Yet if this man was right, there was real danger in my position.  I was not remaining stationary, as I had thought, but I was being drawn by unseen forces towards something worse, towards the depths, the fearful depths, of which he had spoken.

At times I wished I had never come to Runswick Bay to be made so uncomfortable; at other times I wondered if I had been brought there on purpose to hear those words.

I went back to dinner, but I could not enjoy it, much to Polly’s distress.  The rain fell fast all the afternoon, and as I lay on my bed upstairs I heard Polly washing up, and singing as she did so the hymn we had had at the service—­

  ‘Come over the line to Me.’

There seemed no chance of forgetting the words which had made me so uneasy.

That night I had a strange dream.  I thought I was once more on the village green.  It was a wild, stormy night, the wind was blowing hard, and the rain was falling fast; yet through the darkness I could distinguish crowds of figures gathered on the green.  On the side farther from the sea there was a bright light streaming through the darkness.  I wondered in my dream what was going on, and I found that it was a tug of war, taking place in the darkness of the night.  I saw the huge cable, and gradually as I watched I caught sight of those who were pulling.  I walked to the side from which the light streamed, and there I saw a number of holy and beautiful angels with their hands on the rope, and amongst them I distinctly caught sight of my mother.  She seemed to be dragging with all her might, and there was such an earnest, pleading, beseeching expression on her dear face that it went to my very heart to look at her.  I noticed that close beside her was the preacher, little Jack’s father, and behind him was Duncan.  They were all intent on their work, and took no notice of me, so I walked to the other end of the green, the one nearest the sea, that I might see who were there.  It was very dark at that end of the rope, but I could dimly see evil faces, and dark, strange forms, such as I could not describe.  Those on this side seemed to be having it much their own way, I thought, for the weight, whatever it was, was gradually drawing near to the sea; and, lo and behold, I saw that they were close upon a terrible place, for mighty cliffs stood above the shore, and they were within a very short distance of a sheer and terrible precipice.

‘What are you dragging?’ I cried to them.

And a thousand voices seemed to answer, ‘A soul! a soul!’

Then, as I watched on, I saw that the precipice was nearly reached, and that both those who pulled and the weight they were dragging were on the point of being hurled over, and suddenly it flashed upon me in my dream that it was my soul for which they were struggling, and I heard the cry of the pullers from the other side of the green, and it seemed to me that, with one voice, they were calling out that terrible question, ’What are the depths, the fearful depths, to which you are being drawn?’ And through the streaming light I saw my mother’s face, and a look of anguish crossed it, as suddenly the rope broke, and those who were drawing it on the opposite side went over with a crash, dragging my soul over with them.