"I don't usually know much of what happens in barracks," said Percy, "but I was told--not by Ferguson--that when we were in Dublin he joined some Methodists who were preaching on the streets, and they gave out he would speak in their chapel the next Sunday. His comrades told him they would whip him if he did, but of course he went, and coming back, lay down on his cot and went to sleep quietly. No one disturbed him; the man who told me said they thought they might find themselves up against something bigger than they liked if they did. I think that men of our people, no matter if they are unsaintly themselves, respect a saint. Ferguson lives a strictly correct life, never touches drink, always does his duty, and is always cheerful and ready to do a kind act for a comrade." "What does the fellow preach about?" growled Sir John. "I heard him once speaking just outside the barracks to a crowd of soldiers and passers-by, and he spoke so strongly against swearing, that I refrain from profanity in his presence, fearing that he might think it his duty to reprove me if I did." "What's England coming to," shouted Sir John, "when a private soldier is allowed to set himself up as a teacher? The end will be like when she let cobblers and tinkers usurp the place of ordained clergymen, and under that man whose name shall never be spoken in Haslem Towers while I live, dipped sacrilegious hands in the blood of her sainted king, Charles I. And when you allow a man to go as far as this Ferguson does, Percy Haslem, you are a traitor to your king." "My dear uncle," said the unruffled Percy, "when Mr. Wesley began his work many thought as you do, but since then, the Supreme Being, or Fate, put a full stop to that period of the world's history by the French Revolution. Now no one is sure when our dear lower classes may not demand our heads; but we are quite sure that we would rather have a revolution of Bible readers than of atheists, so we let men like Ferguson alone." * * * So Bee spent her first evening at Haslem Towers, and on the Sunday morning went with the family to the beautiful old parish church, which only lacked a preacher and congregation to make it a perfect place of worship, for in the pulpit a curate dashed through the magnificent liturgy, and the congregation was a handful of farmers and the Towers' servants. Bee sat in the great square pew trying to follow the service as she had learned to in York with Mrs. Edgar, while Betty lolled in a corner with a novel, and Vere was studying out a trick with a pack of cards. Sir John worshipped by doing nothing whatever, and only Percy, good-humouredly, thinking Bee might feel alone, looked at his prayer book when he remembered it.