ll share of the work, and this won the old man's respect, so that
by the end of the first day there was established between them a solid
basis of friendship.

Old Donald Finch was no cheerful companion for Hughie, but it was to
Hughie a relief, more than anything else, that he was not much with
either Thomas or Billy Jack.

"You're tired," he ventured, in answer to a deep sigh from the old man,
toward the close of the day.

"No, laddie," replied the old man, "I know not that I am working. The
burden of toil is the least of all our burdens." And then, after a
pause, he added, "It is a terrible thing, is sin."

To an equal in age the old man would never have ventured this
confidence, but to Hughie, to his own surprise, he found it easy to
talk.

"A terrible thing," he repeated, "and it will always be finding you
out."

Hughie listened to him with a fearful sinking of heart, thinking of
himself and his sin.

"Yes," repeated the old man, with awful solemnity, "it will come up with
you at last."

"But," ventured Hughie, timidly, "won't God forgive? Won't he ever
forget?"

The old man looked at him, leaning upon his hoe.

"Yes, he will forgive. But for those who have had great privileges, and
who have sinned against light--I will not say."

The fear deepened in Hughie's heart.

"Do you mean that God will not forgive a man who has had a good chance,
an elder, or a minister, or--or--a minister's son, say, like me?"

There was something in Hughie's tone that startled the old man. He
glanced at Hughie's face.

"What am I saying?" he cried. "It is of myself I am thinking, boy, and
of no minister or minister's son."

But Hughie stood looking at him, his face showing his terrible anxiety.
God and sin were vivid realities to him.

"Yes, yes," said the old man to himself, "it is a great gospel. 'As far
as the east is distant from the west.' 'And plenteous redemption is ever
found with him.'"

"But, do you think," said Hughie, in a low voice, "God will tell all our
sins? Will he make them known?"

"God forbid!" cried the old man. "'And their sins and their iniquities
will I remember no more.' 'The depths of the sea.' No, no, boy, he will
surely forget, and he will not be proclaiming them."

It was a strange picture. The old man leaning upon the top of his
hoe looking over at the lad, the gloom of his face irradiated with a
momentary gleam of hope, and the boy looking back at him with almost
breathless eagerne