"I tell you I'm never going to work fur you agäun. I'm going forth to spread the Word. Salvation's got me." "You wait till _I_ git you, that's all," and Reuben ran at Pete. "Kip off, or I'll slosh you one on the boko," cried the Lord's lost lamb swinging up a vigorous pair of fists. Reuben breathed a sigh of relief. "There--I knew as there wur reason in you, Pete. You wöan't go and leave your fäather lik the rest, all fur a hemmed Methody." "Hemmed Methody! That's how you spik of the man wot's säaved my soul. I tell you as there I wur lost in trespasses and sins, and now I'm washed white as wool--there wur my evil doings sticking to my soul lik maggots to a dead rat, and now my soul's washed in the Blood of the Lamb, and I'm going out to spread the Word." "Where are you going?" "Unto the ends of the earth--Hastings. There's a friend of Ades there wot'll guide me into the Spirit's ways." "But you'll never leave me at the time of the hay-harvest, and Emily due to calve in another month?" "I tell you I'm shut of your farm--it's wot's led me astray from a lad. Instead of settin' and reading godly books and singing wud the saints I've gone and ploughed furrers and carted manure; I've thought only of the things of the flesh, I've walked lik accursed Adam among the thistles. But now a Voice says, 'work no more!--go and spread the Word!' And if you're wise, fäather, you'll cöame too, and you, Beatup. You'll flee from the wrath to cöame, when He shall shäake the earth and the elimunts shall dissolve in fervient heat, and He ..." "Have adone do wud your preaching. I'm ashamed of you, led astray by lunies as if you wur no better nor poor Harry. You're a hemmed lousy traitor, you are, the worst of 'em all." "I'm only fleeing from the wrath to cöame--and if you're wise you'll foller me. This farm is the city of destruction, I tell you, it's a snare of the devil, it's Naboth's vineyard, it's the lake that burneth wud fire and brimstone. Cöame out of her, cöame out of her, my peoples!" Reuben was paralysed. His jaw worked convulsively, and he looked at Pete as if he were a specially new and pestilential form of blight. "Save yourself, fäather," continued the evangelist, "and give up all the vain desires of the flesh. Is this a time to buy olive-yards and vineyards? Beware lest there cöame upon you as it did to him wot purchaised a field, the reward of inquiety, and falling headlong he bust asunder in the midst and his bowels goshed out----" But Reuben had found his voice. "Git out of this!" he shouted. "I wöan't stand here and listen to you miscalling the farm wot's bred you and fed you over thirty year. Git out, and never think you'll come back again. I'm shut of you. I döan't want no more of you--I'm out of the wood now, I've got all the work out of you I've needed, so you can go, and spread your hemmed Word, and be hemmed. I'm shut of you."