Now, a neighbouring reverend brother of his, the fox-hunting shepherd of Willingham, was also very grievously pestered with these energetic heretics,--and he had resorted to the ancient evangelical custom of thundering forth anathemas against them from his pulpit: but that only seemed to render the pestiferous teachers more successful,--so the Perpetual Curate of Stow resolved to exert the whole power of his wit in discovering some effectual way of doing, what his zealous and pious brother of Willingham could not do,--driving out heresy, and subduing the rebellious spirit of his flock. So to work the Perpetual Curate went with his wit, and a profound mine he wrought: such a mine as would, no doubt, have blown up heresy for ever in his parish, had he ever been able to put the match to it: so profound, that, since his scheme was frustrated, no one has ever been able to fathom it, and, therefore, _nobody_ can tell _anybody_ what it really was. But how was it that a scheme so profound, so workmanlike, so masterly, did not succeed? Alas! how often in this frail humanity of ours do the most exalted enterprises fail, yea, often by the unexpected resistance of the very instruments on which we think we can most unerringly and safely depend! And thus it was with the great Perpetual Curate: he was most magnanimously bent on subduing revolt and heresy, when, lo! even Sir Amen, his clerk, lifted up his heel against him! Now this was a notable event of a very auspicious character for the revolters. Clerk William Middleton was no ordinary clerk. Gervase Middleton, his father, had been clerk before him. Clerk William Middleton had, therefore, an important hereditary stamp upon him. And then, he was a _schollard_, as the old women called it, and was so gentle, that he was never known to hurt a worm; so moral, that he was never seen drunk in his life; so religious, that he never used a stronger oath than "Marry good faith!" and "By'r Lady!" (old oaths of popish times that are not yet lost in old Lincolnshire); and so upright, that he would not deny his conscience, even for the parson! This was no ordinary auxiliary on the side of the enemy; and there was no wonder that it put the Perpetual Curate, for a while, to his wit's end, to hear the reports which were brought to him by one Spurr (who was spurred on by his own inward aims to reach Sir Amen's office), of the stout and unflinching and open assertions made in the streets of Stow, by Clerk William Middleton, that the Methodists had as much right to preach as the parson! It was heresy he did not expect from such a quarter; but he was resolved he would be even with this member of the revolt, however; so he played a master-stroke so suddenly, that it shook the whole parish like an earthquake: he actually _un_-clerked Clerk William Middleton, the son of Clerk Gervase, the old, learned, hereditary, gentle, moral, upright, pious, and religious parish-clerk!!!