"Kip off, or I'll slosh you one on the boko," cried the Lord's lost lamb swinging up a vigorous pair of fists. Reuben breathed a sigh of relief.
"There—I knew as there wur reason in you, Pete. You wöan't go and leave your fäather lik the rest, all fur a hemmed Methody."
"Hemmed Methody! That's how you spik of the man wot's säaved my soul. I tell you as there I wur lost in trespasses and sins, and now I'm washed white as wool—there wur my evil doings sticking to my soul lik maggots to a dead rat, and now my soul's washed in the Blood of the Lamb, and I'm going out to spread the Word."
"Where are you going?"
"Unto the ends of the earth—Hastings. There's a friend of Ades there wot'll guide me into the Spirit's ways."
"But you'll never leave me at the time of the hay-harvest, and Emily due to calve in another month?"
"I tell you I'm shut of your farm—it's wot's led me astray from a lad. Instead of settin' and reading godly books and singing wud the saints I've gone and ploughed furrers and carted manure; I've thought only of the things of the flesh, I've walked lik accursed Adam among the thistles. But now a Voice says, 'work no more!—go and spread the Word!' And if you're wise, fäather, you'll cöame too, and you, Beatup. You'll flee from the wrath to cöame, when He shall shäake the earth and the elimunts shall dissolve in fervient heat, and He ..."
"Have adone do wud your preaching. I'm ashamed of you, led astray by lunies as if you wur no better nor poor Harry. You're a hemmed lousy traitor, you are, the worst of 'em all."
"I'm only fleeing from the wrath to cöame—and if you're wise you'll foller me. This farm is the city of destruction, I tell you, it's a snare of the devil, it's Naboth's vineyard, it's the lake that burneth wud fire and brimstone. Cöame out of her, cöame out of her, my peoples!"
Reuben was paralysed. His jaw worked convulsively, and he looked at Pete as if he were a specially new and pestilential form of blight.