All this time I had never spoken a word. A great battle was going on in my heart. Conscience was speaking very loudly, and telling me that I could not possibly take my pleasure on my Master's own day, but the tempter's voice was arguing that the time to speak had not yet come, and that perhaps for this once it would be better to yield to Tom's wishes, and that I might talk to him quietly about it, and make a fresh start after our return to London.

And so the day wore away, and evening came, and Tom had no idea whatever that I had even hesitated about going with him to Scarborough. I never spent a more unhappy day. I avoided Mr. Christie, lest he should say anything to me about the service on the following day. I was not even happy with Duncan. Tom had gone off to Saltburn, leaving me, as he supposed, to put some finishing touches to my picture; but I had no heart for painting, and only got my easel and painting materials out to put them away again directly.

Polly was in good spirits that day, for little John was so much better that he was able to sit on the floor and play, and, as I stood looking out of my small casement window, I watched her washing up in a tub standing on a wooden stool outside her door, and I heard her singing to herself as she did so. Most of the visitors had left Runswick Bay now, for it was late in the season, but the shore was covered with the village children—boys and girls without shoes and stockings, wading in the pools and running far out into the shallow sea. It was a pretty sight, the grey, quiet water, the strips of yellow sand, and the cliff covered with grass and flowers.

But I could not enjoy the scene that Saturday evening; even my artistic eye, of which I used sometimes to boast, failed me then. I was feeling thoroughly uncomfortable, and the most lovely view on earth would have failed to charm me at that moment.

There is a verse in the Bible which says, 'A little child shall lead them,' and whenever I hear that verse I think of that evening in Runswick Bay. For I was still gazing out of my window, looking at I knew not what, when I heard a well-known little voice just beneath me.

It was Jack. He had come down the hill beneath Duncan's cottage, so that I had not seen him until he spoke to me below the window.

'Mr. Jack,' he said, 'what are you doing up there? Are you very busy?'

'No, old man,' I said, 'I'm not busy.'

'Then do come out, that's a dear, big Mr. Jack; I do want you so much.'

Who could resist the pleading little face, and the pretty, fascinating voice of that child? He would have a hard heart who could do so. I ran downstairs, and a minute afterwards I was racing with Jack on the wet sands, for the tide was fast going out, and was helping him to fly a small kite which his father had bought for him in Whitby. We had a fine time together on the shore, until at last a towel was hung out of the top window in the Christies' house, as a sign that it was Jack's bedtime. Though he was wild with joy and excitement, the obedient little fellow at once stopped his play, and told me mother wanted him, and he must go.

'I'm coming for you to-morrow morning, Mr. Jack,' he said.

'To-morrow morning, Jack?'

'Yes, for church,' said the child, putting up his dear little chubby face to be kissed. 'Don't go without me, will you, Mr. Jack?'

'Well, I'm not sure I'm going to-morrow, little man,' I said reluctantly, 'so you had better not call for me.'

'Not going to church!' said Jack, in a very shocked voice. 'Why not, Mr. Jack?'

'I'm going to Scarborough for the day with my friend Tom,' I said. 'I shall go to church in Scarborough, Jack.'

I shall never forget the expression of that child's face as long as I live; it was a mixture of surprise, sorrow and dismay. 'Mr. Jack, do you know it's God's day to-morrow?' was all that he said, however; and as at this moment his mother called him from the bedroom window, he ran off without another word.

'Do you know it's God's day?' I asked myself when the little boy had gone. 'Yes, I do know,' I answered aloud, 'and He is my Master, and my Master's day shall be kept for Him and for His service.'

I walked to a lonely place on the shore where the sea had undermined the cliff, and had made strange holes and caves, which could only be entered at low tide. I clambered over the rocks, and crossed about half a mile of slippery seaweed, until I came to one of these weird places. Creeping inside, I felt myself safe from any human eye. I was alone—alone with my Master.

I cannot tell you all that passed during the half-hour that I spent in that lonely cave, but I know this, that I came out of it feeling that my Master had indeed given me the strength for which I had pleaded, the strength to act as His faithful and true servant.

I was waiting outside the station when Tom's train came in from Saltburn. He had not expected to see me again that night, and seemed pleased that I had come to meet him.

'I think we shall have a fine day to-morrow, old boy,' he said; 'what a dew there is! My feet are quite wet with it.'

'Tom,' I said, 'I came to meet you to-night because I wanted to tell you something. I am sorry, very sorry, to disappoint you, but I can't go with you to-morrow.'

