Well, that's how Sally
and her mates looked on week-a-days, and that's how they behaved: but
you must understand that, though rough, they were respectable; the
most of them Wesleyan Methodists; and on Sundays they'd put on bonnet
and sit in chapel, and drink their tea afterwards and pick their
neighbours to pieces just like ordinary Christians. Sal herself was
a converted woman, and greatly exercised for years about her
husband's condition, that kept a tailor's shop halfway down Fore
Street and scoffed at the word of Grace; though he attended public
worship, partly to please his customers and partly because his wife
wouldn't let him off.
The way the fun started was this. In June month of the year 'five
(that's the date my mother always gave) the Wesleyans up at the
London Foundry sent a man down to preach a revival through Cornwall,
starting with Saltash. He had never crossed the Tamar before, but
had lived the most of his life near Wolverhampton--a bustious little
man, with a round belly and a bald head and high sense of his own
importance. He arrived on a Saturday night, and attended service
next morning, but not to take part in it: he "wished to look round,"
he said.
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