'Yes; my doctrine of a particular providence, taught in every leaf of the Bible. Now, Armytage, look back calmly over your past life, and forward, whither you were drifting, and see if the very kindest thing that could be done for you by an all-wise and all-loving God was not to bring you up suddenly, and lay you aside, and force you to think. Beware of trying to frustrate His purpose.'
Mr. Holt went away immediately on saying that, for he had no desire to amuse Reginald with an unprofitable controversy which might ensue, but rather to lodge the one truth in his mind, if possible. Young Armytage thought him queer and methodistical; but he could not push out of his memory that short conversation. Twenty times he resolved to think of something else, and twenty times the dismissed idea came round again, and the calm forcible words visited him, 'Beware of trying to frustrate God's purpose.'
At last he called to his sister Edith, who was busy at some housework in the kitchen, across a little passage.
'Come here; I want to ask you a question. Do you think that I am crippled as a punishment for my misdeeds, idleness, etcetera?'
'Indeed, I do not,' she answered with surprise. 'What put such a thought into your head?'
'Holt said something like it. He thinks this axe-cut of mine is discipline—perhaps like the breaking-in which a wild colt requires; and as you and he are of the same opinion in religious matters, I was curious to know if you held this dogma also.'
She looked down for a moment. 'Not quite as you have represented it,' she said. 'But I do think that when the Lord sends peculiar outward circumstances, He intends them to awake the soul from indifference, and bring it to see the intense reality of invisible things. Oh, Reginald,' she added, with a sudden impulse of earnestness, 'I wish you felt that your soul is the most precious thing on earth.'
He was moved more than he would have cared to confess, by those tearful eyes and clasped hands; he knew that she went away to pray for him, while about her daily business. More serious thoughts than he had ever experienced were his that afternoon: Jay could not avoid remarking—in private—on his unusual quietude. Next morning he found a Bible beside his bed, laid there by Edith, he had no doubt; but for a long time she could not discover whether he ever looked into it.
When Mr. Holt left the country, he gave Robert Wynn charge of the patient mentally as well as corporeally. He knew that Robert's own piety would grow more robust for giving a helping hand to another.
Somehow, the Yankee storekeeper was very often hanging about Daisy Burn that winter. Captain Armytage and he were great friends. That gallant officer was, in Zack's parlance, 'the Colonel,' which brevet-rank I suppose was flattering, as it was never seriously disclaimed. He was king of his company in the tavern bar at the 'Corner;' and few days passed on which he did not enjoy that bad eminence, while compounding 'brandy-smash,' 'rum-salad,' 'whisky-skin,' or some other of the various synonyms under which the demon of drink ruins people in Canada.