Jimmy Stone, one of the worst scoundrels in the district, had laboured to persecute Turnbull, and to break up the meetings for months past.  He tyrannized over men and brutally maltreated women, and his blasphemy was terrible to listen to.  It was during one of his outbursts of wrath against the “Ranter” preacher that he was suddenly staggered by Turnbull going up to him, laying his hand on his shoulder, and admonishing him to refrain from such shocking conduct.  He attempted to seize the preacher by the throat, and I fear at this juncture Turnbull forsook for a little his usual attitude of equanimity, for before the giant knew where he was he lay on the ground, stunned by a left-hander.  The preacher was an awkward customer to deal with, and it would seem as though he did not entirely trust to Divine interposition when hands were laid on him.  His tormentor lay, a humiliated heap, at his feet.  Never in Jimmy’s life had any one dared to resent his attacks in this way.  He could not understand it, and was overcome more by superstition and a fear of Turnbull’s reputed supernatural aids than by real fear of his physical powers.  Turnbull ordered the bully to stand up, and warned him against experimenting on strangers.  He then, in quaint, old-world phraseology, the outcome of much deep reading of Butler, Baxter, and Jeremy Taylor, and wholly without cant or affectation, went on to say—­

“I intend to let you off lightly on this occasion, but if I hear of you practising any injustice or in any way giving annoyance to your neighbours again, I shall deem it my duty to teach you a salutary lesson.  Now, bear in mind what I say to you; and remember that the Almighty may visit you with His wrath.  It may be that He will send to your house affliction, and even make it desolate by taking some one from you whom you love.  Or He may see that the only way of checking the course of your wickedness is to have you laid aside with sickness.  It is probable that He will smite you by taking away from your evil influence some of your children.  God is very merciful to little children when they are in the hands of brutes like you.  Go away from me! and ponder over what I have said.”

Jimmy slouched off, muttering vengeance against the Almighty if He dared to interfere with his bairns, and, as an addendum, he vividly portrayed the violent death of Turnbull.  He slunk listlessly into his cottage, tumbled on to a seat, and was lost in meditation.  Jenny, his wife, tremulously asked what ailed him.  She was alarmed at his subdued manner; she had never known him come into the house without bullying and using blasphemous language to her and the children, and oftentimes this was accompanied by blows that well-nigh killed her and them; and yet she stood loyally by him whenever he needed a friend.  Suddenly he jumped to his feet, and as though he had become possessed of an inspiration, broke silence by vigorously exclaiming to his wife that he had settled the manner of the “Ranter” preacher’s death.