Part 38

"But it will never be able to forget the light--and it will wait---- There is never any real brightness till the waiting's past."

The Sabbath stillness was about them and its peace was in their hearts. They scarce knew why, and the world would have said that Shadow was their portion; but, then and ever, true peace passeth all understanding.

"Kneel down, Angus, kneel here beside me," she suddenly exclaimed.

"Kneel, Margaret! Why shall I kneel?"

"Never mind why--you shall see. Kneel down, Angus."

He knelt, wondering still; she removed his hat with her now ungloved hands and threw it on the grass.

"Darling, I love you," she said, "and I know you are good and true. And I was so proud this morning when you were to be ordained to God's holy service--and it must not be broken off like this. Oh, Angus, when I saw your face this morning, I feared so that your whole soul would turn to bitterness and give itself up to hatred of that man. But it must not be."

"Margaret, stop! Surely you must know----"

"Be still, Angus--it must not be. All this anguish must break in blessing. Sorrow such as yours will be either a curse or a blessing--and it must not be a curse. God's love can turn it into blessing--and so can mine. We shall take up our cross together and shall see it blossom yet. Oh, Angus, if I can forgive him, you can, for you are dearer to me than to anybody else." Her hands were now upon his head:--"Angus Strachan, I ordain you to suffer and to wait. I ordain you to God's service in the name of love and sorrow and God--and they're all the same name--and I love you so--and you are an elder now. Oh, dear Lord, take care of our love and make us true--and patient. And bless our sorrow and make it sweet and keep us near the Man of Sorrows. Amen."

The white dimpled hands rested long upon the auburn locks of the still bended head, and her compassion flowed through them to the more than orphaned heart. It was the same head, she thought, and the same heart, as had once been blessed by a mother's anguished hand, doomed, as that mother knew, to the world's unreasoning scorn.

Her own peace seemed to pass into his troubled soul; the anointed head bowed lower and the yoke was laid upon him, never to be withdrawn. But its bitterness was gone, purged from it by those white dimpled hands, and the fragrance of a soul's sweeter life was there instead. For there had come to him that great moment when secret rebellion turns to secret prayer, craving blessing from the very hand that had smitten him with lameness; and Angus was making his ordination vows to God.

Upon that grassy knoll, under heaven's tender sky, with unmoving lips and broken heart he made the great surrender. Patience he promised God; and in return he begged the forgiving heart, the strength to bear his lifelong load, and the aid which might enable him to attain that miracle of grace when he yet should pray for the man whose sin had foreclothed his life in shame.

"Let us go back," said Margaret, at length, for the sun was westering.

"Yes, we will go back," said he, for in the gentle words he heard the bugle call; "we will go back." But first he kissed the ordaining hands, anointed as they had been to cast out evil from the heart and to bind up its brokenness.

Homeward they turned their steps, and the noises of the uncaring world soon fell upon their ears, but their hearts were holden of another song, and they heard them not.

Backward they bent their way to the world and its cruel pity--but ever hand in hand.

* * * * *

As the reader already knows, Margaret and Angus went forth from St. Cuthbert's Church just as Michael Blake was invited to speak in his own defense and to answer, if he might, the dread charge of his accuser.

"Have you anything to say, Mr. Blake?" were the words I had just uttered when Margaret and her lover left the church, with all the sequel which hath been just recorded.

In answer, he watched the retreating forms till they had departed, then buried his face in his hands. He sat thus so long that I concluded he had no heart to speak, and again arose, my hand outstretched to give the blessing, if blessing there might be in such an hour. The congregation arose to receive the proffered benediction, but before my lips had opened, a faint hand plucked my gown.

"I will speak, sir," and pale and trembling the unhappy man rose and stood beside me. I resumed my seat and the people dumbly did the same, gazing towards their elder with eyes that pleaded for the assurance of his innocence. Twice or thrice he strove for utterance before the words would come. At length he spoke.

"Moderator and brethren," he began, "if such as I may call you brethren. I am a sinful man. My hour has come. God's clock has struck, and it is the stroke of doom for my unworthy soul. Not that I despair of final mercy, for mine is a scarlet sin, and for such there is a special promise. But God's rod hath fallen upon me. The Almighty hath scourged me through my own son; for he who has just gone forth is none other than mine own child. My heart went out to him since first I saw his face, though I knew not till to-day that he is my flesh and blood. The picture you saw him hold out before me is none other than the picture of his mother's face.

"I speak it not for my defense--but I thought his mother was dead. I was told from the old country that she was gone, and more than one letter was returned to me with the statement that she could not be found. It was my heart's purpose to make a worthy home for her here in Canada, and to bring her out to it and to atone if I might for the cruel wrong. The first is long since done, but the second was beyond my power--at least so I was led to think.

"And now, Moderator, I place in your hands the resignation of the office on which I have brought such deep disgrace. It was my pride to be an elder in St. Cuthbert's, for it was here I first tasted of the Saviour's forgiving grace; it was here I first learned the luxury of penitence, and here was born my heart's deep purpose to retrieve the past--it was my pride, I say to be an elder here, but it is now my shame."

He was about to stop when Saunders McTavish interrupted:

"Moderator, there'll be no need to proceed by libel, for the accused party has confessed his guilt. But he hasna said anything to the Court about his soul, about his soul and his sin, and his relation to his God. At least, not all he might like to say and we might like to hear. Mebbe he'll have had repentance unto life?"

I waited. Mr. Blake's response came with humble brokenness.

"Please God I have," he said, "and, unworthy though I be, I have a great word for my fellow men this day--a word the unfallen angels could not speak. Oh, my brethren, believe me, I have not been leading a double life. I took the eldership at your hands, I know, saying nothing of the dark blot that soiled the past. My humble hope was that in service I might seek to redeem my life and I remembered One who said to a guilty soul like mine:--'Feed My sheep.' Penitence, and not remorse, I thought, was well pleasing unto God.