“So us went in, and they set to to pray: fust won and then another was called upon to pray. ’sister, you pray.’ ‘Brother Rhicher (Richard), you pray.’ So to last Rhicher Davey he beginned: ‘My old woman,’ sez he, ’she’s hoffal bad in her temper, and han’t got no saving grace in her, not so much as ye might put on the tail of a flea,’ sez he; ‘but we hopps for better things, and I prays for improvement,’ he went on; ‘and if improvement don’t come to her, why, improvement might come to me, by her bein’ taken where the wicked cease from troubling, and so leave weary me at rest.’ Then I began to laugh; but Long Bill he ketched me up and roared, ‘Pray like blazes, Nanny Gilbert, do’y!’ So I kep my eye fixed to her, and luked at her hard and steadfast, I did, for I knew what the latter hupshot would be with her; and her beginned, ‘We worms of hearth!’ and there her ended. So we waited a bit; and then Bill Martin says, ’squeedge it hout, Nanny, squeedge it hout!’ But it were all no good. Never another word could she utter, though I saw she was as red as a beet-root with tryin’ to pray. She groaned, but no words. Then out comed old Bill—Long Bill us called ’un, but Bill Martin was his rightful name—‘Let us pray, my friends,’ he sez. ‘Honly believe,’ he sez. ‘Drive the devil,’ he roars. ‘There he is! There he is!’ he sez. ‘Do’y not see ’un! Do’y not smell ’un?’—‘It’s the cabbidge,’ sez Nanny Gilbert; ‘there’s some, and turnips tu, and a bit of bacon, biling in the pot over the turves.’ For her was a little put out at not being able to pray. It was her cottage in which the prayer-meeting was being held, yu know. Well, Long Bill didn’t stomach the cabbidge, so he roars louder than afore, ‘FAITH! my friends; have _faith!_ and then yu can see and smell the devil.’—‘If it’s the cabbidge yu mean,’ sez Nanny, ‘I can smell ’un by my nat’ral faculties.’—‘There’s the devil!’ shouts Bill Martin, growing excited. ‘Ugh! drive the hold devil! Faith! my friends, have faith, hellshaking faith, conquering faith, devil-driving faith, a damned lot of faith!’ And then he roars, ‘There he is! I can zee ’un afluttering hover your heads, ye sinners, just like my hands afluttering over the cann’l!’ “So I titched her as was next me, and I sez: ‘Where is ’un? I doan’t see ’un, d’yu?’—‘Yer han’t got faith,’ sez she. ‘But I can feel ’un just as if he was acrigglin’ and acrawlin’ in my head where the partin’ is.’ “Well, just then—and I am sure I can’t tell yu whether it happened afore Bill Martin speaked, or after—but he roars out, ‘I see ’un! he’s flown up the chimley!’ And just then—as I sed, I cannot say whether it was afore he speaked or after—down came a pailful of soot right into the midst of old Nanny’s pot of cabbage and turnips.