"What was it as some one was saying just now about the working of the Lord's spirit?" asked Maxfield, cutting short Brother Jackson's verbal flow of milk and honey.
There was a little hesitation among those present as to who should answer this question. To answer it involved the utterance of a name which was known to be unpleasing in Mr. Maxfield's ears. Mrs. Thimbleby shrank into the background; she had a special dread of old Jonathan's stern hard face and manner. Richard Gibbs at length answered, simply, "We were speaking, Mr. Maxfield, of David Powell's preaching in Lady Lane and on Whit Meadow."
Maxfield pressed his lips together, and made an inarticulate sound, which might be taken to express contempt or disapprobation, or merely an acknowledgment of Gibbs's information.
"My! I should like to have been there!" exclaimed Mrs. Gladwish.
"Well, now," said Seth Maxfield, "my wife would walk twenty mile to keep out of the way of it. She was quite scared at all the accounts we heard."
"But what did you hear! And what did happen, after all?" asked Mrs. Gladwish. "I wish you would give us an account of it, Mr. Gibbs."
"It is hard to give an account of such thing to them as wasn't present, ma'am. But there was a great outpouring of grace."
Brother Jackson groaned slightly, then coughed, and shook his head.
"I never saw such a beautiful evening for the time of year," put in one of Gladwish's apprentices, a consumptive-looking lad with bright, dreamy eyes. "And all the folks standing in the sunset, and the river shining, and the leaves red and yellow on the branches—it was a wonderful sight."
"It was a wonderful sight!" ejaculated Gibbs. "There was the biggest multitude I ever saw assembled in Whit Meadow. There must have been thousands of people. There were among them scoffers, and ungodly men, and seekers after the truth, and some that were already awakened. Then, women and children; they came gathering together more and more, from the north, and the south, and the east, and the west. And there, in the midst, raised up on a high bench, so that he might be seen of all, stood David Powell. His face was as white as snow, and his black hair hung down on either side of it."