“The elements shall melt with fervent heat. You feel it—you feel it on your faces to-day: I foretold it, and I was sent to cry unto all that have ears to hear, 'Repent—repent—repent'!”
“The fellow has got no better manner than a real prophet,” laughed Parson Rodney; but there was not much merriment in his laughter. “I have a mind to have him brought before me as an incorrigible rogue and vagabond,” he continued. “An hour or twain in the stocks would make him think more civilly of the world. If he becomes bold enough to be offensive to you, Mr. Wesley, give me a hint of it, and I'll promise you that I'll make him see more fire and brimstone than he ever did in one of his ecstatic moods; and so good-day to you, sir.”
He put his horse to a trot, and returned the salutes of the men who were standing idly watching Pritchard in his very real sackcloth.
But he had scarcely ridden past them when he turned his horse and called out:
“Wherefore are you idle, good men? Do you mean to forsake the remainder of your smacks?”
A few of the fishermen looked at one another; they shook their heads; one of them wiped his forehead.
“'Twill be all the same after Monday, Parson,” said that man.
“You parboiled lobster-grabber!” cried the Parson. “Do you mean to say that you have the effrontery to believe that addle-pate up there rather than a clergyman of the Church of England? Look at him. He's not a man.'Tis a poor cut torn from, a child's picture Bible that he is! Do you believe that the world would come to an end without your properly ordained clergyman giving you a hint of it? Go on with your work, if you are men. Repent? Ay, you'll all repent when 'tis too late, if you fail to haul up your boats so that their backs get not broken on that ridge. If you feel that you must repent, do it hauling. And when you've done your work, come up to the Rectory and cool your throats with a jug of cider, cool from the cellar, mind.”
“There shall be no more sea,” came the voice of the man on the mound; it was growing appreciably hoarser.
“No more sea?” shouted the parson. “That's an unlucky shot of yours, my addle-pated prophet; 'tis too much sea that we be suffering from just here.”