The Beaumonts had many questions to ask, and no one was better endowed with the quality of free communication than this kind-hearted dame. She accounted for the silence of the village and her own extraordinary bustle, by stating that it was exercise-day; a meeting of ministers had been at the godly work for eight hours; and she doubted not, after so long buffeting Satan, they would come away main hungry. "My poor Gaffer," said she, "always brings all he can to our house. They tell him a blessing comes upon all those who furnish a chamber for wayfaring prophets, and set on pottage for them; but for my part I see it not, and begin to wonder whether these are prophets or no. As for our Gaffer, he has left off drinking and quarrelling, to be sure, which Your Reverence had used to rate him for at times; but then he did look after the farm and the cattle, and saw things went right. But now he says, let the morrow take care for itself; so we have nothing but preaching, and praying, and pecking at other people, and telling of experiences and stumbling-blocks, and abusing those who don't hold all that we do; and all this while the ricks grow less and less every year. And then when any thing goes wrong in the house, they pop it into a sermon, not as Your Reverence did when you preached about the ten commandments, but a preachment of an hour about such frivolous things as set husbands a-scolding their wives for spoiling their dinner, or not mending their clothes; and our poor Gaffer is grown so cast down ever since Priggins told him he thought he was a reprobate, that he says it is a crying sin to look happy; so he keeps praying on till we have no time to practise."