"And he would not stop," he repeated over and over again almost in hysterics, when the total-abstinence hose of his wrath had been turned on Dick until every reservoir of abuse was exhausted. "I signed to him; I spoke to him. You saw me speak to him, Minna, and he would not stop."

Hester experienced that sudden emotion which may result either in tears or laughter at the cruel anguish brought upon her brother by the momentary experience of what he so ruthlessly inflicted.

"He talked me down," said Mr. Gresley, his voice shaking. "He opposed me in my own school-room. Of course, I blame myself for asking him to speak. I ought to have inquired into his principles more thoroughly, but he took me in entirely by saying one thing in this room and the exact opposite on the platform."

"I thought his views were the same in both places," said Hester, "and, at the time, I admired you for asking him to speak, considering he is a vine-grower."

"A what?" almost shrieked Mr. Gresley.

"A vine-grower. Surely you know he has one of the largest vineyards in South Australia?"

For a moment Mr. Gresley was bereft of speech.

"And you knew this and kept silence," he said at last, while Mrs. Gresley looked reproachfully, but without surprise, at her sister-in-law.

"Certainly. What was there to speak about? I thought you knew."

"I never heard it till this instant. That quite accounts for his views. He wants to push his own wines. Of course, drunkenness is working for his interests. I understand it all now. He has undone the work of years by that speech for the sake of booking a few orders. It is contemptible. I trust, Hester, he is not a particular friend of yours, for I shall feel it my duty to speak very strongly to him if he comes again."

But Dick did not appear again. He was off and away before the terrors of the Church could be brought to bear on him.

But his memory remained green at Warpington.

"They do say," said Abel to Hester a few days later, planting his spade on the ground, and slowly scraping off upon it the clay from his nailed boots, "as that Muster Vernon gave 'em a dusting in the school-yard as they won't forget in a hurry. He said he could not speak out before the women folk, but he was noways nesh to pick his words onst he was outside. Barnes said as his tongue 'ud 'ave raised blisters on a hedge stake. But he had a way with him for all that. There was a deal of talk about him at market last Wednesday, and Jones and Peg is just silly to go back to Australy with 'im. I ain't sure," continued Abel, closing the conversation by a vigorous thrust of his spade into the earth, "as one of the things that fetched 'em all most wasn't his saying that since he's been in a hot climate he knowed what it was to be tempted himself when he was a bit down on his luck or a bit up. Pratts would never have owned to that." The village always spoke of Mr. Pratt in the plural without a prefix. "I've been to a sight of temperance meetings, because," with indulgence, "master likes it, tho' I always has my glass, as is natural. But I never heard one of the speakers kind of settle to it like that. That's what the folks say; that for all he was a born gentleman he spoke to 'em as man to man, not as if we was servants or childer."