Billy and Polly.—A little sunbeam visits Sandgate.—What happened at seven o'clock in the morning.—And at five o'clock in the evening.—"The Old, Old Story."—Newcastle wants to know more.—But Newcastle has to wait.—John Wesley goes back to Bristol.—The Kingswood of the North.
HO'S yon man?"
"Which man?"
"Yon. Him with the long hair, and dressed like a parson."
"I dunno. Why there's two on 'em."
"I say, Polly, let's go and hear 'em, they're singing. Come on, Bob."
Bob and Billy and Polly were very ragged and very dirty children, and they lived in Newcastle.
The boys were almost naked, and Polly, though nearly fifteen had no clothes on at all, only a dirty bit of blanket wrapped round her. Their fathers and mothers worked in the coal mines, and because they had never been taught different, they were drunken, swearing, wicked people; even the children cursed and swore.
But Bob and Billy and Polly have got to the top of Sandgate, the street where their miserable home is; let us follow. Some of their companions are with them, children as ragged and dirty as themselves. The women, too, have come to their doors to listen. What is it these men are singing? Hark!