! The horrors! Ay, if
men could only taste the horrors _before_ they tasted the drink, I do
believe there would be no drunkards at all! I hev lain on that bed,
sir," he pointed to it as he spoke, while large drops stood on his pale
brow at the very recollection, "and I hev seen devils and toads and
serpents crawlin' round me and over me--great spiders, and hairy
shapeless things, wi' slimy legs goin' over my face, and into my mouth,
though I gnashed my teeth together--and glaring into my tight shut eyes,
an' strangling me. Oh! sir, I know not what hell may be, but I think
that it begins on earth wi' some men!"

"From all this Jesus came to save us, Ivor," said Jackman, endeavouring
to turn the poor man's mind from the terrible thoughts that seemed about
to overwhelm him; "but God will have us to consent to be saved in _His_
_own_ way. When you put the temptation in the cupboard, you disobeyed
Him, and therefore were trying to be saved in _your own_ way.
Disobedience and salvation cannot go together, because salvation means
deliverance from disobedience. You and I will pray, Ivor, that God
would give us his holy Spirit, and then we shall fight our battles in
future with more success."

Thereupon, standing as they were, but with bowed spirits and heads, they
laid the matter in the hands of God in a brief but earnest prayer.

While these two were thus engaged, the scene at the house had entered
upon another phase. The weather, which all that day had been extremely
changeable, suddenly assumed its gloomiest aspect, and rain began to
fall heavily. Gradually the fall increased in volume, and at last
descended in an absolute deluge, rendering the use of water-buckets
quite unnecessary, and accomplishing in a very few minutes what all the
men at the place could not have done in as many hours. But that which
prevented effectually the extension of the fire, caused, almost as
effectually, the destruction of much of the property exposed on the
lawn. The men were therefore set to work with all their energies to
replace in the unburnt part of the mansion all that they had so recently
carried out of it.

In this work Ivor Donaldson found a sufficient outlet for the fierce
unnatural energies which had been aroused within him. He went about
heaving and hauling, and staggering under weights that in an ordinary
state of body and mind he could scarcely have moved. Little notice was
taken of him, however, for every one else