“Yes,” said her husband; “I am getting more and more convinced that there is something exceptional in this matter—that we cannot deal with this sin of drunkenness as we deal with other sins. But we will wait a little longer for guidance; yet not too long, for souls are perishing, and ruin is thickening all round us.”
They had not to wait long; their path was soon made clear.
It was on a bitter and cheerless November evening that Mr Oliphant was returning to the rectory from a distant part of his parish. He was warmly clad; but the keen wind, which drove a prickly deluge of fine hail into his face, seemed to make its way through every covering into his very bones. He was hurrying on, thankful that home was so near, when he suddenly stumbled upon something in the path which he had not noticed, being half blinded by the frozen sleet. With difficulty he saved himself from falling over this obstacle, which looked in the feeble moonlight like a bundle of ragged clothes. Then he stooped down to examine it more closely, and was horrified at hearing a low moan, which showed that it was a living creature that lay on the path. It was plainly, in fact, some poor, half-frozen fellow-man, who lay coiled together there, perishing of cold in that bitter night. The rector tried to raise the poor wretch from the ground, but the body hung like a dead weight upon him.
“Come,” he said, “my poor fellow; come, try and rouse yourself and get up. You’ll die if you lie here.”
The miserable bundle of humanity partly uncoiled itself, and made an effort to rise, but sunk back again. Mr Oliphant shouted for help. The shout seemed partly to revive the prostrate creature, and he half raised himself.
“Come,” said the rector again,— “come, lean on my arm, and try and get up. You’ll die of cold if you stay here.”
“Die!” said a thick, unearthly voice from out of that half-frozen mass of flesh and blood. “In Adam all die.”
“Who and what are you?” cried the rector, in extreme astonishment and distress.
“What am I? Ah, what am I?” was the bewildered, scarce audible reply.
By this time help had arrived. Two men came up, and assisted Mr Oliphant to raise the poor man, and support him to the “Oldfield Arms,” where he was immediately put to bed; one of the men being sent off by the rector to fetch the nearest medical man, while he himself gave orders that everything should be done to restore the unhappy sufferer to warmth and consciousness.