Then there was a howl which rendered further speaking impossible. The crowd was split into two parties, those who admired the young parson’s sense and pluck, and those who followed the Chartist agitators, who had their own ends to serve, and their own ways of attaining them. The speech had, to a certain extent, damaged them, inasmuch as it was clear many of the respectable operatives present sided with the speaker. The chairman, the committee, the editor from London, were as angry as they could well be. The effect of what was to have been a mighty demonstration was destroyed. It was feared the subscriptions would fall off. It was true, in the next week’s list, ‘Junius Brutus’ was down for a shilling, and ‘A Hater of Tyrants’ for eighteenpence, and others for a few sums equally small; but these were a poor response to the chairman’s appeal. In that same number of the _Trumpet of Freedom_ was a very scorching article on the jackanapes of an Independent parson. There is a great advantage in being an editor. An editor has always the last word. ‘There goes the scorpiant,’ said the chairman, as Mr. Wentworth passed him, at the end of the meeting. ‘There goes the scorpiant.’ ‘Scorpion, I presume you mean,’ said the individual alluded to. ‘No, I don’t,’ repeated the chairman angrily. ‘You are a scorpiant; that’s what I said, and that I’ll stick to.’ Said another, whose few wits had been lost in beer, he’d ‘as soon put the parson in the horse-pond as look at him.’ The gathering storm Wentworth took as a signal to retire. At the outside women were weeping and shivering in the cold. They were the wives of the Chartist committee-men, who sat nightly in the public-house, spending money which the poor deserted wives and mothers sorely needed at home. It was a grievous sight, and the young parson grieved to think how little he could do to remove the evil which existed all round. Suddenly he found himself addressed by a young woman, whose fresh, girlish face of beauty was a contrast to the weary and despairing faces that met him on every side. ‘Oh, sir,’ said she enthusiastically, ‘if you could but get the men to listen to you, how much better it would be for them! The poor fellows need a friend.’ It seemed to Wentworth as if a ray of sunlight had suddenly appeared. Naturally the young parson turned round to look at the speaker; but, startled at her audacity, the beautiful girl had suddenly disappeared, and the next face that met him wore a very different expression. If one face was a sunbeam the other was a thundercloud. It was the face of the senior deacon. For a long time after, however, the memory of that fair girl’s face haunted Wentworth as a dream. Seeing that a storm was rising, he asked the senior deacon, in his blandest tones, how he was. Harshly as a nutmeg-grater, the senior deacon replied that he was as well as could be expected, considering the state that the town was in. Severely looking at the parson, he added: