Then came the accuser and boldly told him that he had neglected his duty, and driven his son into the way of sin and death; and that the seeds sown in domestic bickering and unkindness had only brought forth their natural fruit.  The scales fell from his eyes; all the past became clear to him.  His own righteousness was dreadful in his sight.  He cried out with his whole soul, “God be merciful!  God be merciful!”

The darkest despairs are the most silent.  All the night long he was only able to utter that one heartbroken cry for pity and help.  At the earliest daylight he was with his son.  He was amazed to find him calm, almost cheerful.  “The worst is over father,” he said.  “I have done a great wrong; I acknowledge the justice of the punishment, and am willing to suffer it.”

“But after death!  Oh, David, David—­afterward!”

“I shall dare to hope—­for Christ also has died, the just for the unjust.”

Then the father, with a solemn earnestness, spoke to his son of that eternity whose shores his feet were touching.  At this hour he would shirk no truth; he would encourage no false hope.  And David listened; for this side of his father’s character he had always had great respect, and in those first hours of remorse following the murder, not the least part of his suffering had been the fearful looking forward to the Divine vengeance which he could never fly from.  But there had been One with him that night, One who is not very far from us at any time; and though David had but tremblingly understood His voice, and almost feared to accept its comfort, he was in those desperate circumstances when men cannot reason and philosophize, when nothing remains for them but to believe.

“Dinna get by the truth, my dear lad; you hae committed a great sin, there is nae doubt o’ that.”

“But God’s mercy, I trust, is greater.”

“And you hae nothing to bring him from a’ the years o’ your life!  Oh, David, David!”

“I know,” he answered sadly.  “But neither had the dying thief.  He only believed.  Father, this is the sole hope and comfort left me now.  Don’t take it from me.”

Lorimer turned away weeping; yes, and praying, too, as men must pray when they stand powerless in the stress of terrible sorrows.  At noon the twelve men summoned dropped in one by one, and the informal court was opened.  David Lorimer admitted the murder, and explained the long irritation and the final taunt which had produced it.  The testimony of the returned drovers supplemented the tragedy.  If there was any excuse to be made, it lay in the disgraceful epithet applied to David and the scornful mention of his mother’s race.

There was, however, an unfavorable feeling from the first.  The elder Lorimer, with his stern principles and severe manners, was not a popular man.  David’s proud, passionate temper had made him some active enemies; and there was not a man on the jury who did not feel as the sheriff had honestly expressed himself regarding David’s conduct at the moment of the stampede.  It touched all their prejudices and their interests very nearly; not one of them was inclined to blame Whaley for calling a man a coward who would not answer the demand for help at such an imperative moment.