Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/152

  you should go away. I am sure he would blame himself."

This was quite a new idea to the boy. That the minister should think himself to be in the wrong was hardly credible.

"And how glad we would be," she continued, earnestly, "to see you prove yourself a man before them all."

Ranald shook his head. "I would rather go away."

"Perhaps, but it's braver to stay, and to do your work like a man." And then, allowing him no time for words, she pictured to him the selfish, cowardly part the man plays who marches bravely enough in the front ranks until the battle begins, but who shrinks back and seeks an easy place when the fight comes on, till his face fell before her in shame. And then she showed him what she would like him to do, and what she would like him to be in patience and in courage, till he stood once more erect and steady.

"Now, Ranald," she said, noting the effect of her words upon him, "what is it to be?"

"I will go back," he said, simply; and turning with a single word of farewell, he sprang over the fence and disappeared in the woods. The minister's wife stood looking the way he went long after he had passed out of sight, and then, lifting her eyes to the radiant sky with its shining lights, "He made the stars also," she whispered, and went up to her bed and laid her down and slept in peace. Her Sabbath day's work was done.