"We don't want no parsons neither," shouted a ne'er-do-well, who had had a drop on his way; but the parson, if he had lost his popularity, had not lost his power of engaging attention. The chairman rang his bell to secure silence, and a voice from the back of the room shouted "Hear, hear!"
"It seems to me," said the vicar, "that all we want is water. It is with the hope of finding a solution to our terrible difficulty that we are met here to-day. Everything, as you all know, that ordinary science and knowledge can show us has been exhausted, and with no result. We are in desperate case. We 'must have water, or we die.' It is true that our stream still runs, and some of our wells yield water; but it is polluted, and breeds fever in those who drink it. But all this is well known; it is idle to recapitulate it. I take it that all we have to decide is whether we accept Mr. Wilman's offer or not. I think there can be no doubt about it. 'The drowning man catches at a straw.' (Mr. Wilman will forgive the allusion.) I trust he is no straw; but, humanly speaking, we are undoubtedly 'drowning men.' It seems to me there is no 'conjuring' or 'witchcraft' about his thing. God has given us all certain powers—'divers gifts' as the Bible has it—and just because we do not understand or cannot explain this reputed gift of water-finding, why reject the possibility of it in our hour of need? Let us give Mr. Wilman a fair trial; let him do his best, and if he fails, well, we are in no worse plight that we were before."
The vicar stepped down amid dead silence; his words had not had time to sink in. The chairman rose.
"Gentlemen," he said, "my mind is made up. Mr Wilman has free leave to come over my land and find us water where he can. I can't let ignorance or blind prejudice stand in his way. I completely endorse all the vicar's words."
"And I too," and a burly Nonconformist tradesman stepped up; "and I'll give you twenty pounds towards the expenses of sinking the well."
Ten minutes after this sixty pounds had been subscribed by the influential people present. The meeting was broken up, and the water-finder was casting his eye once more over the audience to select his companions in the quest.
"Mr. Barlow will come with me, and I should be glad if you would too, sir," he said to the vicar, who was making his way out.
"I only wish I could," he replied heartily—"it would give me the greatest pleasure; but I have got to take two funerals this afternoon, and I must run home and get something to eat first. Many thanks, all the same, and I need scarcely say how anxiously I shall look for the result of your trial."
He hurried off as he spoke, and Mr. Barlow and the water-finder walked slowly up the street behind him, and disappeared into the former's house.
An hour later they emerged and walked up the street.