he slopes of the Barrow a number of heathmen and women were reclining
or sitting at their ease. They listened to the words of the man in
their midst, who was preaching, while they abstractedly pulled
heather, stripped ferns, or tossed pebbles down the slope. This was
the first of a series of moral lectures or Sermons on the Mount, which
were to be delivered from the same place every Sunday afternoon as
long as the fine weather lasted.

The commanding elevation of Rainbarrow had been chosen for two
reasons: first, that it occupied a central position among the remote
cottages around; secondly, that the preacher thereon could be seen
from all adjacent points as soon as he arrived at his post, the view
of him being thus a convenient signal to those stragglers who wished
to draw near. The speaker was bareheaded, and the breeze at each waft
gently lifted and lowered his hair, somewhat too thin for a man of his
years, these still numbering less than thirty-three. He wore a shade
over his eyes, and his face was pensive and lined; but, though these
bodily features were marked with decay there was no defect in the
tones of his voice, which were rich, musical, and stirring. He stated
that his discourses to people were to be sometimes secular, and
sometimes religious, but never dogmatic; and that his texts would be
taken from all kinds of books. This afternoon the words were as
follows:--

"'And the king rose up to meet her, and bowed himself unto
her, and sat down on his throne, and caused a seat to be set
for the king's mother; and she sat on his right hand. Then
she said, I desire one small petition of thee; I pray thee
say me not nay. And the king said unto her, Ask, on, my
mother: for I will not say thee nay.'"

Yeobright had, in fact, found his vocation in the career of an
itinerant open-air preacher and lecturer on morally unimpeachable
subjects; and from this day he laboured incessantly in that office,
speaking not only in simple language on Rainbarrow and in the hamlets
round, but in a more cultivated strain elsewhere--from the steps and
porticoes of town-halls, from market-crosses, from conduits, on
esplanades and on wharves, from the parapets of bridges, in barns and
outhouses, and all other such places in the neighbouring Wessex towns
and villages. He left alone creeds and systems of philosophy, finding
enough and more than enough to occupy his tongue in the opinions and
actions common to all g