Six and Half-a-Dozen

Slain in the battle of life. Wounded and fallen, trampled in the mire
and mud of the conflict, then the ranks closed again and left no place
for her. So she crawled aside to die. With a past whose black despair
was as the shadow of a starless night, a future which her early
religious training lit up with the lurid light of hell, and the strong
bands of a pitiless death dragging her to the grave--still she craved,
as the awful hour drew near, to see once more the home of her innocent
childhood. Not that she thought to die in its shelter--any one who knew
David Todd knew also that was a hopeless dream; but if, IF her
father should say one pardoning word, then she thought it would help her
to understand the love of God, and give her some strength to trust in
it.

Early in the evening, just as the sun was setting and the cows were
coming lowing up the little lane, scented with the bursting lilac
bushes, she stood humbly at the gate her father must pass in order to go
to the hillside fold to shelter the ewes and lambs. Very soon she saw
him coming, his Scotch bonnet pulled over his brows, his steps steadied
by his shepherd's staff. His lips were firmly closed, and his eyes
looked far over the hills; for David was a mystic in his own way, and
they were to him temples not made with hands in which he had seen and
heard wonderful things. Here the storehouses of hail and lightning had
been opened in his sight, and he had watched in the sunshine the tempest
bursting beneath his feet. He had trod upon rainbows and been waited
upon by spectral mists. The voices of winds and waters were in his
heart, and he passionately believed in God. But it was the God of his
own creed--jealous, just and awful in that inconceivable holiness which
charges his angels with folly and detects impurity in the sinless
heavens. So, when he approached the gate he saw, but would not see, the
dying girl who leaned against it. Whatever he felt he made no sign. He
closed it without hurry, and then passed on the other side.

"Father! O, father! speak one word to me."

Then he turned and looked at her, sternly and awfully.

"Thou art nane o' my bairn. I ken naught o' thee."

Without another glance at the white, despairing face, he walked rapidly
on; for the spring nights were chilly, and he must gather his lambs into
the fold, though this poor sheep of his own household was left to
perish.

But, if her father knew her no more, the large sheep-dog at his side was
not so cruel. No theological dogmas measured Rover's love; the stain on
the spotless name of his master's house, which hurt the old man like a
wound, had not shadowed his memory. He licked her hands and face, and
tried with a hospitality and