Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/277

  the Glory. Ranald, my boy, where are you? You will be following me, lad, to the Glory. She will be asking me about you. You will be following me, lad?"

The anxious note in his voice struck Ranald to the heart.

"Oh, father, it is what I want," he replied, brokenly. "I will try."

"Aye," said Macdonald Dubh, "and you will come. I will be telling her. Now lay me down, Tonal; I will be going."

Macdonald Bhain laid him quietly back on his pillow, and for a moment he lay with his eyes closed.

Once more he opened his eyes, and with a troubled look upon his face, and in a voice of doubt and fear, he cried: "It is a sinful man, O Lord, a sinful man."

His eyes wandered till they fell on Mrs. Murray's face, and then the trouble and fear passed out of them, and in a gentler voice he said: "Forgive us our debts." Then, feeling with his hand till it rested on his son's head, Macdonald Dubh passed away, at peace with men and with God.

There was little sadness and no bitter grief at Macdonald Dubh's funeral. The tone all through was one of triumph, for they all knew his life, and how sore the fight had been, and how he had won his victory. His humility and his gentleness during the last few weeks of his life had removed all the distance that had separated him from the people, and had drawn their hearts toward him; and now in his final triumph they could not find it in their hearts to mourn.