"Do 'ee want proof, then?" she answered eagerly, the odd see-saw of her voice becoming more and more accentuated in her excitement. "I tell 'ee ther's as many proofs as pilchards in the say. Ever since the Lard died--ah! 'twas a bitter nailing, a bitter nailing, my dear!"--she paused, almost with tears in her voice, and the whole atmosphere of the little compartment seemed to Basil to be irradiated, glorified by the shining faith of the old dame--"ever since that time the proofs have been going on. Now I'll tell 'ee as some as I've see'd, my son. Samson Trevorrow to Carbis water married my sister, May Rosewarne, forty years ago. He would drink something terrible bad, and swear like a foreigner. He'd a half-share in a trawler, three cottages, and money in the bank. First his money went, then his cottages, and he led a life of sin and brawling. He were a bad man, my dear. Every one were at 'un for an ongodly wastrel, but 'a kept on. An' the Lard gave him no children; May could not make a child to him, for she were onfruitful, but he would not change. All that folk with sense could do was done, but 't were no use." "Well, I know the sort of man," said the workman, with conviction. His interest was roused, that unfailing interest which the poorer classes take in each other's family history. "Then you do know that nothing won't turn them from their evil ways?" "When a chap gets the drink in him like that," replied the artisan, "there's no power that will take him from it. He'd go through sheet iron for it." "And so would Samson Trevorrow, my dear," she continued. "One night he came home from Penzance market, market-peart, as the saying is, drunk if you will. My sister said something to 'un, what 't was I couldn't say, but he struck her, for the first time. Next morning was the Sunday, and when she told him of what he'd done overnight, he was shamed of himself, and she got him to come along with her to chapel. 'T was a minister from Bodmin as prached, and 'ee did prache the Lard at Sam until the Word got hold on 'un and the man shook with repentance at his naughty life. He did kneel down before them all and prayed for forgiveness, and for the Lard to help 'un to lead a new life. From that Sabbath till he died, many years after, Sam never took anything of liquor, he stopped his sweering and carrying on, and he lived as a good man should. And in a year the Lard sent 'un a son, and if God wills I shall see the boy this afternoon, for he's to meet the train. There now, my son, that be gospel truth what I tell 'ee. After that can you expect any one with a grain of sense to listen to such foolish truck as you do tell? The Lard did that for Samson Trevorrow, changed 'un from black to white, 'a did. If the Queen herself were to tell me that the Lard Jesus wasn't He, I wouldn't believe her."