Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/151

  you, for now you will know—how much—" The boy was unable to proceed. His sobs were shaking his whole frame, and to his shy Highland Scotch nature, words of love and admiration were not easy. "You will not be sending me back home again?" he pleaded, anticipating her. "Indeed, I cannot stay in this place after to-day."

But the minister's wife kept her eyes steadily upon his face without a word, trying in vain to find her voice, and the right words to say. She had no need of words, for in her face, pale, wet with her flowing tears, and illumined with her gray-brown eyes, Ranald read her heart.

"Oh!" he cried again, "you are wanting me to stay, and I will be ashamed before them all, and the minister, too. I cannot stay. I cannot stay."

"And I cannot let you go, Ranald, my boy," she said, commanding her voice to speech. "I want you to be a brave man. I don't want you to be afraid of them."

"Afraid of them!" said the boy, in scornful surprise. "Not if they were twice as more and twice as beeg."

Mrs. Murray saw her advantage, and followed it up.

"And the minister did not know the whole truth, Ranald, and he was sorry he spoke to you as he did."

"Did he say that?" said Ranald, in surprise. It was to him, as to any one in that community, a terrible thing to fall under the displeasure of the minister and to be disgraced in his eyes.

"Yes, indeed, Ranald, and he would be sorry if