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His voice had fallen for the last words. After a dramatic silence, he finished, in a whisper almost, and with eyebrows raised and staring gaze directed straight at the vast woman in yellow: “We are such stuff as drames are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep. May God have mercy on us. Hymn 442.”

The effect was terrific. Men sighed and women wept, in relief that the strain was past. Jock was an orator; he wielded the orator’s dominion. Well he knew, and well they all knew, that not a professional preacher in the Five Towns could play on a congregation as he did. For when Jock was roused you could nigh see the waves of emotion sweeping across the upturned faces of his hearers like waves across a wheatfield on a windy day.

And this morning he had been roused.

VI

But in the vestry after the service he met enemies, in the shape and flesh of the chapel-steward and the circuit-steward, Mr Brett and Mr Hanks respectively. Both these important officials were local preachers, but, unfortunately, their godliness did not protect them against the ravages of jealousy. Neither of them could stir a congregation, nor even fill a country chapel.

“Brother Smith,” said Jabez Hanks, shutting the door of the vestry. He was a tall man with a long, greyish beard and no moustache. “Brother Smith, it is borne in upon me and my brother here to ask ye a question.”

“Ask!” said Jock.

“Were them yer own words–about cloud-capped towers and baseless fabrics and the like? I ask ye civilly.”

“And I answer ye civilly, they were,” replied Jock.

“Because I have here,” said Jabez Hanks, maliciously, “Dod’s Beauties o’ Shakspere, where I find them very same words, taken from a stage-play called The Tempest.”

Jock went a little pale as Jabez Hanks opened the book.

“They may be Shakspere’s words too,” said Jock, lightly.

“A fortnight ago, at Moorthorne Chapel, I suspected it,” said Jabez.

“Suspected what?”

“Suspected ye o’ quoting Shakspere in our pulpits.”

“And cannot a man quote in a sermon? Why, Jabez Hanks, I’ve heard ye quote Matthew Henry by the fathom.”

“Ye’ve never heard me quote a stage-play in a pulpit, Brother Smith,” said Jabez Hanks, majestically. “And as long as I’m chapel-steward it wunna’ be tolerated in this chapel.”

“Wunna it?” Jock put in defiantly.

“It’s a defiling of the Lord’s temple; that’s what it is!” Jabez Hanks continued. “Ye make out as ye’re against stage-plays at the Fair, and yet ye come here and mouth ’em in a Christian pulpit. You agen stage-plays! Weren’t ye seen talking by the hour to one o’ them trulls, Friday night–? And weren’t ye seen peeping through th’ canvas last night? And now–“

“Now what?” Jock inquired, approaching Jabez on his springy toes, and looking up at Jabez’s great height.

Jabez took breath. “Now ye bring yer fancy women into the House o’ God! You–a servant o’ Christ, you–“

Jock-at-a-Venture interrupted the sentence with his daring fist, which seemed to lift Jabez from the ground by his chin, and then to let him fall in a heap, as though his clothes had been a sack containing loose bones.

“A good-day to ye, Brother Brett,” said Jock, reaching for his hat, and departing with a slam of the vestry door.

He emerged at the back of the chapel and got by “back-entries” into Aboukir Street, up which he strolled with a fine show of tranquillity, as far as the corner of Trafalgar Road, where stood and stands the great Dragon Hotel. The congregations of several chapels were dispersing slowly round about this famous corner, and Jock had to salute several of his own audience. Then suddenly he saw Mrs Clowes and her four children enter the tap-room door of the Dragon.

He hesitated one second and followed the variegated flotilla and its convoy.

The tap-room was fairly full of both sexes. But among them Jock and Mrs Clowes and her children were the only persons who had been to church or chapel.