The boy Tom, who had been attentive, broke into merriment.

“Uncle Denzil wouldn’t dare to have said it in her presence!” he cried.

“Perhaps not,” conceded Denzil, with a smile.  “By-the-bye, is that wonderful person still in Polterham?”

“Oh yes!” Mrs. Liversedge replied.  “She has been very prominent lately.”

“How?”

The lady glanced at her husband, who said quietly, “We’ll talk over it some other time.”

But Tom was not to be repressed.

“Mother means that Revivalist business,” he exclaimed.  “Mrs. Wade went against it.”

“My boy, no meddling with things of that kind,” said his father, smiling, but firm.  He turned to Denzil.  “Has Glazzard exhibited anything lately?”

“No; he gave up his modelling, and he doesn’t seem to paint much nowadays.  The poor fellow has no object in life, that’s the worst of it.”

The meal was nearly at an end, and presently the two men found themselves alone at the table.  Mr. Liversedge generally smoked a cigar before returning for an hour or two to the soap-works.

“Any more wine?” he asked.  “Then come into my snuggery and let us chat.”

They repaired to a room of very homely appearance.  The furniture was old and ugly; the carpet seemed to have been beaten so often that it was growing threadbare by force of purification.  There was a fair collection of books, none of very recent date, and on the walls several maps and prints.  The most striking object was a great stuffed bird that stood in a glass-case before the window—­a capercailzie shot by Quarrier long ago in Norway, and presented to his brother-in-law.  Tobias settled himself in a chair, and kicked a coal from the bars of the grate.

“Tom is very strong against religious fanaticism,” he said, laughing.  “I have to pull him up now and then.  I suppose you heard about the crazy goings-on down here in the summer?”

“Not I. Revivalist meetings?”

“The whole town was turned upside down.  Such frenzy among the women I never witnessed.  Three times a day they flocked in swarms to the Public Hall, and there screeched and wept and fainted, till it really looked as if some authority ought to interfere.  If I had had my way, I would have drummed the preachers out of the town.  Mary and Mrs. Wade and one or two others were about the only women who escaped the epidemic.  Seriously, it led to a good deal of domestic misery.  Poor Tomkins’s wife drove him to such a pass by her scandalous neglect of the house, that one morning he locked her into her bedroom, and there he kept her on very plain diet for three days.  We thought of getting up a meeting to render public thanks to Tomkins, and to give him some little testimonial.”

Denzil uttered roars of laughter; the story was exactly of the kind that made appeal to his humorous instincts.

“Has the ferment subsided?” he asked.