Macdonald Bhain glanced at his brother's face with a look of mingled pity and admiration. “Ah,” he said, “Hugh, it's a proud man you are. Macdonalds have plenty of that, whatever, and we come by it good enough. Do you remember at home, when our father”—and he went off into a reminiscence of their boyhood days, talking in gentle, kindly, loving tones, till the shadow began to lift from his brother's face, and he, too, began to talk. They spoke of their father, who had always been to them a kind of hero; and of their mother, who had lived, and toiled, and suffered for her family with uncomplaining patience.
“She was a good woman,” said Macdonald Bhain, with a note of tenderness in his voice. “And it was the hard load she had to bear, and I would to God she were living now, that I might make up to her something of what she suffered for me.”
“And I am thankful to God,” said his brother, bitterly, “that she is not here to see me now, for it would but add to the heavy burden I often laid upon her.”
“You will not be saying that,” said Macdonald Bhain. “But I am saying that the Lord will be honored in you yet.”
“Indeed, there is not much for me,” said his brother, gloomily, “but the sick-bed and six feet or more of the damp earth.”
“Hugh, man,” said his brother, hastily, “you must not be talking like that. It is not the speech of a brave man. It is the speech of a man that is beaten in his fight.”
“Beaten!” echoed his brother, with a kind of cry. “You have said the word. Beaten it is, and by a man that is no equal of mine. You know that,” he said, appealing, almost anxiously, to his brother. “You know that well. You know that I am brought to this”—he held up his gaunt, bony hands—“by a man that is no equal of mine, and I will never be able to look him in the face and say as much to him. But if the Almighty would send him to hell, I would be following him there.”
“Whisht, Hugh,” said Macdonald Bhain, in a voice of awe. “It is a terrible word you have said, and may the Lord forgive you.”
“Forgive me!” echoed his brother, in a kind of frenzy. “Indeed, he will not be doing that. Did not the minister's wife tell me as much?”
“No, no,” said his brother. “She would not be saying that.”