"'You aren't going to run away from it now,' he answered, 'for you've a warm heart and a woman's pity. I've seen you nurse a sick dog in my stable, and a man is worth more than a dog. You'll come along with me now, and we'll try between us if we can't give the old fellow a word of cheer, before he gets into the Dark Valley.' I was terrified, but off I went with him, and he told me how he'd been left guarding an empty trench one night with two dying men close to him, and how he'd repeated to them like a parrot, a speech he'd heard from a chaplain the day before. Can I tell you about that shepherd's hut? I'll try. Picture a dark little smoke-filled, smoke-dried hole and a low trestle bed by a peat fire, and a dog lying by it, and then an old blue-grey bony face looking up at us through the folds of a ragged plaid. Quite alone he was. A neighbour came across to him two or three times a day. And then, when I was just going to turn tail and run, what did the Whipper-in do but say in his clear, cheerful voice—'This lady has come to see you, McFarlane, and she'll read you a verse or two to comfort you.' With that he stuffed a little Testament into my hand which he produced out of his coat pocket. 'That's what the Padres always do,' he said." "Imagine me, Rowena. I nearly went into hysterics, and then I thought to myself that I always was considered good at acting any part, and I would do the same now. And I opened the Testament and read the first words I came across. They actually seemed to interest him, but I was in such a state of bewilderment that I can't remember now what they were, and the old chap looked up in my face and thanked me quite gratefully, as if I'd given him a tenner! And then the Whipper-in sat down and talked to him like a father. He made me gasp—the things he said. He told me afterwards he had seen many a life flicker out in France, when there was nobody near to have a word with them, and then he said quite humbly, like a boy, 'And if I can't tell them all the orthodox doctrines of our Creed, I can just tell them to catch hold of the Hand that was pierced for them, and that wants to hold them safely.' I tell you, Rowena, he almost made me choke—the way he said it."