It was a dark day for Ranald when he was forced to face the fact that his father was growing daily weaker. It was his uncle, Macdonald Bhain, who finally made him see it.

"Your father is failing, Ranald," he said one day toward the close of harvest.

"It is the hot weather," said Ranald. "He will be better in the fall."

"Ranald, my boy," said his uncle, gravely, "your father will fade with the leaf, and the first snow will lie upon him."

And then Ranald fairly faced the fact that before long he would be alone in the world. Without any exchange of words, he and his father came to understand each other, and they both knew that they were spending their last days on earth together. On the son's side, they were days of deepening sorrow; but with the father, every day seemed to bring him a greater peace of mind and a clearer shining of the light that never fades. To his son, Macdonald Dubh never spoke of the death that he felt to be drawing nearer, but he often spoke to him of the life he would like his son to live. His only other confidant in these matters was the minister's wife. To her Macdonald Dubh opened up his heart, and to her, more than to any one else, he owed his growing peace and light; and it was touching to see the devotion and the tenderness that he showed to her as often as she came to see him. With his brother, Macdonald Bhain, he made all the arrangements necessary for the disposal of the farm and the payment of the mortgage.

Ranald had no desire to be a farmer, and indeed, when the mortgage was paid there would not be much left.

"He will be my son," said Macdonald Bhain to his brother; "and my home will be his while I live."

So in every way there was quiet preparation for Macdonald Dubh's going, and when at last the day came, there was no haste or fear.

It was in the afternoon of a bright September day, as the sun was nearing the tops of the pine-trees in the west. His brother was supporting him in his strong arms, while Ranald knelt by the bedside.

Near him sat the minister's wife, and at a little distance Kirsty.

"Lift me up, Tonal," said the dying man; "I will be wanting to see the sun again, and then I will be going. I will be going to the land where they will not need the light of the sun. Tonal, bhodaich, it is the good brother you have been to me, and many's the good day we have had together."

"Och, Hugh, man. Are you going from me?" said Macdonald Bhain, with great sorrow in his voice.

"Aye, Tonal, for a little." Then he looked for a few moments at Kirsty, who was standing at the foot of the bed.

"Come near me, Kirsty," he said; and Kirsty came to the bedside.

"You have always been kind to me and mine, and you were kind to HER as well, and the reward will come to you." Then he turned to Mrs. Murray, and said, with a great light of joy in his eyes: "It is you that came to me as the angel of God with a word of salvation, and forever more I will be blessing you." And then he added, in a voice full of tenderness, "I will be telling her about you." He took Mrs. Murray's hand and tremblingly lifted it to his lips.

"It has been a great joy to me," said Mrs. Murray, with difficulty steadying her voice, "to see you come to your Saviour, Mr. Macdonald."

"Aye, I know it well," he said; and then he added, in a voice that sank almost to a whisper, "Now you will be reading the prayer." And Mrs.

Murray, opening her Gaelic Bible, repeated in her clear, soft voice, the words of the Lord's Prayer. Through all the petitions he followed her, until he came to the words, "Forgive us our debts." There he paused.

"Ranald, my man," he said, raising his hand with difficulty and laying it upon the boy's head, "you will listen to me now. Some day you will find the man that brought me to this, and you will say to him that your father forgave him freely, and wished him all the blessing of God. You will promise me this, Ranald?" said Macdonald Dubh.

"Yes, father," said Ranald, lifting his head, and looking into his father's face.

"And, Ranald, you, too, will be forgiving him?" But to this there was no reply. Ranald's head was buried in the bed.

"Ah," said Macdonald Dubh, with difficulty, "you are your father's son; but you will not be laying this bitterness upon me now. You will be forgiving him, Ranald?"

"Oh, father!" cried Ranald, with a breaking voice, "how can I forgive him? How can I forgive the man who has taken you away from me?"

"It is no man," replied his father, "but the Lord himself; the Lord who has forgiven your father much. I am waiting to hear you, Ranald."

Then, with a great sob, Ranald broke forth: "Oh, father, I will forgive him," and immediately became quiet, and so continued to the end.

After some moments of silence, Macdonald Dubh looked once more toward the minister's wife, and a radiant smile spread over his face.

"You will be finishing," he said.

Her face was wet with tears, and for a few moments she could not speak.

But it was no time to fail in duty, so, commanding her tears, with a clear, unwavering voice she went on to the end of the prayer--

"For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever.

Amen."

"Glory!" said Macdonald Dubh after her. "Aye, 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.

But to Ranald the sadness was more than the triumph. Through the wild, ungoverned years of his boyhood his father had been more than a father to him. He had been a friend, sharing a common lot, and without much show of tenderness, understanding and sympathizing with him, and now that his father had gone from him, a great loneliness fell upon the lad.

The farm and its belongings were sold. Kirsty brought with her the big box of blankets and linen that had belonged to Ranald's mother. Ranald took his mother's Gaelic Bible, his father's gun and ax, and with the great deerhound, Bugle, and his colt, Lisette, left the home of his childhood behind him, and with his Aunt Kirsty, went to live with his uncle.

Throughout the autumn months he was busy helping his uncle with the plowing, the potatoes, and the fall work. Soon the air began to nip, and the night's frost to last throughout the shortening day, and then Macdonald Bhain began to prepare wood for the winter, and to make all things snug about the house and barn; and when the first fall of snow fell softly, he took down his broad-ax, and then Ranald knew that the gang would soon be off again for the shanties. That night his uncle talked long with him about his future.

"I have no son, Ranald," he said, as they sat talking; "and, for your father's sake and for your own, it is my desire that you should become a son to me, and there is no one but yourself to whom the farm would go.

And glad will I be if you will stay with me. But, stay or not, all that I have will be yours, if it please the Lord to spare you."

"I would want nothing better," said Ranald, "than to stay with you and work with you, but I do not draw toward the farm."

"And what else would you do, Ranald?"

"Indeed, I know not," said Ranald, "but something else than farming. But meantime I should like to go to the shanties with you this winter."

And so, when the Macdonald gang went to the woods that winter, Ranald, taking his father's ax, went with them. And so clever did the boy prove himself that by the time they brought down their raft in the spring there was not a man in all the gang that Macdonald Bhain would sooner have at his back in a tight place than his nephew Ranald. And, indeed, those months in the woods made a man out of the long, lanky boy, so that, on the first Sabbath after the shantymen came home, not many in the church that day would have recognized the dark-faced, stalwart youth had it not been that he sat in the pew beside Macdonald Bhain. It was with no small difficulty that the minister's wife could keep her little boy quiet in the back seat, so full of pride and joy was he at the appearance of his hero; but after the service was over, Hughie could be no longer restrained. Pushing his way eagerly through the crowd, he seized upon Ranald and dragged him to his mother.

"Here he is, mother!" he exclaimed, to Ranald's great confusion, and to the amusement of all about him. "Isn't he splendid?"

And as Ranald greeted Mrs. Murray with quiet, grave courtesy, she felt that his winter in the woods and on the river had forever put behind him his boyhood, and that henceforth he would take his place among the men.

And looking at his strong, composed, grave face, she felt that that place ought not to be an unworthy one.