‘My lion will not roar, Mrs. Graeme,’ I complained; ‘he simply will not.’
‘You should twist his tail,’ said Jack.
‘That seems to be the difficulty, Jack,’ said his mother, ‘to get hold of his tale.’
‘Oh, mother,’ groaned Jack; ‘you never did such a thing before! How could you? Is it this baleful Western influence?’
‘I shall reform, Jack,’ she replied brightly.
‘But, seriously, Graeme,’ I remonstrated, ‘you ought to tell your people of your life—that free, glorious life in the mountains.’
‘Free! Glorious! To some men, perhaps!’ said Graeme, and then fell into silence.
But I saw Graeme as a new man the night he talked theology with his father. The old minister was a splendid Calvinist, of heroic type, and as he discoursed of God’s sovereignty and election, his face glowed and his voice rang out.
Graeme listened intently, now and then putting in a question, as one would a keen knife-thrust into a foe. But the old man knew his ground, and moved easily among his ideas, demolishing the enemy as he appeared, with jaunty grace. In the full flow of his triumphant argument, Graeme turned to him with sudden seriousness.
‘Look here, father! I was born a Calvinist, and I can’t see how any one with a level head can hold anything else, than that the Almighty has some idea as to how He wants to run His universe, and He means to carry out His idea, and is carrying it out; but what would you do in a case like this?’ Then he told him the story of poor Billy Breen, his fight and his defeat.