Several men, each convinced that finger had threatened him, rose to their feet and struggled towards the penitents’ pew, the tears streaming down their drawn faces, their breath rasping as though they had been running.  A young girl sprang up and ripped the ribbon off the straw bonnet she was wearing; the sharp tearing sound added an alien note to the babel.  Then she too, trembling violently, attained the pew and fell on her knees, the despoiled bonnet askew on her bowed head.  One after another all those not already converted made their way through the encouraging throng to the fateful pew.

Annie shook Ishmael by the arm.

“Get up,” she urged excitedly; “go to the pew, Ishmael.  Confess the Lard, de ’ee hear?  You’m got to confess the Lard.”

But Ishmael, sick with fear, was crouching down, trying to shield both eyes and ears at the same time with his enfolding arms.  He shrieked as Annie touched him.

“Go to wance,” she commanded.  “You heard what the minister said?  You’ll die and go to hell unless you repent.  Get up and be saved ...;” and she drew him to his feet, his struggles unavailing against her.

But at sight of that sinister pew, choked with its weeping throng of ugly people, Ishmael went distraught with fear.  He felt if he were put in that place of dread he would die at once.  He fought Annie’s grasp for a moment, screaming wildly, then collapsed in a little heap against her.

Annie thought he was dead, and that her offering, like Cain’s, had proved unacceptable on high.  She drew back in horror, her hands dabbing aimlessly from her own face to the sides of the pew.  It was another woman, a comfortable creature who had remained very unaffected throughout the service, who gathered Ishmael up and forced her way out with him in her arms.

As she laid him on the grass outside a burst of praise came through the open door of the chapel; the scene of fear was over, and the penitents, confident of their salvation, were rejoicing together.  All was peace and happiness, but Ishmael lay, his head upon the steep lap of the stranger, quite unaware that the Lord was appeased at last.

CHAPTER VIII

SEED-TIME

The Parson was a cassocked whirlwind in his wrath.  He said little, not being a man who wasted words when a thing was done, but he acted decisively, pinning Annie by her terror to agree to a permanent alteration in affairs.  As soon as Ishmael could be moved—­for the fit he had had left him weak and nervous—­the Parson took him to the Vicarage, and there for the next three or four years, till he went to St. Renny, Ishmael made his home.