But these things only happened after; and when Mr. Trimblerigg heard the cry of the Infant Samuel Samuel, he discerned a kindred spirit, and saw a way opening before his feet, under a light which thereafter continued to shine. And so at the age of twelve the designs which Mr. Trimblerigg’s elders had on him, and the designs which he had on himself, coalesced and became one; and even Davidina, borne down by the sense of the majority, had to accept the fact that her brother Jonathan had received a call. Thus early did the conversion of souls enter into the life and calculations of Mr. Trimblerigg. A striking justification of his chosen calling followed immediately, when, without in the least intending it, he converted an almost lost soul in a single day--the soul of an Uncle, James Hubback by name, the only uncle upon his mother’s side left over from a large family--who while still clinging to the outward respectability of a Free Church minister, had taken secretly to drink. Mr. Trimblerigg had been born and brought up in a household where the idea that spirits were anything to drink had never been allowed to enter his head. He only knew of spirit as of something that would catch fire and boil a kettle, or embrace death in a bottle and preserve it from decay. These aspects of its beneficence he had gathered first in the back kitchen of his own home, and secondly in the natural history department of the County Museum, to which as a Sunday-school treat he had been taken. Returning therefrom, he had been bitten for a short while with a desire to catch, kill, and preserve frogs, bats, beetles, snakes, and other low forms of existence, and make a museum of his own--his originality at that time being mainly imitative. To this end he clamoured to his mother to release his saved pennies which she held in safe-keeping for him, in order that he might buy spirit for collecting purposes; and so pestered her that at last she promised that if for a beginning he could find an adder, he should have a bottle of spirit to keep it in. Close upon that his Uncle James arrived for a stay made sadly indefinite by the low water in which he found himself. He still wore his clerical garb but was without cure of souls: Bethel and he had become separated, and his family in consequence was not pleased with him. Nevertheless as a foretaste of reformation he wore a blue ribbon, and was prevented thereby from letting himself be seen on licensed premises; while a totally abstaining household, and a village with only one inn which had been warned not to serve him, and no shop that sold liquor, seemed to provide a safe environment for convalescence.