Mr. McKee sent a copy of _The Rechabites_ to his eloquent nephew. Doctor Edgar read the sermon, and then, rising from his seat, proceeded swiftly to carry all the whiskey he had in the house into the street, and empty it into the gutter. With that drink offering Doctor Edgar inaugurated the great temperance reform. From Ireland he passed to Scotland, and from Scotland to England. The whole kingdom was mightily stirred, and the temperance cause has ever since continued to flourish. The little seed, stimulated at first by the Bronte public-houses, has become a great tree, the branches of which extend to all lands. We have now seen the Brontes in the daily round of their common pursuits. In the next chapter we hope to see old Hugh in the light of his Bronte genius. III. THE IRISH RACONTEUR OR STORY-TELLER. The Hakkawati is the oriental story-teller, the man who beyond all others relieves the tedium and wearisomeness of oriental life. I have often watched the oriental Hakkawati, seated in the centre of a large crowd, weaving stories with subtile plots and startling surprises, using pathos and passion and pungent wit, and always interspersing his narratives with familiar incidents, and laying on local color, to give an appearance of _vraisemblance_, or reality, to the wildest fancies. The Arabian Hakkawati generally tells his stories at night, when the weird and wonderful are most effective. He has always a fire so arranged as to light up his countenance with a ruddy glow, so that the movements and contortions of a mobile face may add support to the narrative. He sometimes proceeds slowly, stumbling and correcting himself, like D'Israeli, as if his one great desire was to stick to the literal truth. Without any apparent effort to please, the Hakkawati keeps his finger on the pulse of his audience. Should they show signs of weariness, he makes them smile by some pleasantry, and as the Arab holds that "smiles and tears are in the same _khury_," or wallet, he brings something of great seriousness on the heels of the fun, and works himself into a white heat of passion over it, the veins rising like cords on his forehead, and his whole frame convulsed and throbbing, the rapt audience following, in full sympathy with every mood. I have seen the Arabs shivering and pale with terror, as the Hakkawati narrated the fearful deeds of some imaginary _jinn_, and I have seen them feeling for their daggers, and ready to spring to their feet, to avenge some dastard act of imaginary cruelty; and a few seconds after I have seen them melted to tears at the recital of some imaginary tale of woe. I never wearied in listening to the Hakkawati, or in watching the artlessness of his consummate art; and I have always looked on him as the most interesting of all orientals, a positive benefactor to his illiterate countrymen.