"I don't know what I should have done without you," she said gratefully.
Outside, as the motor disappeared in the darkness, Dr. Ramsay was saying nearly the same thing.
"It is lucky Cruttenden was there and had an idea of what to do; lucky too that I didn't give you up and go home."
"Sorry," responded Ned shortly. "Hope you had a good walk."
"Excellent," replied Peter Ramsay with a little laugh. "I satisfied myself that hills and dales, and the round world generally, were mere manifestations of matter, and the Providence didn't shape my steps anyhow."
[CHAPTER XV]
Since the night on which poor Morris Pugh had sought in vain for God's Providence upon the mountain-top, he had not left his room; for rheumatic fever--that curse of Wales--had laid hold of him.
The mental shock also militated against recovery. It would be almost impossible to overestimate what that shock had been, surcharged as he was by religious exaltation. He had been dashed from high heaven to earth, and at first he lay stunned, absolutely maimed. Then, as feeling returned to his numb mind, the desire to slip away and so avoid the necessity for thought was the despair of his mother, who had come from the lonely hill-farm, where she still was mistress, to be his devoted nurse. She was a woman of the true saintly type, full to the brim of sympathies and sentimentalities; as such, not one to be burdened with the reality of doubt.
By degrees, however, chaos became order. The fiat, "Let there be light," went forth, and Morris Pugh, enthusiast by nature, began to creep towards it. What although the so-called miracles in which he and many others had believed were unreal, that could not be said of the effects of the revival. They were everywhere manifest, abundantly real. Thousands hitherto spiritually blind were now with open eyes following the straight and narrow way. Oh! there was proof enough to show what Power was at work. As the Reverend Hwfa Williams had said (he found such small jests no inconsiderable aid in his rough and ready missioning), there was proof enough for every Thomas in Wales.
And there was more work to be done; so what mattered it whether he, Morris Pugh, the man to do it, rose or did not rise to the height of sublime folly which had been his once? There was work to be done and he must do it. So on the last day of the old year, after a week's change at Aberystwith, he returned, eager for the big revival meeting which was to see the New Year in. It was to be a great occasion, for Merv, Gwen, and Alicia Edwards were back for a Christmas holiday from their arduous labour abroad. Their presence in the little village must surely awaken the few sleepers that remained; these would be gathered in, their names added to the already long list of the elect. Even Myfanwy Jones who, as usual, had come down for a long week-end laden with bandboxes, might follow the example of her father and come into the ranks of the saved.