached to the garrison at the Citadel. Lieutenant De Lacy suggested possibilities to Maimie. Quebec might be endurable for a month.
“What a lovely view, and how picturesque!”
Maimie was standing at the window looking down upon the river with its fleet of rafts. Beside her stood Kate, and at another window Harry.
“What a lot of timber!” said Harry. “And the town is just full of lumbermen. A fellow said there must be six thousand of them, so there will be lots of fun.”
“Fun!” exclaimed Kate.
“Fun! rather. These fellows have been up in the woods for some five or six months, and when they get to town where there is whisky and—and—that sort of thing, they just get wild. They say it is awful.”
“Just horrible!” said Maimie, in a disgusted tone.
“But splendid,” said Kate; “that is, if they don't hurt any one.”
“Hurt anybody!” exclaimed Harry. “Oh, not at all; they are always extremely careful not to hurt any one. They are as gentle as lambs. I say, let us go down to the river and look at the rafts. De Lacy was coming up, but it is too late now for him. Besides, we might run across Maimie's man from Glengarry.”
“Maimie's man from Glengarry!” exclaimed Kate. “Has she a man there, too?”
“Nonsense, Kate!” said Maimie, blushing. “He is talking about Ranald, you know. One of Aunt Murray's young men, up in Glengarry. You have heard me speak of him often.”
“Oh, the boy that pulled you out of the fire,” said Kate.
“Yes,” cried Harry, striking an attitude, “and the boy that for love of her entered the lists, and in a fistic tournament upheld her fair name, and—”
“Oh, Harry, do have some sense!” said Maimie, impatiently. “Hush, here comes some one; Lieutenant De Lacy, I suppose.”
It was the lieutenant, handsome, tall, well made, with a high-bred if somewhat dissipated face, an air of blase indifference a little overdone, and an accent which he had brought back with him from Oxford, and which he was anxious not to lose. Indeed, the bare thought of the possibility of his dropping into the flat, semi-nasal of his native land filled the lieutenant with unspeakable horror.
“We were just going down to the river,” said Maimie, after the introductions were over, “but I suppose it is all old to you, and you would not care to go?”
“Aw, charmed, I'm sure.” (The lieutenant pronounced it “shuah.”) “But it is rathaw, don't you know, not exactly clean.”
“He is thinking of his boots,” said Harry, scornfully, looking down at the lieutenant's shining patent leathers.
“Really,” said the lieutenant, mildly, “awfully dirty street, though.”
“But we want to see the shantymen,” said Kate, frankly.
“Oh, the men! Very proper, but not so very discriminating, you know.”
“I love the shantymen,” exclaimed Kate, enthusiastically. “Maimie told me all about them.”
“By Jove! I'll join to-morrow,” exclaimed the lieutenant with gentle excitement.
“They would not have you,” answered Kate. “Besides, you would have to eat pork and onions and things.”
The lieutenant shuddered, gazing reproachfully at Kate.
“Onions!” he gasped; “and you love them?”
“Let us go along, then,” said Harry. “We will have a look at them, anyway.”
“From the windward side, I hope,” said the lieutenant, gently.
“I am going right on the raft,” declared Kate, stoutly, “if we can only find Ranald.”
“Meaning who, exactly?” questioned De Lacy.
“A lumberman whom Maimie adores.”
“How happy!” said De Lacy.
“Nonsense, Lieutenant De Lacy,” said Maimie, impatiently and a little haughtily; “he is a friend of my aunt's up in the county of Glengarry.”
“No nonsense about it,” said Harry, indignant that his sister should seem indifferent to Ranald. “He is a great friend of us all; and you will see—she will fly into his arms.”
“Heaven forbid!” ejaculated the lieutenant, much shocked.
“Harry, how can you be so—?” said Maimie, much annoyed. “What will the lieutenant think of me?”
“Ah, if I only might tell!” said the lieutenant, looking at her with languishing eyes. But already Kate was downstairs and on her way to the street.
As they neared the lower town, the narrow streets became more and more crowded with men in the shantymen's picturesque dress, and they had some difficulty in making their way through the jolly, jostling crowds. As they were nearing the river, they saw coming along the narrow sidewalk a burly French-Canadian, dressed in the gayest holiday garb of the shantymen.—red shirt and sash, corduroys tucked into red top-boots, a little round soft hat set upon the back of his black curls, a gorgeous silk handkerchief around his neck, and a big gold watch-chain with seals at his belt. He had a bold, handsome face, and swaggered along the sidewalk, claiming it all with an assurance fortified by whisky enough to make him utterly regardless of any but his own rights.
“Hello!” he shouted, as he swaggered along. “Make way, I'm de boss bully on de reever Hottawa.” It was his day of glory, and it evidently pleased him much that the people stood aside to let him pass. Then he broke into song:—