Late one afternoon, Taffy was lying in one of his favourite nooks in the lee of the towans, when he heard voices and looked up.  And there sat the old gentleman gazing down on him from horseback, with Bill Udy at his side.  The Squire was in hunting dress.

“What be doin’ down there?” he asked.  “Praying?”

“No, sir.”

“I wish you would.  I wish you’d pray for me.  I’ve heerd that a child’ll do good sometimes when grown folk can’t.  I doubt your father isn’t goin’ to do the good I looked for from en.  He don’t believe in sudden conversion.  Here, Bill, take the mare and lead her home.”

He dismounted, and seated himself with a groan on the edge of the sand-pit.

“Look here; I’ve got convictions of sin, but I can’t get no forrader.  What’s to be done?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Taffy stammered, with his eyes on the Squire’s spurs.

“You can pray for me, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, do it.  Do it to-night.  I’ve got convictions, boy; but my heart’s like a stone.  I’ve had a wisht day of it.  If the weather holds back, we’ll kill a May fox this year.  But where’s the comfort?  All the time to-day ’twas ’Lippety-lop, no peace for the wicked!  Lippety-lop, no peace for the wicked!’ I couldn’t stand it; I came away.  You’ll do it, won’t ’ee?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is your father at home?  I’ll call an’ speak to en.  He does me good; but he can’t melt what I carry here.”

He tapped his breast and rising without another word strode off across the sand-hills with his head down and his hands clasped beneath his coat-tails, which flapped in the wind as he went.

Taffy ran and overtook Bill Udy and the mare.

“He’s in a wisht poor state, id’n a’?” said Bill Udy, who was parish clerk.  “Bless ‘ee, tidn’ no manner of use.  His father before en was took in just the same way.  Turned religious late in life.  What d’ee think he did?  Got his men together one Sunday mornin’, marched them up to Meetin’ house, up to Four Turnin’s; slipped his ridin’ crop through the haps o’ the door, an’ ‘Now my Billies,’ says he, through the key-hole, ’not a man or woman of ’ee leaves the place till you’ve said that Amazin’ Creed.  Come along,’ he says, ‘Whosoever will be saved an’ the sooner ’tis over, the sooner you gets home to dinner.’  A fine talk there was!  Squire, he’s just such another.  Funny things he’ve a-done.  Married a poor soul from Roseland way—­a Miss Trevanion—­quite a bettermost lady.  When Miss Susannah was born—­that’s Miss Honoria’s mother—­she went to be churched.  What must he do, to show his annoyance that ’twasn’t a boy, but drive a she-ass into church?  Very stiff behaviour.  He drove the beast right fore an’ into the big pew.  The Moyles, you see, ’ve got a mule for their shield of arms.  He’ve had his own way too much; that’s of it.