“What’s Bethesda?” I had, I am sorry to say, to ask. “A blessed watering-place,” he said--“I’m humbly surprised, sir; like as parson calc’lates _to_ make of this here, if the Almighty will condescend to convart our former wickedness _to_ our profit.” “Were you wicked?” “Bad, bad!” He answered, setting his lips, and shaking his head. “A nest of smugglers _and_ forswearers, till He set His hand on us.” “Mr. Rampick! How?” “It tuk the form of an ’arthquake,” he said, with a little cough. I jumped, and ejaculated: “O! Where?” “Yonder, in the Mitre,” he said, waving his hand towards the hidden bluff. “It’ll be fower months ago, won’t it, _as_ they run their last contraband to ground _in_ the belly of that there hill. A cave, _it_ was supposed, sir; but few knew for sarten, and none will ever know now till the day _when_ the Lord ‘shall judge the secrets of men.’ There was a way in, _as_ believed, known only to the few; and one night, _as_ believed, them few entered by it, each man with his brace o’ runlets--_and they never come out agen_!” I gasped and knotted my fingers together. It did not occur to my innocence to question the source of his knowledge, or conjecture. “Why?” I whispered. “Why?” he echoed in a sort of asthmatic fury. “Why, sir, because it was a full cargo, and their iniquity according; and so the Lord He spoke, _and_ the hill it closed upon ’em. In the dark, when we was all abed, there come a roaring wind _from_ underground what turned our hearts to water; and in the morning when we gathered to look, there was the hill twisted _like_ a dead face out of knowledge, and the Abbey--two-thirds of what was left--scrattled abroad.” I could only stare up at him, breathing quick in face of this wonderful romance. It had, I knew, been a year strangely prolific in earth-shocks. “Yes, sir,” he said soberly; “_if_ all what’s believed is Gospel true, there at this moment lays those poor sinners, bedded like flints in chalk--_and_ the hill fair reeking with Nantes brandy.” He groaned hoarsely. “Hallerloojer! It was a sign _and_ a warning. The shock of it carried off th’ old vicar, and in a week or two arter Mr. Sant he come _to_ take his place. He found us a sober’d people, Hallerloojer! and soil meet _fur_ the Lord’s planting. You be the fust fruits, sir; and we favourably hope _as_ when you go away you’ll recommend us.”