'Why ever in the world not, Jack?' he said. 'I thought you were so keen on seeing Scarborough.'

'Yes, Tom,' I said, 'but I am still more keen on something else.'

'What's that?' he asked; 'do you mean Redcar? It's a stupid place, Jack: nothing in the world to see, I assure you.'

'No, Tom, I don't mean that. I don't want to change our plan. I had rather see Scarborough than any other place; I'll give myself a holiday on Monday, and go with you gladly, Tom; but I can't go to-morrow.'

'Nonsense, Jack!' he said angrily. 'You can go if you like; what's to hinder you? If you are willing to go at all, why on earth can't you go to-morrow?'

'Simply because to-morrow is Sunday, Tom.'

'And if it is Sunday, what of that?' said my friend. '"The better the day, the better the deed," and it's ridiculous your talking in this saintly way about Sunday, when to my certain knowledge you've spent every fine Sunday boating on the river for the last two years or more. No, no, my friend, that won't go down with me.'

'Tom,' I said, 'it's all quite true what you say. I have, I know I have, spent my Sundays in boating or in taking my pleasure in some other way, and I am more sorry for it, Tom, than I can tell you. But since I came here—'

'Since you came here,' Tom interrupted me, 'you've gone and turned Ranter or Methodist, or something of that sort, and you've got your head full of all sorts of insane and ridiculous ideas.'

'Since I came here, Tom,' I said, taking no notice of his last remark, 'I have seen what I never saw before—that I am a great sinner; and I have found what I never found before—that Jesus is a great Saviour.'

'Well, I wish you had never come to Runswick Bay, if this is the absurd way you are going on, Jack, and after all the good old times we've had together too.'

'And why shan't we have good times together still, dear old Tom?' I said. 'I have entered the service of a new Master, that's all; and, Tom,' I said timidly, 'I wish He was your Master too.'

Tom made no answer, but swung his stick round and round, and slashed at the thistles and the ox-eye daisies which grew by the roadside. I tried to make one or two remarks, but I saw he was very much upset by what I had said, and he did not answer me. He was vexed with me, and perhaps he was a little uncomfortable besides, and I felt it was far wiser to say no more.

He did not speak again until we reached the hotel, and then he simply said, 'Good-night, Jack, I'm sorry you've gone and made such a fool of yourself'; and I went down the hill, feeling as if I had lost my friend, and as if the old days and old companionship were dead and buried for ever.

But if I had lost one friend, I felt I had gained another. Mr. Christie was waiting for me at the bottom of the hill, and he proposed that we should take a turn together on the shore. Nellie was expecting me to supper, he said; he had told Duncan I was going there, and the moon was coming out, and a good stretch on the sands would make us enjoy it all the more.

We had walked across the bay, and were standing gazing out seawards, when he suddenly put his arm in mine.

'What is it, Jack?' he said kindly, 'something is troubling you this evening.'

'Yes, you are right,' I said. 'However did you know, Mr. Christie? I am bothered a bit; the fact is, I'm ashamed of myself, I've been such a coward.'

'What have you been doing, Jack? You don't mind telling me, do you?'

'Not at all, Mr. Christie, I would rather tell you,' I said; and then I gave him an account of the last week, of my fear of Tom, and how very nearly—I was ashamed to say it—I had yielded to him about the outing to-morrow. Then I spoke of my friend, and I told him I was afraid I had lost him through my plain speaking.

'Never mind, Jack,' he said, 'the Master must come first, and it does happen very often that when He is put in His right place we have to give up a great deal. He knew we should have to do it, and He spoke some very plain words about it: "He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me." You would like to be worthy of Him, Jack?'

'I shall never be that, Mr. Christie,' I said.

'No,' he said; 'you are right, we are all unworthy of Him; but when we love Him, we do long to do that which is pleasing in His sight. And, remember, there is always the hundredfold, Jack, always the Master's reward for anything we give up for Him.'

'Yes, in heaven,' I said softly.

'No, Jack, not in heaven, but on earth. Do you remember how the Master's words run: "He shall receive an hundredfold now, in this time, and in the world to come, life everlasting." The hundredfold is to be enjoyed here, the everlasting life there.'

'I never noticed that before,' I said.

'I have proved it true, Jack, abundantly true. I sometimes think I have got beyond the hundredfold. And then beyond, there lies the life eternal.'

'My mother is enjoying that,' I said.

'Yes, indeed,' he answered; 'and her boy will enjoy it too in God's good time, for does not the Master say of all those who belong to Him, "I give unto them eternal life?" "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly"?'