rs, but he only got jeered at for his pains. He
was usually very civilly treated, but the men were in drink and could
not discriminate.

The next day was Sunday, and as the evening dropped down there was a
stir in the village, and a score or two of the villagers came out on the
green. Three or four men took to playing pitch and toss, and the women
got up little quarrels on their own account. A few big fellows walked
towards the shore, and got ready the boats to go out fishing, for there
was no respect shown to the Sabbath.

At seven o'clock the local preacher took his stand in the middle of the
green, and remained there bare-headed until he had attracted attention.
He began to pray aloud, and the villagers stood grinning round him until
he had finished. He then asked the people to join him in a hymn, but
this proposal was too comic, and the men and women laughed loudly.

The preacher, however, was not a man to be stopped by a little laughter.
He actually did sing a hymn in a beautiful tenor, and, before he had
finished, some of the men seemed rather ashamed of having laughed at
all.

One of the leaders said--"Let us hear what this born fool has to say. If
he makes very much noise we'll take and put him in one of the rain-water
barrels." A poacher proposed that the dogs should be set on him; but,
although this idea was received as a humorous contribution to the
discussion, it was not put into practice.

The preacher began a kind of rude address. He picked his words with a
certain precision, and managed to express himself in the dialect of the
people to whom he was speaking. His enthusiasm grew, and at the end of a
quarter of an hour he had obtained such complete mastery over the crowd,
that individuals amongst the audience unconsciously imitated the changes
of his face.

The man was really a kind of poet, and the villagers felt his power
without exactly knowing why. When the preaching was over, the orator
strode away home without speaking to anybody.

On the next Sunday he appeared in the same place at the same hour. Only
some half a dozen men and lads were on the green and these were gambling
as usual; but when they saw the preacher, two or three of them ran along
the Row and brought out the people. The men who had intended to go
fishing stayed out of curiosity; and not a single boat was run off the
sands that night. The next week the best part of the village population
was waiting when the preacher came. Some o