I slept calmly and peacefully, and I woke up to feel that I was beginning an entirely new life.  Henceforth I was not my own.  I was standing on the heavenward side of the line, and I had taken my place amongst the servants of Christ.  I had never felt so happy before.

Duncan had set off for the doctor before I was down that morning.  Little John was better, Polly said, but was still very feverish, and would eat nothing.  She brought him down before I went off to my work, wrapped in a shawl, and I thought he looked very ill, but I did not like to say so.

Duncan came in just at that moment, and the child put out his arms to his father, and he took him on his knee by the fire, and when I came home to dinner he was still lying there.

‘Has the doctor been?’ I asked.

’No, sir; he was out when I called this morning.  He had gone to a bad case, they said, ten miles off, but I left a message.  I hope he’ll come before I go this evening.  I should be more comfortable like if he did.’

However, the evening came, and Duncan’s mates were whistling for him from the shore, and the doctor had not appeared.  The boy was still in his father’s arms, and he was walking up and down the kitchen to soothe him.

‘It’s hard to leave him, sir,’ he said, when he heard the whistle, ’but he seems a bit better, I think, this afternoon; he hasn’t cried so much, has he, Polly?’

But I saw there were tears in his eyes as he gave the boy to his mother.

‘I’ll walk with you to the shore, Duncan,’ I said, for I saw that the poor fellow was very downcast.

‘Thank you kindly, sir,’ he answered.

I stood on the shore whilst the nets and fishing tackle were put on board, then he said in a low voice,—­

’It’s a comfort to feel you will be near my poor lass to-night, sir.  It cuts me to the heart to leave her; if anything happens to little John, whatever would me and my missus do!  But the Lord knows, sir—­He knows,’ he repeated, and he wiped away a tear which fell on my hand as he grasped it.

I went back to Duncan’s house, to find the doctor there.  It was influenza and pneumonia, he said, and the boy must be kept in one room.  He was a very silent man, and whether he thought it was a serious case or not I could not discover.

I determined not to go to bed that night, but to sit up in my room, in case I should be of any use.  I was really glad of the quiet time for thought and prayer.

I am ashamed to confess that I had brought no Bible with me to Runswick Bay; I had not opened a Bible for years.  But when all was quiet in the house I stole quietly downstairs, and brought up Duncan’s Bible, which was lying on the top of the oak cupboard below.  What a well-worn, well-read Bible it was!  I wondered if my mother’s Bible had been read like that.  There was his name on the title-page, ’John Duncan, from his affectionate father.’  It had evidently been given to him when a boy, and underneath the name was written this verse:  ’Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law.’  I said that little prayer before I began to read, and I have said it ever since each time that I have opened my Bible.