“Not a one. You can’t get out of it, Billy Sewall, if you have got an attack of stage-fright—which we don’t believe.”
“There is one minister,” Nan admitted. “But I’d forgotten all about him, till Father mentioned him last night. But he doesn’t really count at all. He’s old—very old—and infirm.”
“Superannuated, they call it,” added Sam Burnett. “Poor old chap. I’ve seen him—I met him at the post-office this morning. He has a peaceful face. He’s a good man. He must have been a strong one—in his time.”
“Had he anything to do with the church trouble?” Sewall demanded, his keen brown eyes eager.
Nan and Guy laughed.
“Old ‘Elder Blake’?—not except as he was on his knees, alone at home, praying for the fighters—both sides,” was Guy’s explanation. “So Father
says, and nobody knows better what side people were on.”
“If I can get hold of a man whose part in the quarrel was praying for both sides, I’m off to find him,” said Sewall, decidedly. He picked up his hat as he spoke. “Tell me where he lives, please.”
“Billy!” His sister Margaret’s voice was anxious. “Are you sure you’d better? Perhaps it would be kind to ask him to make a prayer. But you won’t——”
“You won’t ask him to preach the sermon, Billy Sewall—promise us that,” cried Guy. “An old man in his dotage!”