“I urged him to forgive his enemies and to leave this sinful world in charity with all mankind.”
“An’ what said he to that?”
“He said he’d nought to forgive to anybody but Ben Walker.”
“Well, and him?”
“I urged him to forgive even Walker. ‘Vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord.’”
“Well, did he?”
“Nay, I found him obdurate on this point, though I pressed him hard. He reiterated that before he forgave Walker he’d like to give him something to forgive too. I could not but tell him he was entering the presence of his Maker in a most unchristian frame of mind.”
“Are yo’ clear, Mr. Webster,” asked my father, “that religion calls on George to forgive Ben Walker?”
“There can be no question of it,” was the answer. “Do we not pray ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us?’”
My father shook his head pensively. “It may be Scripture, parson, but it isn’t Yorkshire. Hast ta never heard that a Yorkshireman can carry a stone in his pocket for seven years, then turn it and after another seven years let throw and hit his mark?”