Ferguson's voice had risen to a shout, he stamped his feet and clapped his hands in an ecstasy, as his words rang above the tumult of the congregation, who were now jumping up and down in their seats, weeping, singing, shouting "Hallilujah", clapping their hands, while some fell on the floor where they lay rigid as if in a trance. Betty half rose, then sat very still. Bee was rather too astonished to be able to think, and Percy was studying Ferguson's face. Its features showed the Scotch blood that is the backbone of Ulster, and a stainless life with much fasting and prayer, had given it an intense refinement. There was as little sign of mental as of moral weakness in it. Percy told himself the man was self-deluded; but in his heart he was not quite sure of it. The congregation quieted enough to hear the preacher again, and Ferguson resumed, "I returned to work a new creature. I thought I was out of Babylon--that the Enemy had done with me; I expected this 'time of singing birds' to last the whole year. But the Enemy said to me, 'You are young, if you tell of this wonderful change people will not believe you. Keep it to yourself till you see if you can hold out. If you don't you may hurt the cause of God'. So-- 'I was brought into thrall, I was stript of my all, I was banished from Jesu's face.'" The audience intent on every phase of this soul-drama, groaned deeply as they swayed to and fro in their seats, and Ferguson lingered over the details of his next three months of mental agony. "But on June 11, 1805, I secured peace at last. Though I was in the shop I began at once to praise God aloud, and my shop mates said, 'The matter is decided at last, George is quite crazy.'" Again the joyful tumult rose, and Percy felt irritated. He lived above the low moral standards of his day, and he thought it preposterous to preach that nothing saved a man but this converting. How could Ferguson with his intelligence believe that without salvation he was as low in the sight of God, as the vilest man on earth? Then he looked at the boys by him. Ferguson and the elders were shouting Bible promises above the "blessed disorder", and urging penitents to come forward. Ned, white-faced, and trembling with excitement, but with determination in his eyes, rose and held out his hand to Vere. Percy saw in his cousin's face a reflection of the whirl of feeling round him, and had a vision of himself breaking the news to Sir John that the heir of the Haslems had knelt at a Methodist penitent bench. Then he wondered if this mad religion might not give Vere the moral strength he knew he needed. On the spur of that thought, he whispered to the wavering boy, "Ferguson's a straight man, if you believe what he says, go forward."