Beaumonts had many questions to ask, and no one was better endowed
with the quality of free communication than this kind-hearted dame. She
accounted for the silence of the village and her own extraordinary
bustle, by stating that it was exercise-day; a meeting of ministers had
been at the godly work for eight hours; and she doubted not, after so
long buffeting Satan, they would come away main hungry. "My poor
Gaffer," said she, "always brings all he can to our house. They tell him
a blessing comes upon all those who furnish a chamber for wayfaring
prophets, and set on pottage for them; but for my part I see it not, and
begin to wonder whether these are prophets or no. As for our Gaffer, he
has left off drinking and quarrelling, to be sure, which Your Reverence
had used to rate him for at times; but then he did look after the farm
and the cattle, and saw things went right. But now he says, let the
morrow take care for itself; so we have nothing but preaching, and
praying, and pecking at other people, and telling of experiences and
stumbling-blocks, and abusing those who don't hold all that we do; and
all this while the ricks grow less and less every year. And then when
any thing goes wrong in the house, they pop it into a sermon, not as
Your Reverence did when you preached about the ten commandments, but a
preachment of an hour about such frivolous things as set husbands
a-scolding their wives for spoiling their dinner, or not mending their
clothes; and our poor Gaffer is grown so cast down ever since Priggins
told him he thought he was a reprobate, that he says it is a crying sin
to look happy; so he keeps praying on till we have no time to practise."

Isabel inquired how the children were able to command attention to such
long services; and Dame Humphreys owned the change in this respect was
wonderful. "To be sure," said she, "they do sometimes fall sick; but
there is a vast number of thriving little saints growing up among us,
who can find out a legal preacher in a moment, and tell you if he is a
fine man before he is out of breath the first time. There's my
grand-daughter (Nancy we used to call her, but they have since given her
some hard name I never can recollect), she is only nine years old, and
is such a gifted creature that she has chosen her religion, and says she
will be a Brownist, for there is no other way to be saved. But her
sister Hephzebah has not had her call yet, and says till she has she is
to give no