With all Tim Swallow-whistle's shrewdness, he was perfectly free from craft. The thoughts created in his mind by this conversation with the travelling tinker naturally found their way, now and then, into his exchanges of opinion with his customers. Prim the Puritan was not slow in learning this: in fact, his evil nature had plotted Tim's destruction from the moment that he overheard the conversation between Tim and the tinker. Spies were sent to draw the tailor out; and, eventually, poor Tim was set down in the day-book of every influential man in Horncastle as a "dangerous and seditious fellow." From that day, poor Tim Swallow-whistle's business began to decline. The trial was a bitter one to Tim; for his aged grandmother sank to the grave, beholding the clouds of adversity gather around her grandchild's dwelling; but, in the serenity of death, steadfastly directed her weeping descendant to trust in uprightness, and it would be his comfort. Then his mother sickened and died,—yielding, after a hard struggle, to the Last Enemy, but expiring with an exultant smile, after assuring her child that her own greatest consolation was that she had been dutiful to her mother, and she was confident he would yet see bright days as the reward of his spotless filial piety. In vain Tim asked for parochial relief in the hour of his sore straitness, when his wife's health failed with the labour of waiting upon her sick relatives, and when Tim's earnings dwindled to a starving pittance by reason of his being compelled to wait upon those around him that could not help themselves. Prim held the purse-strings of the parish tight. Tim fasted often when his neighbours fed, and fed well: but he never despaired. "Every dog has his day," he still thought, but refrained from saying much, and still battled with thoughts that would have unmanned him. Tim was repeating to himself his old adage one afternoon, about six months after his mother's death, when the clergyman of the parish entered his cottage, and, to Tim's indescribable surprise, desired Tim to take the measure of him for a new suit! Now the fact was, that the clergyman was, necessarily, more than once in Tim's dwelling during the successive illnesses of his grandmother and mother; and, although prejudiced against the tailor, from the reports circulated to his detriment, yet he was too sensible a man not to use his opportunities of scrutinising Tim's real character, and too much a gentleman, in the best sense of the word, to permit a poor but worthy man to suffer if his own help could avail to relieve him. The clergyman saw that Tim wore his heart too much on the outside of his waistcoat to be a rogue; and the clergyman determined to help Tim by his patronage and his "good word."