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Immediately Ranald hitched up Lisette and drove over to his uncle's, but as he was returning he sent in word to the manse, his face being not yet presentable, that his father was nowhere to be found. It was Macdonald Bhain that found him at last in the woods, prone upon his face, and in an agony. "Hugh, man," he cried, "what ails you?" But there were only low groans for answer.
Ranald caught the tremor in her voice and looked at her. "Yes," he said, with an effort. "He was good to me in the camp. Many's the time he made it easy for me. He was next to Macdonald Bhain with the ax, and, man, he was the grand fighter that is," he added, adopting the phrase of the Macdonald gang, "when it was a plain necessity."
It must have been a disgusting and terrible sight; but Macdonald Bhain apparently settled them in a hurry; and what is more, made them all shake hands and promise to drop the quarrel thenceforth. I fancy Ranald's handling of young Aleck McRae did more to bring about the settlement than anything else. What a lot of savages they are!" continued the minister.
Six feet four inches he stood in his stocking soles, and with "a back like a barn door," as his son Danny, or "Curly," now in the shanty with Macdonald Bhain, used to say, in affectionate pride. Then there was Farquhar McNaughton, big, kindly, and good-natured, a mighty man with the ax in his time. "Kirsty's Farquhar" they called him, for obvious reasons.
"You mak' de good frien' wit me?" asked LeNoir, rising and putting his hand out to Macdonald Bhain. Macdonald Bhain rose from his place and stepped toward the Frenchman, and took his hand. "Yes, I will be friends with you," he said, gravely, "and I will seek God's mercy for you." Then LeNoir turned to Ranald, and said; "Will you be frien' of me? Is it too moche?"
Murray heard of it from Macdonald Bhain that summer, she knew that Ranald had kept his word and had done LeNoir good and not evil. The story of the riot in which Ranald played so important a part filled the town and stirred society to its innermost circles those circles, namely, in which the De Lacys lived and moved.
"Rise up, man, rise up and come away." Then from the prostrate figure he caught the words, "Depart from me! Depart from me! That is the word of the Lord." "That is not the word," said Macdonald Bhain, "for any living man, but for the dead. But come, rise, man; the neighbors will be here in a meenute." At that Black Hugh rose. "Let me away," he said. "Let me not see them. I am a lost man."
And to their people at home their letters spoke of Ranald and his doings at first doubtfully, soon more confidently, but always with pride. To Macdonald Bhain a rare letter came from Ranald now and then, which he would carry to Mrs. Murray with a difficult pretense of modesty. For with Macdonald Bhain, Ranald was a great man. "But he is not quite sure of him," said Mrs. Murray.
He was regular in his attendance upon the meetings all through spring and summer, but his whole previous history made it difficult for him to fully appreciate the intensity and depth of the religious feeling that was everywhere throbbing through the community. "Don't see what the excitement's for," he said to Macdonald Bhain one night after meeting.
LeNoir came nearer him and lowering his voice said: "I'm ver' bad man me. I lak to know how you do dat what you say forgive. You show me how." "Come to me next spring," said Macdonald Bhain. "Bon!" said LeNoir. "I be dere on de Nation camp." And so he was. And when Mrs.
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