re my
Father brought to bear upon it from all sides. My soul was shut
up, like Fatima, in a tower to which no external influences could
come, and it might really have been starved to death, or have
lost the power of recovery and rebound, if my captor, by some
freak not yet perfectly accounted for, had not gratuitously
opened a little window in it and added a powerful telescope. The
daring chapters of Michael Scott's picaresque romance of the
tropics were that telescope and that window.

In the spring of this year, I began to walk about the village and
even proceed for considerable distances into the country by
myself, and after reading _Tom Cringle's Log_ those expeditions
were accompanied by a constant hope of meeting with some
adventures. I did not court events, however, except in fancy, for
I was very shy of real people, and would break off some gallant
dream of prowess on the high seas to bolt into a field and hide
behind the hedge, while a couple of labouring men went by.
Sometimes, however, the wave of a great purpose would bear me on,
as when once, but certainly at an earlier date than I have now
reached, hearing the dangers of a persistent drought much dwelt
upon, I carried my small red watering pot, full of water, up to
the top of the village, and then all the way down Petittor Lane,
and discharged its contents in a cornfield, hoping by this act to
improve the prospects of the harvest. A more eventful excursion
must be described, because of the moral impression it left
indelibly upon me.

I have described the sequestered and beautiful hamlet of Barton,
to which I was so often taken visiting by Mary Grace Burmington.
At Barton there lived a couple who were objects of peculiar
interest to me, because of the rather odd fact that having come,
out of pure curiosity, to see me baptized, they had been then and
there deeply convinced of their spiritual danger. These were John
Brooks, an Irish quarryman, and his wife, Ann Brooks. These
people had not merely been hitherto unconverted, but they had
openly treated the Brethren with anger and contempt. They came,
indeed, to my baptism to mock, but they went away impressed.

Next morning, when Mrs. Brooks was at the wash tub, as she told
us, Hell opened at her feet, and the Devil came out holding a
long scroll on which the list of her sins was written. She was so
much excited, that the motion brought about a miscarriage and she
was seriously ill. Meanwhile, her husband