David Fleming's Forgiveness

by Margaret M. Robertson

“But, grannie,” said Davie after a little, “it’s different. Nobody will follow after me because I am so handsome and clever and kindly. And folk say it needna have been so bad with him, if my grandfather hadna been hard on him.”

“Whisht, laddie,” said his grandmother, with a gasp. Katie looked at him with beseeching eyes, and Davie hung his head.

“Davie, my laddie, have patience,” said his grandmother in a little; “what is a year or two out of a young life like yours compared with giving a sore heart to an old man like your grandfather? He has had sore trouble to thole in his lifetime, some that you can guess, and some that you will never ken, and his heart is just set on Katie and you.”

“But, grannie, there’s no fear of me. I’ll have no time for ill company. I’m no to be an idle gowk like Clifton Holt, to throw away my chances. And here’s Katie ay to take care of me and keep me out of mischief.”

“My lad, speak no ill of your neighbours. You’ll need all the sense you have before you get far through the world. And you’ll need grace and wisdom from above, as well, whether your work lie in high places with the great men of the earth, or just sowing and reaping in Ythan Brae. And as for Katie and her care of you, there’s many a true word spoken in jest, and you maun be a good laddie, Davie.”

It was all settled with fewer words than the grandmother feared would be needed, and a happy winter began to the brother and sister. They were young and strong and hopeful. No serious trouble was pressing on them or theirs. Just to be alive in such circumstances is happiness, only it is a kind of happiness that is seldom realised while the time is going on. When it is looked back upon over years of pain or care, it is seen clearly and valued truely, and sometimes—oh, how bitterly regretted.

They had their troubles. There was the mortgage about which they fancied they were anxious and afraid. They were just enough anxious about it to find in it an endless theme for planning and castle-building—a motive for the wonderful things they were to accomplish in the way of making money for their grandfather, and as a means of triumphing over Jacob Holt, whom they were inclined to regard as the villain of their life-story.

From all the drawbacks common to the old-time schools in this part of Canada, Gershom High-School had, to some extent, suffered. The restraints of limited means, the value of the labour even of children on a new farm, the frequent change of teachers, the endless variety of text-books, the vexing elements of national prejudice and religious differences, had told on its efficiency and success. Yet it had been a power for good in Gershom and in all the country round. From the earliest settlement of the place the leading men had taken pains to encourage and support it. Its teachers had generally been college students from the neighbouring States, who taught one year to get money to carry them through the next, or graduates who were willing to pass a year or two in teaching between their college course and their choice or pursuit of a profession. Among them had come, now and then, a youth of rare gifts, one, not only strong to govern and skilled to teach, but who kindled in the minds of the pupils an eager desire for self-improvement, an enthusiasm of mental activity which outlasted his term of office, and which influenced for good a far greater number than those whom he taught, or with whom he came personally in contact.

Mr Burnet, Davie’s teacher, was not one of these. His college days had long been over, before he crossed the sea. He had been unfortunate in many ways, but most of all in this, that he had been brought up to consider wise and right that which became sin and misery to him, because of the strength of his appetite and the weakness of his will. And so woeful days came to him and his, and he was sent over the sea, as so many another has been sent, to be out of sight. But on this side of the sea, too, woeful days awaited him, and after many a to and fro, he was stranded, an utter wreck as it seemed, on the village of Gershom. His wife was dead by this time, and his two forlorn little daughters had been sent home in rags to their mother’s sister, and there was no visible reason why the wretched man should not die also, except, as he said to them who tried to help him, that, after all, his soul might have a chance to be saved.

He did not die; he lived a free man, and when the time came for Davie and Katie to go back to die school, he had been its teacher for more than a year. Not so good a teacher in some respects as two or three of the orderly, methodical college lads, who were still remembered with affection in Gershom; but in other respects he surpassed any of them—all of them together. It was said of him that he had forgotten more than all the rest of Gershom ever knew; and that he had a tongue that would wile the very birds from the trees. He was an eloquent man, and he had not only “words,” but he had something to say. From the treasures of a highly-cultivated mind he brought, for the instruction of his pupils, and sometimes for the instruction and delight of larger audiences, things new and old. As an orator he was greatly admired, as a man he was much esteemed, as a teacher he was regarded with the respect due to his great powers, and with the tolerance which the defects accompanying them needed.