David Fleming's Forgiveness

by Margaret M. Robertson

It did not matter much as far as they were concerned, for they knew the value of her words, and did not repeat them; but she uttered them to other people as well, and they were repeated, as all village talk is repeated, and commented upon, and exaggerated, and no one did more toward the stirring up of strife, and the making of two parties in Gershom, than did Mrs Jacob. She did her husband no good, but she did him less harm than she might have done had she been a woman of a higher and stronger nature. He did not have perfect confidence in her sense and judgment, and was apt to hesitate rather than yield to her suggestions even when he would have liked to do so. But her intense interest and sympathy were very grateful to him, and all the more that he neither asked nor expected sympathy from any one else.

He often longed to ask it; there were several men in Gershom with whom he would have liked to discuss his grievances, but he hardly dared to enter upon the subject, lest in confessing how great a matter a six months’ delay was to him, he should betray how serious his losses had been. He did not intend to make his wife aware of his embarrassments, but she could not fail to see that all his anxiety could not spring from doubts as to the company or indignation toward Mr Fleming. She could not bring herself to speak of his losses while he remained silent, but she was all the more bitter in speaking of the old man’s obstinacy.

“And there are people who call him a sincere and exemplary Christian! The hard, selfish, sour old man!”

“Well,” said Jacob, after a pause of consideration, “I guess he is a Christian—as Christians go. There are few Christians who live up to their light in all respects, I’m afraid.”

“That’s so; but then there is a difference between failings and shortcomings, or even open yieldings to sudden temptations, and this keeping up of anger and uncharitableness, as he has been doing, year in and year out, since ever I can remember, almost.”

“We cannot judge him; he has had great troubles, and he is an old man,” said Jacob, rising. Any allusion to Mr Fleming’s disapproval of him fretted him more than it used to do, and once or twice lately he had allowed himself to say more than he would have liked to reach the ears of his neighbours, and so he rose to go.

“He has never done me any hurt that I know of, and I don’t suppose he’ll do enough to speak of now. It will come all round right I guess, and then if I can do him a good turn I will.”

If he had stayed a minute longer, his wife would have told him that he at least was showing a Christian spirit in thus saying, but being left alone, it came into her mind that no better revenge could be taken upon the hard old man than that his enemy should heap kindness upon him.

“Not that such a thought was in Jacob’s heart,” she said to herself, “but I guess he’s got some new notion in his head. I never can tell just what he means by what he says; it will be queer if he doesn’t get his own way first or last.”

It was no great stretch of charity on Jacob’s part to allow that the people who believed in the Christianity of Mr Fleming might be right, notwithstanding the old man’s unreasonable antipathy to himself. He had never doubted it, and his wife’s words had startled him.