Suddenly he was recalled to his position as the pastor of the church by the voice of old Enoch, mellow as the tones of the flute on which he so often tuned his soul in moods of sorrow and sin.  How long Enoch had been talking Mr. Penrose knew not; but what he heard in the rude yet kindly vernacular of the moors was: 

‘Let’s show mercy, lads!  Noan o’ us con howd up aar yeds baat it.  Him as has put us here expects us to show yon lass o’ Stott’s same as He’s shown to us Hissel’.  There’s one bit o’ readin’ i’ th’ New Testament as noan o’ yo’ has had owt to say abaat—­I mean where th’ Lord tells o’ th’ two debtors.  Th’ fust geet let off; but when he wouldn’t let his mate off, it were a sore job for him.  Durnd yo’ think as th’ Almeety cares as mich abaat us as we care for aar childer?  I somehaa thinks He does.  Didn’t him as played on th’ harp say, “Like as a faither pitieth his childer, so th’ Lord pitieth them that fear Him”?  An’ him as said that had a bad lad an’ o’—­an’ didn’t he say he’d raither ha’ deed than th’ lad?  Aw welly think as th’ Almeety con find room for Amanda, and if He con, I think we mud be like to thrutch (push) her into Rehoboth.  Let’s mak’ room for her, hoo’l happen not want it so long; and when hoo’s gone we’s noan be sorry we took her in; who knows but what we shall be takin’ in the Lord Hissel?  I’m no scholard, but I’ve read abaat ’em takin’ in angels unawares; and th’ Lord said if we took onybody in ut wur aat i’ th’ cowd, we wur takin’ Him in.  If we shut Amanda out we’s mebbe shut Him aat, and if He’s aatside, them as is inside will be on th’ wrang side.  Coome, lads, let’s show mercy.’

There were other voices, however, besides Enoch’s, and speakers as apt at quotation from the Scriptures as he.  Indeed, the Bible was torn into shreds of texts, and—­the letter so re-patched as to destroy the pattern wrought by its great principles of mercy and love.  The grand words—­righteousness, grace, law, were clashed, and wildly rung, like sweet bells jangled out of tune, and the court of souls resembled the vindictiveness of Miltonic demons rather than the seat of those who claimed to represent Him who said:  ‘I will have mercy and not sacrifice.’  When the vote was taken the door was shut against Amanda.

Passing out of the dimly-lighted chapel into the blackness of the night, Dr. Hale took the arm of the young minister, saying: 

‘Let me guide you, Mr. Penrose.  I know these roads by instinct.’

’Yes, doctor, I not only need your guidance, but that of someone else.  Black as the night is, it isn’t so black as the souls of those benighted inquisitors we’ve left behind us.  There are stars behind those clouds; but there are none hidden behind the murky creed of the deacons of Rehoboth.  Do they expect me, doctor, to carry their decision to Mrs. Stott and her daughter?’

’I believe they do.  Hard messages, you know, must be delivered both by ministers and doctors.  It is my lot sometimes to tell people that their days are numbered, when I would almost as soon face death myself.’