“Why should that man he treated different from the rest of us; tell me that,” came the voice of a man who had been watching them, and now stepped hastily forward. Wesley saw that he was Bennet. “Is there a man in the village who doesn't know that 'tis John Wesley and his friends that has brought this visitation upon us? Was there anything like to this before he came with his new-fangled preaching, drawing down the wrath of Heaven upon such as have been fool enough to join themselves to him? Was there any of you, men, that thought with trembling limbs and sweating foreheads of the Day of Judgment until John Wesley turned the head of that poor man Pritchard, and made him blaspheme, wrapping himself in Wesley's old cloak, and telling you that'twas the mantle of a prophet?” Nelly had risen to her feet before his last sentence was spoken, but a moment afterward she sprang to one side with a cry. She was just in time to avoid the charge of a man on horseback. But Bennet was not so fortunate. Before he was aware of a danger threatening him, he felt himself carried off his feet, a strong man's hands grasping the collars of his coat, so that he was swung off the ground, dangling and scrawling like a puppet. Down the horse sprang into the water, until it was surging over the pommel of the saddle. Then, and only then, the rider loosed his hold, reining in his horse with one hand, while with the other he flung the man headforemost a couple of yards farther into the waves. “The hound! the hound! that will cool his ardour!” cried Parson Rodney, backing his horse out of the water, while the people above him roared, and the man, coming to the surface like a grampus, struck out for a part of the beach most remote from the place where he had stood. Wesley was on his feet and had already taken a step or two down the shingle, for Parson Rodney's attitude suggested his intention of preventing the man from landing, when he saw that Bennet was a strong swimmer, and that he, too, had put the same interpretation upon the rider's raising of his hunting crop. “Sir,” said Parson Rodney, bringing his dripping horse beside him, “I grieve that any man in my parish should put such an affront upon you. Only so gross a wretch would have done so. Thank Heaven the fellow is not of Porthawn, nor a Cornishman at all. If you do not think that my simple rebuke has been enough, I am a Justice, and I promise you to send him to gaol for a month at next session.” “Sir, you mean well by me,” said Wesley; “but I would not that any human being were placed in jeopardy of his life on my account.” “That is because you are overgentle, sir,” said Rodney. “Thank Heaven, my fault does not lie in that direction.” “Repent, repent, repent, while there is yet time In a few more hours Time shall be no more!” came a loud voice from the high ground above the bank.