“Splendid!” cried the minister's wife, forgetting herself for the moment.
“But he let him go,” said Ranald, sadly. “He would not strike him, but just let him go.”
Then the minister's wife cried again: “Ah, he is a great man, your uncle! And a great Christian. Greater than I could have been, for I would have slain him then and there.” Her eyes flashed, and the color flamed in her face as she uttered these words.
“Aye,” said Macdonald Dubh, regarding her with deep satisfaction. His tone and look recalled the minister's wife, and turning to Ranald, she added, sadly:
“But your uncle was right, Ranald, and we must forgive even as he did.”
“That,” cried Ranald, with fierce emphasis, “I will never do, until once I will be having my hands on his throat.”
“Hush, Ranald!” said the minister's wife. “I know it is hard, but we must forgive. You see we MUST forgive. And we must ask Him to help us, who has more to forgive than any other.”
But she said no more to Macdonald Dubh on that subject that morning. The fire of the battle was in her heart, and she felt she could more easily sympathize with his desire for vengeance than with the Christian grace of forgiveness. But as they rode home together through the bush, where death had trailed them so closely the night before, the sweet sunlight and the crisp, fresh air, and all the still beauty of the morning, working with the memory of their saving, rebuked and soothed and comforted her, and when Ranald turned back from the manse door, she said softly: “Our Father in heaven was very good to us, Ranald, and we should be like him. He forgives and loves, and we should, too.”
And Ranald, looking into the sweet face, pale with the long night's trials, but tinged now with the faintest touch of color from the morning, felt somehow that it might be possible to forgive.
But many days had to come and go, and many waters flow over the souls of Macdonald Dubh and his son Ranald, before they were able to say, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”