And she threw a swift searching look at the young clergyman in the window.
'He must have very hard work with so much walking and preaching,' said Catherine gently.
Somehow, as soon as she spoke, Elsmere saw the whole odd little scene with other eyes.
'His work is just wearin' him out,' said the mother fervently; 'but a minister doesn't think of that. Wherever he goes there are sinners saved. He stayed last week at a house near Nuneaton. At family prayer alone there were five saved. And at the prayer-meetin's on the Sabbath such outpourin's of the Spirit! Edward comes home, his wife tells me, just ready to drop. Are you acquainted, sir,' she added, turning suddenly to Elsmere, and speaking in a certain tone of provocation, 'with the labours of our Wesleyan ministers?'
'No,' said Robert, with his pleasant smile, 'not personally. But I have the greatest respect for them as a body of devoted men.'
The look of battle faded from the woman's face. It was not an unpleasant face. He even saw strange reminiscences of Catherine in it at times.
'You're aboot right there, sir. Not that they dare take any credit to themselves—it's grace, sir, all grace.'
'Aunt Ellen,' said Catherine, while a sudden light broke over her face; 'I just want you to take Edward a little story from me. Ministers are good things, but God can do without them.'
And she laid her hand on her aunt's knee with a smile in which there was the slightest touch of affectionate satire.
'I was up among the fells the other day,' she went on; 'I met an elderly man cutting wood in a plantation, and I stopped and asked him how he was. "Ah, miss," he said, "verra weel, verra weel. And yet it was nobbut Friday morning lasst, I cam oop here, awfu' bad in my sperrits like. For my wife she's sick, an' a' dwinnelt away, and I'm gettin' auld, and can't wark as I'd used to, and it did luke to me as thoo there was naethin' afore us nobbut t' Union. And t' mist war low on t' fells, and I sat oonder t' wall, wettish and broodin' like. And theer—all ov a soodent the Lord found me! Yes, puir Reuben Judge, as dawn't matter to naebody, the Lord found un. It war leyke as thoo His feeace cam a-glisterin' an' a-shinin' through t' mist. An' iver sence then, miss, aa've jest felt as thoo aa could a' cut an' stackt all t' wood on t' fell in naw time at a'!" And he waved his hand round the mountain side which was covered with plantation. And all the way along the path for ever so long I could hear him singing, chopping away, and quavering out, "Rock of Ages."'