“Yes, sir, I was going to take you into this one, if you please.”

They found in the cottage a rheumatic old man, one of those we alluded to as full of his own complaints.  Mr. Eden heard these with patience, and then, after a few words of kind sympathy and acquiescence, for he was none of those hard humbugs who tell a man that old age, rheumatism and poverty are strokes with a feather, he said quietly: 

“And now for the other side; now tell me what you have to be grateful for.”

The old man was taken aback and his fluency deserted him.  On the question being repeated, he began to say that he had many mercies to be thankful for.  Then he higgled and hammered and fumbled for the said mercies, and tried to enumerate them, but in phrases conventional and derived from tracts and sermons; whereas his statement of grievances had been idiomatic.

“There, that will do,” said Mr. Eden smiling, “say nothing you don’t feel; what is the use?  May I ask you a few questions,” added he, courteously; then, without waiting for permission, he dived skillfully into this man’s life, and fished up all the pearls—­the more remarkable passages.

Many years ago this old man had been a soldier, had fought in more than one great battle, had retreated with Sir John Moore upon Corunna, and been one of the battered and weary but invincible band who wheeled round and stunned the pursuers on ’that bloody and glorious day.  Mr. Eden went with the old man to Spain, discussed with great animation the retreat, the battle, the position of the forces, and the old soldier’s personal prowess.  Old Giles perked up, and dilated, and was another man; he forgot his rheumatism, and even his old age.  Twice he suddenly stood upright as a dart on the floor, and gave the word of command like a trumpet in some brave captain’s name; and his cheek flushed, and his eye glittered with the light of battle.  Susan looked at him with astonishment.  Then when his heart was warm and his spirits attentive Mr. Eden began to throw in a few words of exhortation.  But even then he did not bully the man into being a Christian; gently, firmly, and with a winning modesty, he said:  “I think you have much to be thankful for, like all the rest of us.  Is it not a mercy you were not cut off in your wild and dissolute youth? you might have been slain in battle.”

“That I might, sir; three of us went from this parish and only one came home again.

“You might have lost a leg or an arm, as many a brave fellow did; you might have been a cripple all your days.”

“That is true, sir.”