Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/197

  "You will not be saying that," said Macdonald Bhain. "But I am saying that the Lord will be honored in you yet."

"Indeed, there is not much for me," said his brother, gloomily, "but the sick-bed and six feet or more of the damp earth."

"Hugh, man," said his brother, hastily, "you must not be talking like that. It is not the speech of a brave man. It is the speech of a man that is beaten in his fight."

"Beaten!" echoed his brother, with a kind of cry. "You have said the word. Beaten it is, and by a man that is no equal of mine. You know that," he said, appealing, almost anxiously, to his brother. "You know that well. You know that I am brought to this"—he held up his gaunt, bony hands—"by a man that is no equal of mine, and I will never be able to look him in the face and say as much to him. But if the Almighty would send him to hell, I would be following him there."

"Whisht, Hugh," said Macdonald Bhain, in a voice of awe. "It is a terrible word you have said, and may the Lord forgive you."

"Forgive me!" echoed his brother, in a kind of frenzy. "Indeed, he will not be doing that. Did not the minister's wife tell me as much?"

"No, no," said his ^brother. "She would not be saying that."

"Indeed, that is her very word," said Black Hugh.

"She could not say that," said his brother, "for it is not the Word of God."