cellent thing; there's nothing I more
wish for myself. But that is not all you have to say to me, I suppose? I
imagine peace is not your purpose?"

"As to our purpose," began Barraclough, "it's one that may sound strange
and perhaps foolish to ears like yours, for the childer of this world is
wiser in their generation than the childer of light."

"To the point, if you please, and let me hear what it is."

"Ye'se hear, sir. If I cannot get it off, there's eleven behint can help
me. It is a grand purpose, and" (changing his voice from a half-sneer to
a whine) "it's the Looard's own purpose, and that's better."

"Do you want a subscription to a new Ranter's chapel, Mr. Barraclough?
Unless your errand be something of that sort, I cannot see what you have
to do with it."

"I hadn't that duty on my mind, sir; but as Providence has led ye to
mention the subject, I'll make it i' my way to tak ony trifle ye may
have to spare; the smallest contribution will be acceptable."

With that he doffed his hat, and held it out as a begging-box, a brazen
grin at the same time crossing his countenance.

"If I gave you sixpence you would drink it."

Barraclough uplifted the palms of his hands and the whites of his eyes,
evincing in the gesture a mere burlesque of hypocrisy.

"You seem a fine fellow," said Moore, quite coolly and dryly; "you don't
care for showing me that you are a double-dyed hypocrite, that your
trade is fraud. You expect indeed to make me laugh at the cleverness
with which you play your coarsely farcical part, while at the same time
you think you are deceiving the men behind you."

Moses' countenance lowered. He saw he had gone too far. He was going to
answer, when the second leader, impatient of being hitherto kept in the
background, stepped forward. This man did not look like a traitor,
though he had an exceedingly self-confident and conceited air.

"Mr. Moore," commenced he, speaking also in his throat and nose, and
enunciating each word very slowly, as if with a view to giving his
audience time to appreciate fully the uncommon elegance of the
phraseology, "it might, perhaps, justly be said that reason rather than
peace is our purpose. We come, in the first place, to request you to
hear reason; and should _you_ refuse, it is my duty to warn _you_, in
very decided terms, that measures will be had resort to" (he meant
recourse) "which will probably terminate in--in bringing _you_ to a
sense of the unwisdom, of