t was that
while the night lay awful in white silence about me, while the wind
was moaning outside, and blowing long thin currents through the peat
walls around me, while our warm home lay far away, and I could not
tell how many hours of cold darkness had yet to pass before we could
set out to find it,--it was not all these things together, but that,
in the midst of all these, I was awake and my father slept. I could
easily have waked him, but I was not selfish enough for that: I sat
still and shivered and felt very dreary. Then the last words of my
father began to return upon me, and, with a throb of relief, the
thought awoke in my mind that although my father was asleep, the great
Father of us both, he in whose heart lay that secret place of refuge,
neither slumbered nor slept. And now I was able to wait in patience,
with an idea, if not a sense of the present care of God, such as I had
never had before. When, after some years, my father was taken from us,
the thought of this night came again and again, and I would say in my
heart: "My father sleeps that I may know the better that The Father
wakes."

At length he stirred. The first sign of his awaking was, that he
closed again the arms about me which had dropped by his sides as he
slept.

"I'm so glad you're awake, father," I said, speaking first.

"Have _you_ been long awake then?"

"Not so very long, but I felt lonely without you."

"Are you very cold? _I_ feel rather chilly."

So we chatted away for a while.

"I wonder if it is nearly day yet. I do not in the least know how long
we have slept. I wonder if my watch is going. I forgot to wind it up
last night. If it has stopped I shall know it is near daylight."

He held his watch to his ear: alas! it was ticking vigorously. He felt
for the keyhole, and wound it up. After that we employed ourselves in
repeating as many of the metrical psalms and paraphrases of Scripture
as we could recollect, and this helped away a good part of the weary
time.

But it went very slowly, and I was growing so cold that I could hardly
bear it.

"I'm afraid you feel very cold, Ranald," said my father, folding me
closer in his arms. "You must try not to go to sleep again, for that
would be dangerous now. I feel more cramped than cold."

As he said this, he extended his legs and threw his head back, to get
rid of the uneasiness by stretching himself. The same moment, down
came a shower of peats upon our heads and bodies, and