“‘Goodness and mercy shall follow me.’” Was that so he could live to see his dream of vengeance fulfilled?
Ah! He could not give that up! It could never mean that he must give that up! Else where were the good of remaining alive?
No; no; it did not mean that! Even the old deacon wouldn’t have thought he must forgive what he, Gabriel Gard, had borne.
“Oh, Lord,” Gard said aloud, “It can’t mean that! It ain’t in human nature that it should mean that!”
The cup in his hand was crushed again to formless clay. He tore and kneaded it viciously, great drops of sweat beading his forehead.
“It’s against human nature,” he groaned as he sought to bring the plastic stuff again into shape. “I can’t do it! But—” The words rose to an agonized wail as his spirit recognized the inexorableness of this demand upon its powers—“I’ve got to. I’ve got to!”
His mind went back to the day upon the mountain-ridge, when he had seen the quail, and he remembered his wish, the wish that had been almost a prayer; remembered it with a hushed feeling of awe.
“If I’d sensed it,” he said in a voice tense with his soul’s pain, “If I’d sensed that this is what comes of knowing there’s a God, I guess I wouldn’t have dared wish that.”
Hour after hour the battle was fought over the wet, red clay, and the day was far spent before the cup was ready for the kiln. When at last Gard, weary, but at peace, brought it for the final perfecting of the fire, he paused, ere he thrust it in, to read once more the rude letters graven deep in its fabric.
THE CUP OF FORGIVENESS