into his soul. "Words have to be well chosen, then they lift their pound. I'm not averse to talking on occasion; only, I find, when I'm talking too much, I'm thinking too little. Then, again, God wants to have His say now and then, and how can He, if we are sputtering all the while? Guess He talks still to some folks in the cool of the evening just as He did in the old garden."

Released from the command to be silent and no longer with the opportunity of seeing my companion clearly, for it was fast growing dark, I felt that I would very much like to know something more of this strange, yet likable, fellow, and the words that he had spoken about his conversion prompted me in turn to break the silence.

"I think I have received more out of this walk and this sunset than any I can remember, but my conversion was evidently not the same as yours. I would like to know about your conversion. Maybe it would open my eyes wider and let me see more as you do."

I spoke now, not curiously, but earnestly, for I wanted to know how he could find so much on the old familiar hill and how I might find what he was finding.

He laughed heartily and his laugh left the situation less tense and made him seem more human.

"Maybe my conversion won't interest you," he said, "then again, it may help you. It was on this very road, I was converted. Only it was in the morning at half past nine. It was a foggy morning. Newfoundland has a good many of them. I used to think, too many, before I was converted, but now it seems to me best, for it just curtains the beautiful world and each time the curtain lifts it seems a little fairer than before for the waiting.

"Now I've always loved the hills and the sea and enjoyed a good view, as most fishermen do, but that morning I was scuffing along, out of patience with a poor catch of the day before and seeing nothing but fog. The sea and the hills were out of sight. Suddenly I heard a voice say:

"'Why don't you look at yourself, Jim?'

"I stopped stock still in the middle of the road, like a hand had been put upon me and detained me. The voice was no more but the question was for me and it had to be answered.

"It would take some time, so I decided to sit down and consider it. I could show you the very rock, sometime, if you cared to see it. I had never done much thinking 'till that morning. I said to myself:

"'James, you don't know yourself well enough to call yourself by your first name. You have peeped into your neighbors' affairs. You've criticised other folks but you've never really gotten acquainted with yourself.'

"So I stood myself up and asked myself questions in a real, down-right, honest desire to see just what I was and what I was doing here. First I says:

"'Who are you, Jim?'

"And I figured out that I had the right answer, though I had forgotten it and lived in contradiction of it. I was and I am a child of the Father.

"Do you know, sir, the knowledge of that will ask a man a good many more questions and answer 'em, too.

"'Where are you living, Jim?' I said to myself and the answer came, 'You are living in His world and it's a good world. He made it for you and His other children. He's put fish in all the seas and if it ain't one kind it's another. There is enough in His world for all the children, and if any on'em starves, it's because some on'em is blind or the other children has forgotten they are to share His things. It's a fair world, with blue sky and little birds that sing, and little flowers that praise Him, too.'

"It's a cheery thought, sir, that we're a livin' in His world. It makes it worth while to live right. Then the next question I put myself was this:

"'What are you worth?'

"I reckoned up and found I was worth five quintals of salt fish, a half a barrel of cod liver oil and twelve lobster pots, most of 'em empty. I owned no house and aside from the fish I had $149 in the bank and an extra suit of clothes that wouldn't count for much.

"'Is that all you're worth,' I said, and I saw it wasn't enough to count me rich. I remembered, I could really think that morning, that Job's riches were not in camels and sheep. So I might be rich in other things beside codfish and oil, but I grew ashamed of myself that morning when I come to see how little I could count up that was worth carrying with me for eternity.

"Bob McCartney's friendship, the part I'd given, counted a little; but when it come to counting faith and hope and truth, it didn't show up very well. I was poor and I had come to know it and that was the best part of it. There was hope then for me and a chance I might become rich.

"'Where are you going?' again the Voice asked me a big question. I meet folks who have forgotten, just as I had done. But it helps to keep a fellow on the right track to remember where the road ends.

"'What are you doing here?' was the next question and I put myself to answer it there on the rock that morning I was converted.

"Fishing, I answered first, but what for, and is that all, came the questions. Now I take it fishing or farming, writing or preaching, it don't make much difference, so long as we're each just where He wants us to be and are doing just what He wants us to do. And every man has got to find out if he is where the Father wants him to be.

"It didn't take me long to find out that I might be where He wanted me to be, but I knew I wasn't doing all He wanted me to do and I was adoin' a good many things He didn't want me to do.

"Then I made some resolutions. Some folks don't believe in 'em, I know, but they always seemed to me to be good crutches, till a man could manage to get on without them and learn to walk straight. I resolved to be the best fisherman ever put out to sea, to clean my fish thorough, to salt 'em well and sell 'em honest weight.

"Then I resolved to know more of His world since He made it for me and the other children. Then, I remembered that since He had sent His Son to show the way, I'd better listen to Him and go His way.

"The next day I went over to Parson Curtis' and said to him:

"'Yesterday was my day o' grace, and I was converted at half past nine. I'm not saved, but I'm on the way to salvation and I'd like to be broughten just as near to His Son as I can be. I'm just a learnin', but no child ever wanted to learn more than I do now.'

"So when it come Sunday, he took me into the fellowship of Jesus and I've been learnin' ever since."

I think I have given you almost his words. You see they were short, real words, and the only fear I have is that in repeating them I may have lost the quiet, deep-seated earnestness that was in his voice. He spoke that night from his heart. We were on Water Street now and it was time for us to part.

"Thank you," I said, and I spoke as sincerely as he had spoken, "and if you don't mind I would like to know your name. It is James, what?"

He reached out a big hand and took a firm grip of mine and said: "I'm Jim. Harbor Jim they call me." And then I remembered that I had been looking for him.

CHAPTER III

AN ENGAGEMENT AS PLANNED

"Come," came a voice from within and I opened the door and stepped into Harbor Jim's cozy home. Its warmth and cheer were in sharp contrast to the evening without. It was raining hard and everything was saturated with water. Out of the chill and wet, I stepped across the threshold into warmth and dryness.

I thought at once of the Cotter's Saturday night. In the centre