Chapter XIII: The Stopped Watch

"THE sun's set, Jim," called Nellie, as she raked up the last bit of hay, "and we shall have a fine day to-morrow to finish it, by the looks of the sky."

"Yes," he answered, turning towards the ferry boat, "we've done for to-day, let's take a rest in the twilight till father's ready to go home."

Nellie was nothing loth. She and her favourite brother were a great deal together, and worked on the same farm on which their father had lived all his life.

As she got into the boat, she said, "What time is it, should you say?"

He took out his rather clumsy watch, and looked at it.

"It's gone wrong again!" he said, "I set it all right this morning, and I thought I'd done it this time. I doubt I must have it seen to. The man in the village isn't no hand at it, no more than I am myself. I've tinkered it, and I've altered it, and I've shaken it—"

Nellie laughed a little, and he laughed with her.

"It strikes me I must take it to the man as made it," he remarked gravely, and Nellie looked up at his tone.

"Do you know who did?" she asked.

"Yes, a man in Windsor. But, funny enough, Nell, when I was shaking it this morning, thinks I to myself, 'Here's a help for you, Jim, in Heavenly things!'"

"Because your watch had gone wrong?" said Nell, her eyes questioning with interest. She and Jim wanted to get on in Heavenly things, and they often helped each other.

"Yes," he said, raising his head, and looking at the golden sky; while the ripple of the water lapping against the boat as the river flowed on, made soft, soothing music.

"Yes, Nell. Somehow, lately, I've felt that my works were rather out of order! Things haven't been so very comfortable at home—as you know—and I've had all that bother with mother and father about Meg Marston; and somehow I've tried my hardest to be patient and kind, and to wait willingly till they saw things different; and it's all been no use. I've not been patient inwardly, nor outwardly either, for that matter. I've tossed and fumed and fretted. I've tried to set the outside of the watch right, and I've poked at the inside, and I've shaken myself—"

Again Nell smiled. But this time there were tears in her gentle, dark eyes. She knew better than any one what Jim had had to bear.

"And this morning, as I was trying to set my watch right, it suddenly darted into my mind, 'Take it to the man as made it, Jim!' And all at once I thought, perhaps, that was what my Saviour wanted me to do with my 'works,' as I call my heart and my difficulties. So I just slipped down on to my knees, Nell, with my watch in my hand, just as I was, and I said, 'Dear Lord, I am yours! You made me, you understand me. I've been trying to make myself go for months and I've failed. The 'works' have stopped, and they want seeing to! Take me in hand; make me clean, set me right, keep me going, make me true to You, whatever else I am!'"

Nell's tender face bent down, and she looked into the flowing, crimson water for a minute in silence.

"And then?" she asked, gently.

"Then I came downstairs, and found mother in the kitchen; and instead of passing by, and coming out without a word, I managed to say, 'It's going to be lovely for the hay,' and gave her a kiss, and so started to my work."

"I'm awfully glad," said Nell.

"Yes, so am I. So all day, when I have thought how hard it is of mother and father about Meg, I've tried to think, too, that the Lord is setting my 'works' right, and He has them in hand, and I've got no call to be so anxious about everything. He'll set them right, and me, too! But here's father!"