For the rest, Gabriel was a gentleman farmer, who delegated most of his work in this direction to one Jose Binns, a godly, lean-flanked man, who was wont to class Betty his wife, the master, and the uncertainty of hay-crops, all as dire responsibilities sent to him by the Lord as a punishment for his overwhelming sinfulness. Yet Jose managed the farm excellently, and was a rare hand at "selling or swopping a beäst." Griff Lomax and the preacher had run about the countryside together as boys, and many a time of late, when Lomax came home to the Manor for his brief spells of holiday, Gabriel had striven to save him as a brand from the burning. London, the devil, and an artistic life were synonymous to Gabriel Hirst, and it was torture to him to think that the friend of his boyhood was going the way of perdition. He loved Griff, now that they had left boyhood well behind, with a certain wild adoration which no effort could stifle; and, just as he prayed his hardest and painted hell in its most vivid colours when the yearning for freedom was strongest upon him, so he would avoid Lomax for a week at a time, would refuse to walk across to Marshcotes in search of him until he was persuaded that he had a genuine call to attempt conversion once again. On the Friday after Griff's return for the winter, the preacher caught sight of him at a bend of the road that ran from Marshcotes to Ling Crag. He hastily slipped under shelter of a barn and let him pass. He dared not go out to meet him, because the desire was too strong upon him; but when he reached home, and learned from Betty Binns, his housekeeper, that Griff had been in search of him, he sorrowed over the meeting which he had lost of his own free will. Then he dined off tea and dry bread, lest the Adversary should turn stronger food to his own ends, and set off in the rain, and walked the moors for six hours. When he returned, his Sunday morning's sermon was prepared. With Sunday the short Michaelmas summer began; the clouds had been squeezed dry of rain, and the morning was clear and fresh. Gabriel was down on the circuit plan to preach both morning and evening at the Ling Crag Chapel. He preached for fifty minutes in the morning--preached himself into a frenzy--thundered and bellowed and cried from the little pulpit of unpolished deal, until his hearers felt the leaven of damnation working to their finger-tips. "Eh, but it war grand, grand!" passed from mouth to mouth, as the congregation gathered round the door after service. The softer sort of Methodists were to be found here and there; but these rarely lifted their voices after service, being quiet men and women who did not care to entangle themselves in argument. This morning, however, the harsher spirits were not having things all their own way. Old Jose Binns had just had his say about the sermon.