bird; but the Lord sent it to me for a messenger, no less, that
night. And I shook like a reed in the water; and then, all at once
a thought struck me. "Why should I be a coward? Why should I be
afraid of shafts, or devils, or hell, or anything else? If I am a
miserable sinner, there's One died for me--I owe him love, not fear
at all. I'll not be frightened into doing right--that's a rascally
reason for repentance." And so it was, sir, that I rose up like a
man, and said to the Lord Jesus, right out into the black, dumb
air,--"If you'll be on my side this night, good Lord, that died for
me, I'll be on your side for ever, villain as I am, if I'm worth
making any use of." And there and then, sir, I saw a light come
over the bushes, brighter, and brighter, up to me; and there rose up
a voice within me, and spoke to me, quite soft and sweet,--"Fear
not, Paul, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles." And
what more happened I can't tell, for when I woke I was safe at home.
My father and his folk had been out with lanterns after me; and
there they found me, sure enough, in a dead faint on the ground.
But this I know, sir, that those words have never left my mind since
for a day together; and I know that they will be fulfilled in me
this tide, or never.'

Lancelot was silent a few minutes.

'I suppose, Tregarva, that you would call this your conversion?'

'I should call it one, sir, because it was one.'

'Tell me now, honestly, did any real, practical change in your
behaviour take place after that night?'

'As much, sir, as if you put a soul into a hog, and told him that he
was a gentleman's son; and, if every time he remembered that, he got
spirit enough to conquer his hoggishness, and behave like a man,
till the hoggishness died out of him, and the manliness grew up and
bore fruit in him, more and more each day.'

Lancelot half understood him, and sighed.

A long silence followed, as they paced on past lonely farmyards,
from which the rich manure-water was draining across the road in
foul black streams, festering and steaming in the chill night air.
Lancelot sighed as he saw the fruitful materials of food running to
waste, and thought of the 'over-population' cry; and then he looked
across to the miles of brown moorland on the opposite side of the
valley, that lay idle and dreary under the autumn moon, except where
here and there a squatter's cottage and rood of frui