LY PREACHERS"

CHAPTER XIII.

VARIOUS WAYS OUT OF DIFFICULTIES

CHAPTER XIV.

ABE'S TITLES AND TROUBLES

CHAPTER XV.

A BASKET OF FRAGMENTS

CHAPTER XVI.

"I AM A WONDER UNTO MANY"

CHAPTER XVII.

ABE AS A CLASS LEADER

CHAPTER XVIII.

"WORKING OVERTIME"

CHAPTER XIX

METHODIST LOVEFEAST

CHAPTER XX.

PATIENT IN TRIBULATION

CHAPTER XXI.

"THE LIBERAL DEVISETH LIBERAL THINGS"

CHAPTER XXII.

USED UP

CHAPTER XXIII.

"BETTER IS THE END OF A THING THAN THE BEGINNING"

CHAPTER I.

Birth and Parentage.

Abraham Lockwood was born on the 3rd November, 1792. His birthplace,
also called Lockwood, is situated about a mile and half out of
Huddersfield.

It makes no pretensions to importance in any way. The only public
building which it boasts, is the Mechanics' Institute, a structure of
moderate size, yet substantially built. Its one main street is lined
with some very excellent shops, some of whose owners, report says, have
made a nice little competency there. It still boasts a toll-bar of its
own, which is guarded on either side by two white wooden posts, that
take the liberty of preventing all cattle, horses, and asses from
evading the gate, and of unceremoniously squeezing into the narrowest
limits every person who prefers pavement to the highroad. Lockwood is
also important enough to receive the attention of two or three 'buses
which ply to and fro between there and Huddersfield, as well as to have
the honour of a railway station on the L. and Y. line. Of course years
ago, when Abraham Lockwood was brought into the world, this locality
was not so attractive as it now is; only a few cottages straggled along
the level or up the hill towards Berry Brow, mostly inhabited by
weavers and others employed in the cloth manufacture of the
neighbourhood. Among these humble cottages there stood, on what is
known as the Scarr, one even more unpretentious than the rest: it
boasted only one story and two or three rooms in all; it was what Abe
used to call a "one-decker."

In this little hut dwelt the parents of Abe Lockwood; the fact of their
residing in such a humble home, shows sufficiently that they were poor,
perhaps poorer than their neighbours. However, in that same
single-storied cot in Lockwood, Abe Lockwood was born, a Lockwoodite by
double right, and though age has seriously told upon its appearance, it
stands to this day. We sometimes see little old