dRobinson

I watched Rob Roy last night. I love the scene where his wife goes to ask the Duke for help. She says:

It was not done for Your Grace but for his own honour, which he holds dearer than myself or his sons, his clan or kin, and for which I have oft chided him. But it is him and his way, and were he other, he would not be Robert Roy McGregor. ... And though I love his honour, it is but a moon-cast shadow to the love I bear him.

But I had forgotten the scene near the end where she does anything but "chide" him concerning his honor:

Robert: It was me who was wrong. You were right when you told me I must have it my own way. It's that which brought all this on us. I should have packed my pride and given Montrose his way. And all this has come on us, all this you have endured. ... Mary: And wrong would have been done you! Robert: And what of the wrong done you, wrong past bearing? Mary: No, not past bearing. ... Not if I have my Robert, and he has himself. And you would not, not if you had done a lesser man's bidding. 'Honour is the gift a man gives himself.' You told our boys that. Would you have stolen from yourself that what makes you Robert McGregor? Robert: Oh, my Mary. How fine you are to me. Mary: And you to me.

I love this interchange where, knowing the hurt they have themselves endured, is focused on the pain of the other. Where Mary, knowing the cost to herself and others that Robert's living by his honor has extracted, says, "Would you have stolen from yourself that what makes you Robert McGregor?" She knew her man. Knew his deep heart. She was wiling to bear the  "wrongs done her" because she knew that those "light and momentary afflictions" were small, compared to having an essential role in the larger story this man drew her into.  This is way more than what he does. It is all about who he is as a man. Rob Roy's honorable actions reflect his honorable heart; they are the fruit that reveals quality of the tree. His doing is the overflow of his being.