“And what good would that be to me?” said Macdonald Dubh. “It is myself that wants to meet him.” It was not so much the destruction of LeNoir that he desired as that he should have the destroying of him. While he cherished this feeling in his heart, it was not strange that the minister in his visits found Black Hugh unapproachable, and concluded that he was in a state of settled “hardness of heart.” His wife knew better, but even she dared not approach Macdonald Dubh on that subject, which had not been mentioned between them since the morning he had opened his heart to her. The dark, haggard, gloomy face haunted her. She longed to help him to peace. It was this that sent her to his brother, Macdonald Bhain, to whom she told as much of the story as she thought wise. “I am afraid he will never come to peace with God until he comes to peace with this man,” she said, sadly, “and it is a bitter load that he is carrying with him.” “I will talk with him,” answered Macdonald Bhain, and at the end of the week he took his way across to his brother's home. He found him down in the brule, where he spent most of his days toiling hard with his ax, in spite of the earnest entreaties of Ranald. He was butting a big tree that the fire had laid prone, but the ax was falling with the stroke of a weak man. As he finished his cut, his brother called to him, “That is no work for you, Hugh; that is no work for a man who has been for six weeks in his bed.” “It is work that must be done, however,” Black Hugh answered, bitterly. “Give me the ax,” said Macdonald Bhain. He mounted the tree as his brother stepped down, and swung his ax deep into the wood with a mighty blow. Then he remembered, and stopped. He would not add to his brother's bitterness by an exhibition of his mighty, unshaken strength. He stuck the ax into the log, and standing up, looked over the brule. “It is a fine bit of ground, Hugh, and will raise a good crop of potatoes.” “Aye,” said Macdonald Dubh, sadly. “It has lain like this for three years, and ought to have been cleared long ago, if I had been doing my duty.” “Indeed, it will burn all the better for that,” said his brother, cheerfully. “And as for the potatoes, there is a bit of my clearing that Ranald might as well use.” But Black Hugh shook his head. “Ranald will use no man's clearing but his own,” he said. “I am afraid he has got too much of his father in him for his own good.”