“That is fery strange,” said Duncan, after a few moments’ thought. “Do you think, Peg, that the robber that was forgiven wass a—a murderer?”
“I have little doubt o’t,” answered Peg, “for I’ve heard say that they think very little o’ human life in them Eastern countries. But whatever he was, the blood of Jesus Christ was able to cleanse him.”
“Ay, but if he was a murderer, Peg, he did not deserve to be forgiven.”
“My bairn,” said the old woman, with something of motherly tenderness in her tone, “it’s not them that deserve to be forgiven that are forgiven, but them that see that they don’t deserve it. Didna’ this robber say that he was sufferin’ for his sins justly? That, surely, meant that he deserved what he was getting, an’ how is it possible to deserve both condemnation an’ forgiveness at the same time? But he believed that Jesus was a king—able and willing to save him though he did not deserve it, so he asked to be remembered, and he was remembered. But lie down now, bairn, an’ rest: Ye are excitin’ yoursel’, an’ that’s bad for ye.”
A week or so after the conversation above recorded, Dan brought a wheel-chair for Duncan, similar to the one he had made for his father. As Duncan had been getting out of bed for several days before, Dan found him dressed and sitting up. He therefore lifted him into the chair at once, and wheeled him out into the garden, where a blaze of warm sunshine seemed to put new life into the poor invalid.
It had been pre-arranged that old McKay should be brought down that same day to his new room, and that he should also be wheeled into the garden, so as to meet his son Duncan, without either of them being prepared for the meeting.
“I don’t feel at all sure that we are right in this arrangement,” Elspie had said; but Dan and Fergus, and Mrs Davidson and Jessie had thought otherwise, so she was overruled.
Archie was deputed to attend upon Duncan junior, and Little Bill obtained leave to push the chair of old McKay. The younger man was wheeled under the shade of a tree with his back to the house, and left there. Then the family retired out of the way, leaving Archie to attend the invalid.
A few minutes after young Duncan had been placed, Little Bill pushed his charge under the same tree, and, wheeling the chair quickly round, brought father and son suddenly face to face.
The surprise was great on both sides, for each, recollecting only the man that had been, could hardly believe in the reality of the ghost that sat before him.