On the whole, the news improved his chances of a congregation. It was a better advertisement than the notice on the church door, or even than his veterinary achievement at Egypt Farm. Some “wanted to see how he took it,” others openly admired his pluck; all were stirred by curiosity and also by compassion. During the years he had lived among them he had grown dear to them and rather contemptible. They looked down on him for his shabbiness, his poverty, his pastoral blundering, his lack of education; but they liked him for his willingness, his simplicity, his sturdy good looks, his strong muscles, his knowledge of cattle and horses. All that morning people wavered up the street towards the Horselunges, and looked at it, and at the Bethel. Sometimes they gathered together in little groups, but always some way off. The Bethel stared blindly over the roof of the Horselunges, as if it ignored the misery huddled at its doors. No matter what might be the private sorrows of its servant, he must come to-night and preach within its walls those iron doctrines of Doomsday and Damnation in whose honour it had been built and had stood staring over the fields with the blind eyes of a corpse for a hundred years. Towards noon Thyrza Beatup came up the street, walking briskly, with her weeds flapping behind her. It was the first time she had been out since her widowing, and people stared at her from their doors as she walked boldly up to Horselunges and knocked. “How is poor Mus’ Sumption?” she asked Mrs. Hubble. “Lamentaable, lamentaable,” said Mrs. Hubble, with eye and apron in conjunction. “Well, please tell him as Mrs. Tom Beatup sends her kind remembrances and sympathy, and she reckons she knows wot he feels, feeling the saum herself.” “Very good, Mrs. Beatup.” “And you’ll be sure and give it all wot I said—about feeling the saum myself?” “Oh, sartain.” Thyrza walked off. Her face was very white and wooden. Mrs. Hubble stared after her. “Middling pretty as golden-haired women look in them weeds.... Feels the saum as Mus’ Sumption, does she? That’s queer, seeing as Tom died lik Onward Christian Soldiers, and Jerry lik a dog. Howsumdever, I mun give her words ... maybe he’ll be fool enough to believe them.” The day was warm and misty, without much sun. The sky above the woods was yellowish, like milk, and the air smelt of rain. But the rain did not come till evening. Mr. Poullett-Smith’s congregation assembled dry, and nobody’s black was spoiled on the way home. In spite of this, the service was not thickly attended. The advertisement which Jerry Sumption’s death had given the Bethel made those who had time or inclination for only one church-going decide to put it off until the evening. Only a few assembled to hear the curate pray that the souls they commemorated—among which he was not afraid to include Jerry—might be brought by Saint Michael, the standard-bearer, into the holy light.