The wilder spirits soon nicknamed Thomas and his friends the Saints, and he himself went by the sobriquet of Methody Tom; but, though jeered at and sometimes cursed by the wilder sort, their influence spread, and radical views of society were canvassed among these navvies with a freedom that would have made parson and squire alike shiver with horror had they known. But they did not know. How could they? Such creatures as navvies were not, strictly speaking, human at all. They lived beyond the pale, like the Irish ancestors of many among them, and were essentially of the nature of wild beasts, for whom the policeman's baton or the soldier's musket was the only available moral force. No parson ever looked near that community of busy workers, whose strong backed labour was swiftly altering the physical conditions of modern civilisation, and calling a new world into being for squire and trader alike. Nay, I am wrong. Thomas informed me that a parson did go astray among the workmen in the cutting of which he had charge. A poor, deluded young curate came round once distributing tracts. The fervour of a yesterday's ordination was upon him, and shone in the rigorous cut of his garments. He thought he might do the navvies good by the sight of him, and bless them with his tracts. But his visit was a failure, and his reception rough. Thomas declared that he felt sorry for the poor fellow, and yet could not refrain from joining in the laugh at his expense. One sturdy northerner, to whom he handed a tract, protested loudly that he "hadn't done nothing to be summonsed for," and when the curate blandly explained that it was a tract, he blessed his stars, and swore that he "took the chap for one of the new peelers." Another was of an opinion that "the parson had a mighty easy job of it," and suggested his taking a turn at the pick; while one more blasphemous than the rest, declared that he didn't know who the Lord Jesus might be, and didn't care; but, in his opinion, it was d----d impudent of him to send any of his flunkeys down their way "a spyin' and a pryin'." They chaffed the poor man about his clothes; begged a yard or two of the tail of his coat to mend their Sunday breeches with; explained how much better he could walk in a short jacket; wanted to know why he wore a white choker--and altogether made such a fool of the poor wretch that he soon turned and fled, amid their jeers and laughter.