That’s right, Nathan Blyth! Sing your song over again as the anvil rings, and the bright sparks fly, for though there is still a cloud on the horizon whose sombre shadows shall gloom your hearthstone, your kindly deed and Christly spirit done and evinced to-day, will largely help to lift the shadow, and bring back the sunshine of abiding peace! CHAPTER XVI. SQUIRE FULLER RECEIVES A DEPUTATION. “Scorn not the smallness of early endeavour, Let thy great purpose ennoble it ever; Droop not o’er efforts extended in vain; Work! work, with a will; thou shalt find it again. Fear not! for greater is God by thy side Than armies of Satan against thee allied.” _Anon._ The lovely spring had deepened into a warm, fruitful summer, the corn was rapidly ripening for the scythe, and the orchards were beginning to bend beneath a burden of expanding fruit, when the Rev. Theophilus Clayton mounted his antique gig, and directed Jack, the circuit horse, on the road that led to Nestleton Magna. That good man had but just finished his dinner of plain and frugal fare--such lusts of the flesh as expensive cates and costly luxuries were far beyond the reach of all his tribe--and his intention was to drop into Farmer Houston’s for a cup of tea, and then to talk over a scheme for a new chapel, which was rendered necessary by the fact that the spacious kitchen was quite unequal to the increasing congregation. Jack bore his master onward at his usual slow and sober pace, and Mr. Clayton gave himself up to a sort of waking dream, now thinking over his evening sermon, now weighing the _pros_ and _cons_ of the proposal to “arise and build,” when he was roused from his ponderings by means far more effective than agreeable. “Here’s a Methody parson, lads! Let’s have a shy at him!” Scarcely had he time to turn his head towards the speaker, and scan the group of lazy loafers congregated by the roadside at the corner of Midden Harbour, before he was saluted with a shower of stones, which fell on startled Jack, rattled on the ancient gig, and one of them, at any rate, made an unnecessary indentation in his silk hat, whose long term of faithful service demanded more respectful treatment. Waxing indignant at this gratuitous and cowardly attack, he turned to expostulate with the lawless batch of wastrels, when a well-aimed brickbat from the hand of Black Morris struck him on the cheek, and, after drawing a stream of blood, fell into the body of the gig. Mr. Clayton, maintaining his presence of mind, brought down his whip upon the withers of the startled pony, which broke into a gallop, and bore him through the village with the crimson token of the outrage still wet upon his face.