“Don’t say you won’t forgive him!” she implored. “Think, for aught we know he may now be pining in a Moorish dungeon, or lying wounded on the battle-field. Oh, Mr. Ford, he was your only son, and you loved him—you must love him still!”
“Silence, girl!” cried my father, very fierce. “How dare you tell me I love a rebellious child! I should wrong my conscience, and be false to my profession as a Christian man, if I were weak enough to do what you say.”
Patience turned and appealed to my mother.
“Won’t you speak to him, mother? Why do you sit there so quietly? You love Athelstane as much as—as much as any one.”
My mother cast a tender glance at my father.
“Hush, child! There is no need to speak. Athelstane’s father forgave him long ago.”
I saw my father start and tremble.
“Woman! What is it you say? What do you know?” he exclaimed. “You saw me cross his name out of the Bible with my own hand!”
“Yes, dear,” my mother answered very softly, “but you wrote it in again that very night, when you thought I was asleep.”
And rising out of her chair she crossed over and took down the book from where it had lain those three years and more, and opened the page where, as I have often seen it since, my name was written in again in large letters, and underneath in a shaken hand, the words, “Oh, Athelstane, my son, my son!”