cowed or driven away by insult or personal danger.  God has sent me to this place, and, by His blessing, I’ll not shrink from anything I may have to encounter in doing His work among the people.  But I feel it right to call on all those who know the value of the Gospel, to stand by me publicly.  I think—­and Mr. Landor agrees with me—­that it will be well for my friends to proceed with me in a body to the church on Sunday evening.  Dempster, you know, has pretended that almost all the respectable inhabitants are opposed to the lecture.  Now, I wish that falsehood to be visibly contradicted.  What do you think of the plan?  I have today been to see several of my friends, who will make a point of being there to accompany me, and will communicate with others on the subject.’

‘I’ll mek one, Mr. Tryan, I’ll mek one.  You shall not be wantin’ in any support as I can give.  Before you come to it, sir, Milby was a dead an’ dark place; you are the fust man i’ the Church to my knowledge as has brought the word o’ God home to the people; an’ I’ll stan’ by you, sir, I’ll stan’ by you.  I’m a Dissenter, Mr. Tryan; I’ve been a Dissenter ever sin’ I was fifteen ‘ear old; but show me good i’ the Church, an’ I’m a Churchman too.  When I was a boy I lived at Tilston; you mayn’t know the place; the best part o’ the land there belonged to Squire Sandeman; he’d a club-foot, had Squire Sandeman—­lost a deal o’ money by canal shares.  Well, sir, as I was sayin’, I lived at Tilston, an’ the rector there was a terrible drinkin’, fox-huntin’ man; you niver see’d such a parish i’ your time for wickedness; Milby’s nothin’ to it.  Well, sir, my father was a workin’ man, an’ couldn’t afford to gi’ me ony eddication, so I went to a night-school as was kep by a Dissenter, one Jacob Wright; an’ it was from that man, sir, as I got my little schoolin’ an’ my knowledge o’ religion.  I went to chapel wi’ Jacob—­he was a good man was Jacob—­an’ to chapel I’ve been iver since.  But I’m no enemy o’ the Church, sir, when the Church brings light to the ignorant and the sinful; an’ that’s what you’re a-doin’, Mr. Tryan.  Yes, sir, I’ll stan’ by you.  I’ll go to church wi’ you o’ Sunday evenin’.’

‘You’d far better stay at home, Mr. Jerome, if I may give my opinion,’ interposed Mrs. Jerome.  ’It’s not as I hevn’t ivery respect for you, Mr. Tryan, but Mr. Jerome ‘ull do you no good by his interferin’.  Dissenters are not at all looked on i’ Milby, an’ he’s as nervous as iver he can be; he’ll come back as ill as ill, an’ niver let me hev a wink o’ sleep all night.’

Mrs. Jerome had been frightened at the mention of a mob, and her retrospective regard for the religious communion of her youth by no means inspired her with the temper of a martyr.  Her husband looked at her with an expression of tender and grieved remonstrance, which might have been that of the patient patriarch on the memorable occasion when he rebuked his wife.

’Susan, Susan, let me beg on you not to oppose me, and put stumblin’-blocks i’ the way o’ doing’ what’s right.  I can’t give up my conscience, let me give up what else I may.’