Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/195

  It was this that sent her to his brother, Macdonald Bhain, to whom she told as much of the story as she thought wise.

"I am afraid he will never come to peace with God until he comes to peace with this man," she said, sadly, "and it is a bitter load that he is carrying with him."

"I will talk with him, " answered Macdonald Bhain, and at the end of the week he took his way across to his brother's home.

He found him down in the brûle, where he spent most of his days toiling hard with his ax, in spite of the earnest entreaties of Ranald. He was butting a big tree that the fire had laid prone, but the ax was falling with the stroke of a weak man.

As he finished his cut, his brother called to him, "That is no work for you, Hugh; that is no work for a man who has been for six weeks in his bed."

"It is work that must be done, however," Black Hugh answered, bitterly.

"Give me the ax," said Macdonald Bhain. He mounted the tree as his brother stepped down, and swung his ax deep into the wood with a mighty blow. Then he remembered, and stopped. He would not add to his brother's bitterness by an exhibition of his mighty, unshaken strength. He stuck the ax into the log, and standing up, looked over the brûle. "It is a fine bit of ground, Hugh, and will raise a good crop of potatoes."

"Aye," said Macdonald Dubh, sadly. "It has lain