And Wogan, too, noticed the blaze of a diamond buckle that nearly covered the little arched instep. Tap, tap! went the Elect Lady's foot, thrust out in front of her heavy petticoat of crape.
'The lady is travelling everywhere, for the good of souls, gentlemen, with Mr. Wesley's friend and choice disciple, the preacher, Mr. Bunton.'
'L'heureux Monsieur Bunton! Quelle chance!' quoth his Highness.
Mr. Bunton, the preacher, was indeed a fine, handsome young fellow as any widow could wish to look upon. He wore lay dress, not being a priest ordained of the Church of England. As for the congregation, they were small trading people, not rabble; indeed, the mob outside broke most of the windows during the sermon, that was interrupted, not only by the pebbles of the ragamuffins, but by the antics of the congregation.
Mr. Bunton, after a hymn had been sung without any music, began his preaching. He assured the audience that none of them could be a gayer dog than he had been, that was now a shining light. He obliged the congregation with a history of his early life and adventures, which Wogan now tells in few words, that people may know what manner of men were certain of these saints, or had been. Mr. Bunton was reared in sin, he said, as a land-surveyor. A broth of a boy he was, and nine times his parents sent him from Reading to London to bind him to a trade. Nine times his masters returned him on their hands.
Here the audience groaned aloud, and one went off in a fit. Mr. Bunton then told how he was awakened to sin as he walked in Cheapside. At this many, and the cobbler among them, cried 'Hallelujah!' but some went off into uncontrollable fits of laughter, which did not disturb the gravity of the rest of the assembly.
The preacher's confession was, indeed, of such a nature that Wogan let a laugh out of himself, while Graden and the Prince rolled in extreme convulsions.
'Go on, gentlemen; you are in the right path,' said the cobbler. 'Our converts are generally taken in this way first. It is reckoned a very favourable sign of grace. Some laugh for a week without stopping to sleep, eat, or drink.'
'I'll try to stop to drink,' hooted his Highness, his face as red as a lobster; and then off he went again, the bench shaking beneath him, while Wogan and Graden laughed till the tears ran down their cheeks in their dark corner. The sympathetic cobbler murmured texts of an appropriate character. Indeed, now he thinks of it all, and sees Mr. Bunton sawing the air while he tells the story of his early wicked days, Mr. Wogan laughs as he writes. The man was greasy and radiant with satisfied vanity. His narrative of what he did and thought after he awoke to sin in Cheapside was a marvel.
'I felt that beef and mutton were sinful things.'