“Go back across to my mother,” she said. “Tell her we have got him, and he is at the mill. Then go and tell my father, and ask him to send for the doctor.”

Vavasor obeyed, feeling again a little small. But Hester had never thought that he might have acted differently than he had.

In a few minutes they had him in the miller’s blankets, with hot water about him, while the major, who knew well what ought to be done, for he had been tried in almost every emergency under the sun, went through the various movements of the arms prescribed, inflated the chest again and again with his own breath, and did all he could to bring back the action of the breathing muscles.

Vavasor took upon him to assure Mrs. Raymount that Mark was safe and would be all right in a little while. She rose and with Saffy’s help managed to walk home. But after that day she was never so well again. Vavasor ran on to the house and before long Mr. Raymount was at the mill—just as the first signs of returning life appeared. After about half an hour the boy opened his eyes, looked at his father, smiled in his own angelic way, and closed them again with a deep sigh. They covered him up as warm as they could and left him to sleep until the doctor came.

That same night, as Hester was sitting beside him, she heard him talking in his sleep:

“When may I go and play with the rest by the river? Oh, how sweetly it talks! it runs all the way through me and through me! It was such a nice way, God, of fetching me home! I rode home on a water-horse!”

He thought he was dead, that God sent him home, and that he was now safe, only tired. It sent a pang to Hester’s heart. What if, after all, he was going to leave them! For the child had always seemed fitter for heaven than earth, and any day it seemed, he might be sent for.

Mark recovered by degrees, but continued very sleepy and tired. He never fretted or complained, received every attention with a smile, and told his mother not to worry, for he was not going away yet. He had been told that under the water, he said. Before winter he was able to go about the house and was soon reading all his favourite books again, especially Pilgrim’s Progess, which he had already read through five times.

The major left Yrndale the next morning, but Vavasor stayed a day or two longer. He could not go until he saw Mark well on the road to recovery.