Weevil looked about, fighting down his weakness, which was not then altogether eccentric. He saw the transformed faces of the crowd. Not only the competitors but the spectators had the faces that a London mob of old might have presented, watching the hanging, drawing, and quartering of criminals, and finding the spectacle very much to their taste. They had become so excited as to be inarticulate. They could not make their shoutings intelligible to one another. They were gesticulating like so many Italian drunkards. Their boots were marked with blood, and it was also upon their hands, and smeared upon their faces. Blood was upon the ground too, with other matter more offensive. The ghastly pile of pigeons and rabbits, which were supposed to be done for, was not without motion. Sometimes it heaved; but there was no sound. Two little boys were enjoying a rare game of tug-of-war with a living rabbit. Another youngster was playfully poking out the eyes of a fluttering pigeon. They would make good sportsmen when they grew up. A tiny little fellow, nothing more than a baby, was begging a bigger boy to instruct him in the art of killing rabbits. A little girl was practising the deed upon her own account. The constable who had arrested Brightly looked on and said it was "brave sport." There were other things which Weevil saw, but he did not mention them afterwards, because he tried to forget them; but the sight made him feel faint, not being a sportsman, but a rather ignorant, somewhat foolish, and decidedly eccentric old man. "I think I must go. Boodles," he said feebly. He turned away, and his eyes fell upon the village. There was a church, and there was Ebenezer, and a meeting-house also. Surely so many religious houses were hardly necessary in one small village. Church and chapels dominated the place; and in those buildings a vast amount of theory was preached concerning ancient literature, and a place of morbid imagination called Hell, and a place of healthier imagination called Heaven; and upon that field on the side of the moor the regular worshippers at those buildings were enjoying themselves. There was a failure somewhere, only Weevil had not the sense to find out where. High above were the tors, and it was there, no doubt, that the early inhabitants stood to worship Baal; and there possibly a vast amount of theory was preached concerning the whole duty of man, and a twofold future state; and then the men went down to fight and plunder. It seemed to have been a theoretical religion then. It is a theoretical religion now. Theories have swamped the world, submerging the practical side like the lost Atlantis. It is not religion which compels men to cease from doing murder. It is the fear of vengeance.