My grandfather was out with
Jem Millar, so I did not show him the paper then, but I read the lines
many times over as I was playing with little Timpey, and I wondered very
much what they meant.
In the evening, my grandfather and Jem Millar generally sat together
over the fire in the little watchroom upstairs, and I used to take
little Timpey up there, until it was time for her to go to bed. She
liked climbing up the stone steps in the lighthouse tower. She used to
call out, 'Up! up! up!' as she went along, until she reached the top
step, and then she would run into the watchroom with a merry laugh.
As we went in this evening, my grandfather and Jem were talking together
of the visit of the two gentlemen 'I can't think what the old man meant
about the rock,' my grandfather was saying. 'I couldn't make head or
tail of it, Jem; could you, my lad?'
'Look there, grandfather,' I said, as I handed him the little piece of
paper, and told him how I had got it.
'Well, to be sure!' said my grandfather 'So he gave you this, did he?'
and he read aloud:
'On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand.'
'Well now, Jem, what does he mean? He kept on saying to me, "You're on
the sand, my friend; you're on the sand, and it won't stand the storm!"
What do you make of it, Jem? did you hear him, my lad?'
'Yes,' said Jem thoughtfully; 'and it has set me thinking, Sandy; I know
what he meant well enough.
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