Harebell smiled for the first time.
"Oh, Tom dear, I'm so very glad. I always did know you would get through soon. When did you do it?"
"Well, I can't rightly say as to day an' hour—but I had a try in hospital, and then agen at home—an' it seemed to me as one day I was for goin' in, an' the next for comin' out, an' I didn't get much forrarder, so at last I gets down on my knees and tells the Lord He must please do it all Hisself, for I were come to the Door an' He must do the rest. Bless His name, He seemed to stoop right down an' get hold of me—a reg'lar safe grip—and there I be—very afeared of myself, but very sure o' Him!"
"And do you think I've been naughty and so He's put me outside? Oh, Tom, do you think you're inside now and I'm outside?"
Harebell's lips were quivering.
"I ain't no scholar, missy, but there be one chapter in the Bible I reads over and over and over! 'Tis the one you mentioned first about the Door. If we be inside the Door, I take it we be in the sheepfold; and if we be in the sheepfold, we be the sheep; and if we be the Lord's sheep, He has us safe, sure enough, for it says, 'Neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.' You be right enough—just a slip—and you're a-goin' back now to say you're sorry—an' I'm a-comin' a bit o' the way with ye!"
"I haven't said my prayers properly this morning," Harebell confessed with shame. "I gabbled them through. I'll just speak to God here, if you go away—and tell Him I'm sorry."
Tom moved away, rolled up his apron, then caught Chris, and by the time he joined Harebell again, the cloud was off her face.
She mounted Chris, and Tom walked by her side till they reached the high-road.
"There!" he said. "Now 'tis a straight road home, and you can't miss it. Good-bye, little missy; and just put up a prayer for good-for-nothing Tom, will you?"