David Fleming's Forgiveness

Margaret Murray Robertson (continued 7)

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As to whether or not she made a good minister’s wife, Elizabeth was never quite sure. But the minister was content, and so were most of the people. And even those who were never quite contented with anything, acknowledged that “she did as well as she knew how,” and that would be high praise for the most of us.

Clifton lived in the old home with them, for his good and their pleasure, till the time came when he made a home of his own, which, considering all things, was not so very long a time after all.

Although Jacob’s change from the first place to the second both in the business and in the town was not pleasant to him, it was wholesome. He had never been equal to the rôle of the great man of the place, and after the first feelings of humiliation wore away, and their affairs began to look prosperous again, the fact that “two heads are better than one” made itself apparent to him even more clearly than had been the case in the days when he found his father unable, and his brother unwilling, to give him help and counsel.

He came to be much better liked by his neighbours than he used to be, and was really a better man. He had fewer worries and fewer temptations, and though he was not what might be called “a shining light” either in the church or in the world, it was the opinion of his brethren and townsmen that his troubles had been blessed to him, and that he was getting along—not very fast, but in the right direction.

But that which did most for Jacob in his time of trouble was the knowledge of Mr Fleming’s forgiveness and friendship. It is not likely that he had ever acknowledged, even to himself, that he had sinned against him through his son more than others had done, but a sense of the old man’s silent anger had always been in him, and had been painful and humiliating to him—how painful he knew by the sense of relief he experienced whenever they came in contact afterward. He no longer stepped aside when he saw him approaching, so that the neighbours should not remark about the old man’s steadily averted face. They had never much to say to each other, but they met and exchanged kindly greetings as other men did, and all Gershom saw the change that had come over them both. Even his cousin Betsey grew friendly and frank in her intercourse with him and his wife, and that was a change certainly.

Few people ever knew just what had brought about this changed state of feeling. There was nothing to tell which Jacob cared to repeat. It would have done no good to bring up the old, sad story again, he well knew, and he said little about it even to his wife.

As for Mr Fleming—and indeed all the Flemings—the joyful tidings that the letter brought on that fair September morning were too sacred and sweet to be discussed much even among themselves. Katie always held that her grandfather would have forgiven Jacob Holt all the same if the letter had never come, because there was the Lord’s command clear and plain, “Forgive and ye shall be forgiven,” and it must have come to that at last.

“And, indeed, Davie, it was near at hand before the letter came. The Lord had touched him. First there was the fear of losing you, and then the fear of losing grannie, and then the letter came from the son he had lost so long, and that was the last touch for which the rest had made him ready. Oh! how good He has been to us! Surely, surely, Davie, we can never through all our lives forget.”

Mrs Fleming thought as Katie did, though they had never spoken together of the subject. In her innermost heart she had believed—though even to herself she had hardly put the thought into words—that on the subject of Jacob Holt’s past misdeeds her husband was hardly responsible for his thoughts. The misery of his son’s loss, not for this brief life only, but forever and ever, as he could not but believe, had taken such full possession of him as to leave him no power to struggle against the bitterness which became almost hatred as time went on. If he had died unforgiving, the Lord would have still received him, she had believed, and she had striven to content herself with this belief in silence, feeling how vain were spoken words to him.

“Only a miracle would make him see God’s will in this; and I have no right to ask for that.”

No miracle was wrought. The letter came, and was the last touch of the loving Hand which even at the worst times had wounded but to heal; and lying with his lips in the dust, but with eyes looking upward, the cloud parted, and he saw the face of God, and was at peace.

After this there came nothing to trouble these two old people as they moved softly down the hill together. Grannie was never very strong again after her long illness, and no longer took the lead in all that was done in the house—that was Katie’s part in life for several years to come; but she was quite content to rest and to look at other folk busy with the work which had once been hers, and that does not always happen in the last days of a life so active and so full as hers had been.

And what was true of the grandmother was true of the grandfather as well. He seemed to have no more anxious thoughts about anything. He did not need to have while Davie stayed at home; but even after Davie went away, and the management of the farm fell for the most part into the less skillful hands of the younger brothers, their grandfather “took things easy,” the lads said, and rarely found fault.

And so they had still a peaceful gloaming, these two old people, when their changeful day of life was drawing to a close. Only it was like the dawn rather than the gloaming, Katie said, because of the soft brightness that shone on them both. It was “light at evening time,” and their last days were their best to themselves and to all by whom they were beloved.

For the last days were days of waiting for the change of which they spoke often to the bairns so dear, and to one another. Once, as Katie sat with her grandfather at the pasture-bars on Sabbath afternoon, she said to him—after many other words had been spoken between them—that she would like to put that verse on his grave-stone after he was gone:

“At evening time it shall be light.”

But her grandfather said:

“Na, na, my lassie! If I have a grave-stone—which matters little—and if any verse at all be put upon it, let it be this:—

“‘Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.’” Then Katie stooped and touched his hand with her lips, as she had done once long ago, and said softly: “Yes, grandfather, so it shall be.” And so it was.

The End.