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iste, heh? and de old Fadder he's le bon Dieu? Bon! das good story for me. How you go back? You go to de pries'?'
'The book doesn't say priest or any one else,' said Nelson. 'You go back in yourself, you see?'
'Non; das so, sure nuff. Ah!'--as if a light broke in upon him-- 'you go in your own self. You make one leetle prayer. You say, "Le bon Fadder, oh! I want come back, I so tire, so hongree, so sorree"? He, say, "Come right 'long." Ah! das fuss-rate. Nelson, you make one leetle prayer for Sandy and me.'
And Nelson lifted up his face and said: 'Father, we're all gone far away; we have spent all, we are poor, we are tired of it all; we want to feel different, to be different; we want to come back. Jesus came to save us from our sins; and he said if we came He wouldn't cast us out, no matter how bad we were, if we only came to Him. Oh, Jesus Christ'--and his old, iron face began to work, and two big tears slowly came from under his eyelids--'we are a poor lot, and I'm the worst of the lot, and we are trying to find the way. Show us how to get back. Amen.'
'Bon!' said Baptiste. 'Das fetch Him sure!'
Graeme pulled me away, and without a word we went into the office and drew up to the little stove. Graeme was greatly moved.
'Did you ever see anything like that?' he asked. 'Old Nelson! the hardest, savagest, toughest old sinner in the camp, on his knees before a lot of men!'
'Before God,' I could not help saying, for the thing seemed very real to me. The old man evidently felt himself talking to some one.
'Yes, I suppose you're right,' said Graeme doubtfully; 'but there's a lot of stuff I can't swallow.'
'When you take medicine you don't swallow the bottle,' I replied, for his trouble was not mine.
'If I were sure of the medicine, I wouldn't mind the bottle, and yet it acts well enough,' he went on. 'I don't mind Lachlan; he's a Highland mystic, and has visions, and Sandy's almost as bad, and Baptiste is an impulsive little chap. Those don't count