could hear Duncan's footsteps pacing up and down in the next room; I
could hear little John's fretful cry; I could hear the rain beating
against the casement; I could hear the soughing and whistling of the
wind; I could hear Polly's old eight-day clock striking the hours and
the half-hours of that long, dismal night; but through it all, and above
it all, I could hear the preacher's question, 'What are the depths, the
fearful depths, to which you are being drawn?'

I found it impossible to close my eyes again, so I drew up the blind,
and, as morning began to dawn, I watched the pitiless rain and longed
for day. The footsteps in the next room ceased as the light came on, and
I concluded that the weary child was at last asleep. I wished that I was
asleep too. I thought how often my mother, when I was a child, must have
walked up and down through long weary nights with me. I wondered
whether, as she did so, she spent the slow, tedious hours in praying for
her boy, and then I wondered how she would have felt, and how she would
have borne it, had she known that the child in her arms would grow up to
manhood, living for this world and not for the Christ she loved. I
wondered if she _did_ know this now, in the far-off land where she
dwelt with God.

I think I must have dozed a little after this, for I was suddenly roused
by Polly's cheery voice, cheery in spite of her bad night,--

'Have a cup of tea, sir, it'll do you good. You've not slept over well,
Duncan says. I'll put it down by your door.'

I jumped out of bed and brought it in, feeling very grateful to Polly,
and I drank it before I dressed. That's just like a Yorkshire woman, I
thought. My mother came from Yorkshire.