Rowdy Bill, be it known, was famous as a gouger, and so expert was he in his antioptical vocation, that in a few moments he usually bored out an antagonist's eyes, or made him cry _peccavi_. Indeed, could he, on the present occasion, have laid hold of his unseen foe's head--spiritually we mean--he would--figuratively, of course--soon have caused him to ease off or let go entirely his metaphorical grip. So, however, thought one friend in the assembly--Bill's wife. For Bill was a man after her own heart; and she often said that "with fair play she sentimentally allowed her Bill could lick ary a man in the 'varsal world, and his weight in wild cats to boot." Hence, the kind-hearted creature, hearing that Bill was actually fighting with the evil one, had pressed in from the outskirts to see fair play; but now hearing Bill was in reality down, and apparently undermost, and above all, the words of the Superintendent, declaring that the fiend had a tight grip of the poor fellow, her excitement would no longer be controlled; and, collecting her vocal energies, she screamed out her common exhortation to Bill, and which, when heeded, had heretofore secured him immediate victories--"Gouge him, Billy!--gouge him, _Billy!--gouge_ him!" This spirited exclamation was instantly shouted by Bill's cronies and partizans--mischievously, _maybe_, for we have no right to judge of men's motives, in meetings:--but a few--_friends_, doubtless, of the old fellow--cried out in very irreverent tone--"Bite him! devil--_bite_ him!" Upon which the faithful wife, in a tone of voice that beggars description, reiterated her--"Gouge him," etc.--in which she was again joined by her husband's allies, and that to the alarm of his invisible foe; for Bill now rose to his knees, and on uttering some mystic jargon symptomatic of conversion, he was said to have "got religion";--and then all his new friends and spiritual guides united in fresh prayers and shouts of thanksgiving. It was now very late at night; and joining a few other citizens of Woodville, we were soon in our saddles and buried in the darkness of the forest. For a long time, however, the uproar of the spiritual elements at the camp continued at intervals to swell and diminish on the hearing; and, often came a yell that rose far above the united din of other screams and outcries. Nay, at the distance of nearly two miles, could be distinguished a remarkable and sonorous _oh_!--like the faintly heard explosion of a mighty elocutional class, practising under a master. And yet my comrades, who had heard this peculiar cry more than once, all declared that this wonderful _oh_-ing was performed by the separate voice of our townsman, Eolus Letherlung, Esq.! CONCLUSION A camp-meeting of _this sort_ is, all things considered, the very best contrivance for making the largest number of converts in the shortest possible time; and also for enlarging most speedily the bounds of a Church _Visible_ and _Militant_.