“Yes,” I replied, being very pleased to find that he had understood me so well.

“Then.” he said, “I will do no such thing.”  With this, he turned away and departed.  When he saw that I was following him, he said, “I desire you will not speak to me any more.  I do not agree with you.”

One morning, a short time after, I was praying and meditating in the church, when it came to my mind forcibly that I must go to this man’s parish.  I rose from my knees forthwith, saying to myself that I would go; but immediately the thought came to me, “This suggestion is not from God, for He must know that my horse has lost two shoes, and could not go all that distance.”  However, I returned home, and went to the stable to inquire, when, to my surprise, I found that my man had taken the horse out very early in the morning, and had got him properly shod.  “He is all right for a long journey, master,” he said, “if you want to go.”

“Well,” I said, “put on the saddle, and be ready in half-an-hour.”  I went in to prepare, and started in due time.  On the way I was thinking what I would say, and how I would begin the conversation, for as yet I did not know the particular message I was to take.

When I arrived at my friend’s gate, I saw the marks of his horse’s feet, as if he had just gone out.  However, I rode up to the front door, and rang the bell.  His wife appeared, and said that her husband had gone out, and would not be back before six o’clock; she added, “You look disappointed”; and so I was, for I thought the Lord had sent me with some message to him.  The lady kindly asked me to put up my horse, saying, “Perhaps he may return sooner; you had better rest a little.”  I thanked her, and doing so, went in.

As soon as we were seated, the lady said, “I have been wishing to see you for a long time; we have started more than once to visit you, when my husband’s courage has failed him, and we have returned.  He says that he loves you still; but, somehow, he is very much afraid of you.”

Then she went on to tell me that when they were removing from their late parish to where they now were, having sent all their furniture on, they were driving in their own carriage; and that coming along ever a bleak and desolate moor, the horse took fright at something, they knew not what, and ran away.  Because it could not get along fast enough from its imaginary object of fear, it began to kick, and breaking the carriage in pieces, made its escape, leaving her and her husband on the ground.  He was not much hurt, and soon rose, and came to help her.  She was severely bruised, and her leg was broken besides.  He managed to drag her gently to the side of the road, where there was a little bank, and, colleting some of the broken pieces of the carriage, he placed them round her for protection, and hurried off in order to get assistance.  He had to go two miles and was absent nearly three hours.  During that time she suffered