But there is something very strange and terrible in being awake when all the rest of the world is asleep.  You are alone then with nothing but your own feeble personality to pit against the mighty principalities and powers of darkness.  Carl was only ten and the dead were all around him—­and he wished, oh, he wished that the clock would strike twelve.  Would it NEVER strike twelve?  Surely Aunt Martha must have forgotten to wind it.

And then it struck eleven—­only eleven!  He must stay yet another hour in that grim place.  If only there were a few friendly stars to be seen!  The darkness was so thick it seemed to press against his face.  There was a sound as of stealthy passing footsteps all over the graveyard.  Carl shivered, partly with prickling terror, partly with real cold.

Then it began to rain—­a chill, penetrating drizzle.  Carl’s thin little cotton blouse and shirt were soon wet through.  He felt chilled to the bone.  He forgot mental terrors in his physical discomfort.  But he must stay there till twelve—­he was punishing himself and he was on his honour.  Nothing had been said about rain—­but it did not make any difference.  When the study clock finally struck twelve a drenched little figure crept stiffly down off Mr. Pollock’s tombstone, made its way into the manse and upstairs to bed.  Carl’s teeth were chattering.  He thought he would never get warm again.

He was warm enough when morning came.  Jerry gave one startled look at his crimson face and then rushed to call his father.  Mr. Meredith came hurriedly, his own face ivory white from the pallor of his long night vigil by a death bed.  He had not got home until daylight.  He bent over his little lad anxiously.

“Carl, are you sick?” he said.

“That—­tombstone—­over here,” said Carl, “it’s—­moving—­about—­ it’s coming—­at—­me—­keep it—­away—­please.”

Mr. Meredith rushed to the telephone.  In ten minutes Dr. Blythe was at the manse.  Half an hour later a wire was sent to town for a trained nurse, and all the Glen knew that Carl Meredith was very ill with pneumonia and that Dr. Blythe had been seen to shake his head.

Gilbert shook his head more than once in the fortnight that followed.  Carl developed double pneumonia.  There was one night when Mr. Meredith paced his study floor, and Faith and Una huddled in their bedroom and cried, and Jerry, wild with remorse, refused to budge from the floor of the hall outside Carl’s door.  Dr. Blythe and the nurse never left the bedside.  They fought death gallantly until the red dawn and they won the victory.  Carl rallied and passed the crisis in safety.  The news was phoned about the waiting Glen and people found out how much they really loved their minister and his children.

“I haven’t had one decent night’s sleep since I heard the child was sick,” Miss Cornelia told Anne, “and Mary Vance has cried until those queer eyes of hers looked like burnt holes in a blanket.  Is it true that Carl got pneumonia from straying out in the graveyard that wet night for a dare?”