"Don't you, sir"--he said, addressing Barron with a threatening finger--"don't you come here, telling us what to think about the man we've known for twenty years in this parish! The people that don't know Richard Meynell may believe these things if they please--it'll be the worse for them! But we've seen this man comforting and uplifting our old people in their last hours--we've seen him teaching our children--and giving just a kind funny word now an' again to keep a boy or a girl straight--aye, an' he did it too--they knew he had his eye on 'em! We've seen him go down these pits, when only a handful would risk their lives with him, to help them as was perhaps past hope. We've seen him skin himself to the bone that other men might have plenty--we've heard him Sunday after Sunday. We _know_ him!" The speaker brought one massive hand down on the other with an emphasis that shook the room. "Don't you go talking to us! If Richard Meynell won't go to law with you and the likes of you, sir, he's got his reasons, and his good ones, I'll be bound. And don't you, my friends"--he turned to the room--"don't you be turned back from this furrow you've begun to plough. You stick to your man! If you don't, you're fools, aye, and ungrateful fools too! You know well enough that Albert Beswick isn't a parson's man! You know that I don't hold with Mr. Meynell in many of his views. There's his views about 'election,' and the like o' that--quite wrong, in my 'umble opinion. But what does that matter? You know that I never set foot in Upcote Church till three years ago--that bishops and ceremonies are nought to me--that I came to God, as many of you did, by the Bible class and the penitent form. But I declare to you that Richard Meynell, and the men with him, are _out for a big thing!_ They're out for breaking down barriers and letting in light. They're out for bringing Christian men together and letting them worship freely in the old churches that our fathers built. They're out for giving men and women new thoughts about God and Christ, and for letting them put them into new words, if they want to. Well, I say again, it's _a big thing_! And Satan's out, too, for stopping it! Don't you make any mistake about it! This bad business--of these libels that are about--is one of the obstacles in our race he'll trip us up on, if he can. Now I put it to you--let us clear it out o' the way this very night, as far as we're concerned! Let us send the Rector such a vote of confidence from this meeting as'll show him fast enough where he stands in Upcote--aye, and show others too! And as for these vile letters that are going round--I'd give my right hand to know the man who wrote them!--and the story that you, sir"--he pointed again to Barron--"say you took from poor Judith Sabin when her mind was clouded and she near her end--why, it's base minds that harbour base thoughts about their betters! He shall be no friend of mine--that I know--that spreads these tales. Friends and