"That's what my father said," Harvey interjected quickly; "and my mother says he was often good—only of course it's too late now," a little sigh escaping with the words.
"Perhaps they join them in heaven," the girl suggested in an awestruck voice. "Father says that's where the real joining's done; if your father was good, I'm sure they'd join him," she concluded earnestly, looking into both the serious faces as she spoke.
"Don't you think maybe they would, mother?" pleaded the boy. The habit of a lifetime committed everything to the mother for final judgment.
"That's in God's hands, dear," the delicate face glancing upward through the mist. "I'm sure God would do it if He could—we'd better hurry on; they'll be waiting for us in the church."
The little procession wound its way back to the humble temple, Harvey still holding his mother by the hand, Madeline following close behind. And the shadowy home of the little child was left alone in the silence and the dark.
The youthful pair disappeared within the ivy-grown door. The mother, her dim eyes still more dimmed by tears, turned upon her homeward way, a troubled expression on her face. Why had she not told him more, she wondered to herself—something about his father, and the cruel appetite that had been his shame and his undoing? And her lips moved in trembling prayer that God would save her son from the blight of his father's life, that the dread heritage might never wrap his life in the same lurid flame.
VIII
OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM
The predominant national type among the Glenallen folks was Scotch, and that distinctly. David Borland was one of the few exceptions; and the good folk about him had varied explanations for the baffling fact that he, American-bred though he was, had been one of the most prosperous men of the community. Some maintained that his remote ancestry must have come from the land o' cakes, even though he himself were oblivious to heaven's far-off goodness. Others contended that his long association with a Scottish neighbourhood had inoculated him with something of their distinctive power; while the profounder minds acknowledged frankly that the ways of Providence were mysterious, and that this lonely spectacle of an alien mortal, handicapped from birth and yet rising to affluence and distinction, was but an evidence of the Omnipotence that had wrought the miracle.
But if, in matters temporal, the historic Scotch stock of Glenallen had been compelled to divide the spoil with those of lesser origin, the control of affairs ecclesiastical was carefully reserved for Scottish hands alone. This went without saying. Over every door of church officialdom, and especially of the eldership, he who ran might read: "No Irish need apply,"—and the restriction included all to whom heaven had denied the separate advantage of Scottish birth or ancestry.