“Shall I hit ’un down with my umbrella?” asked a farmer.
“He’ll burn a great hole in it if ye do,” said his wife; “and I reck’n he won’t find you another.”
Sticks were flourished, and all rushed yelling from their pews.
“Where is he? Let us catch a glimpse of the end of his tail, and we’ll pin him.”
The shouting and the uproar became great.
“I see ’un, I see ’un!” shouted the preacher; and, pointing to the door, he yelled, “He is there!”
At that very moment the door of the Bryanite meeting-house was thrown open and there stood R——, the dreaded steward of Lord ——, with his grey mare. He had been riding by, and astonished at the noise, had dismounted and opened the door to learn what had occasioned it.
I give the account of a private Bible Christian meeting from the narrative of an old Cornish woman of Kilkhampton.
“Some thirty or more years agone, Long Bill Martin was converted and became a very serious character in Kilkhampton; and a great change that was for Bill. Prayer-meetings were now his delight, especially if young women were present—then he did warm up, I tell’y. He could preach, he could, just a word or two at a time; and then, when he couldn’t find words, he’d roar. He was a mighty comfortin’ preacher, too, especially to the maidens. Many was the prayer-meeting which he kept alive; and if things was going flat—for gospel ministers du go flat sometimes, tell’y, just like ginger-beer bottles if the cork’s out tu often. And, let me tell’y, talkin’ of that, there comed a Harchdeacon here one day: I seed ’un, and he had strings tied about his hat, just as they du corks of lemonade, to keep the spirit in him down; he was nat’rally very uppish, I reck’n. But to go back to Bill. When he couldn’t speak, why, then he’d howl, like no sucking dove: ‘Ugh! the devil! drive the devil!’ Yu could hear him hunting the devil of nights a hundred yards or more off from the cottage where he was leading prayer. One day he settled to have a meeting down near the end of the village and sent in next door to borrow a form (not a form of prayer, yu know, for he didn’t hold to that), and invited the neighbours to join. ‘You’d better come. We’m goin’ to have a smart meetin’ t’night, can tell’y.’
“So us went in, and they set to to pray: fust won and then another was called upon to pray. ’sister, you pray.’ ‘Brother Rhicher (Richard), you pray.’ So to last Rhicher Davey he beginned: ‘My old woman,’ sez he, ’she’s hoffal bad in her temper, and han’t got no saving grace in her, not so much as ye might put on the tail of a flea,’ sez he; ‘but we hopps for better things, and I prays for improvement,’ he went on; ‘and if improvement don’t come to her, why, improvement might come to me, by her bein’ taken where the wicked cease from troubling, and so leave weary me at rest.’ Then I began to laugh; but Long Bill he ketched me up and roared, ‘Pray like blazes, Nanny Gilbert, do’y!’ So I kep my eye fixed to her, and luked at her hard and steadfast, I did, for I knew what the latter hupshot would be with her; and her beginned, ‘We worms of hearth!’ and there her ended. So we waited a bit; and then Bill Martin says, ’squeedge it hout, Nanny, squeedge it hout!’ But it were all no good. Never another word could she utter, though I saw she was as red as a beet-root with tryin’ to pray. She groaned, but no words. Then out comed old Bill—Long Bill us called ’un, but Bill Martin was his rightful name—‘Let us pray, my friends,’ he sez. ‘Honly believe,’ he sez. ‘Drive the devil,’ he roars. ‘There he is! There he is!’ he sez. ‘Do’y not see ’un! Do’y not smell ’un?’—‘It’s the cabbidge,’ sez Nanny Gilbert; ‘there’s some, and turnips tu, and a bit of bacon, biling in the pot over the turves.’ For her was a little put out at not being able to pray. It was her cottage in which the prayer-meeting was being held, yu know. Well, Long Bill didn’t stomach the cabbidge, so he roars louder than afore, ‘Faith! my friends; have faith! and then yu can see and smell the devil.’—‘If it’s the cabbidge yu mean,’ sez Nanny, ‘I can smell ’un by my nat’ral faculties.’—‘There’s the devil!’ shouts Bill Martin, growing excited. ‘Ugh! drive the hold devil! Faith! my friends, have faith, hellshaking faith, conquering faith, devil-driving faith, a damned lot of faith!’ And then he roars, ‘There he is! I can zee ’un afluttering hover your heads, ye sinners, just like my hands afluttering over the cann’l!’