When they took their leave, he walked
halfway up the street with them, and then returned to tell his wife
what they had been saying, all the way murmuring to himself as he
went, "The Lord is a man of war." And ever as he said the words,
he saw as in a vision the great man of war in which he had served,
sweeping across the bows of a Frenchman, and raking him, gun after
gun, from stem to stern. Nor did the warlike mood abate until
he reached home and looked his wife in the eyes. He told her all,
ending with the half repudiatory, half tentative words.
"That's what they say, ye see, Annie."
"And what say ye, Joseph?" returned his wife.
"Ow! I'm no sayin'," he answered.
"What are ye thinkin' than, Joseph?" she pursued. "Ye canna say
ye're no thinkin'."
"Na; I'll no say that, lass," he replied, but said no more.
"Weel, gien ye winna say," resumed Annie, "I wull; an' my say is,
'at it luiks to me unco like takin' things intil yer ain han'."
"An' whase han' sud we tak them intil but oor ain?" said Peter,
with a falseness which in another would have roused his righteous
indignation.
"That's no the p'int. It's whase han' ye're takin' them oot o',"
returned she, and spoke with solemnity and significance.
Peter made no answer, but the words Vengeance is mine began to ring
in his mental ears instead of The Lord is a man of war.
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