“On the other side the young man declared that he had quarreled with his uncle at Ullapool and left him clandestinely.  He had then taken passage in a Manx fishing smack which was going to the Lews, but he had forgotten the name of the smack.  He was not even certain if the boat was Manx.  The landlord of the inn, at which he said he stayed when in the Lews, did not remember him.  ‘A thing not to be expected,’ he told the jury, ’for in the summer months, what with visitors, and what with the fishers, a face in Stornoway was like a face on a crowded street.  The young man might have been there’—­

“The word Stornoway made the whole thing clear to me.  The prisoner was the man I had noticed with a pencil and paper among the fishers in Donald Brae’s cottage.  Yes, indeed he was!  I knew then why I had been sent to Glasgow.  I walked quickly to the bar, and lifting my bonnet from my head, I said to the judge, ’My lord, the prisoner was in Stornoway on the first of June.  I saw him there!’

“He gave a great cry of joy and turned to me; and in a moment he called out:  ’You are the man who read the Bible to the fishers.  I remember you.  I have your likeness among my drawings.’  And I said, ‘I am the man.’

“Then my lord, the judge, made them swear me, and he said they would hear my evidence.  For one moment I was a coward.  I thought I would hide God’s share in the deliverance, lest men should doubt my whole testimony.  The next, I was telling the true story:  how I had been called at midnight—­twice called; how I had found Evan Conochie’s boat waiting for me; how on the boat I had met David MacPherson, and been brought to the court house by him, having no intention or plan of my own in the matter.

“And there was a great awe in the room as I spoke.  Every one believed what I said, and my lord asked for the names of the fishers who were present in Donald Brae’s cottage on the night of the first of June.  Very well, then, I could give many of them, and they were sent for, and the lad was saved, thank God Almighty!”

“How do you explain it, John?”

“No, I will not try to explain it; for it is not to be hoped that anyone can explain by human reason the things surpassing human reason.”

“Do you know what became of the young man?”

“I will tell thee about him.  He is a very rich young man, and the only child of a widow, known like Dorcas of old for her great goodness to the Lord’s poor.  But when his mother died it did not go well and peaceably between him and his uncle; and it is true that he left him at Ullapool without a word.  Well, then, he fell into this sore strait, and it seemed as if all hope of proving his innocence was over.

“But that very night on which I saw him first, he dreamed that his mother came to him in his cell and she comforted him and told him, ‘To-morrow, surely, thy deliverer shall speak for thee.’  He never doubted the heavenly vision.  ‘How could I?’ he asked me.  ’My mother never deceived me in life; would she come to me, even in a dream, to tell me a lie?  Ah, no!’”