of which it was made up, and his criticism on these was often just. He
never could be persuaded to enter either church or chapel. Of the
arguments for Christianity, of the undesigned coincidences in the
Bible, of the evidence from prophecy, of the metaphysical necessity for
an incarnation and atonement, he knew nothing, and it was a marvel to
all respectable young persons how Fitchew, whose ignorance would
disgrace a charity child, and who did not know that the world was
round, or the date of the battle of Hastings, should set himself up
against those who were so superior to him.

"What should we say," observed the superintendent of the Dissenting
Sunday-school one day to one of his classes, having Fitchew in his
mind, "of a man who, if he was on a voyage in a ship commanded by a
captain with a knowledge of navigation, should refuse in a storm to
obey orders, affirming that they were all of no use, and should betake
himself to his own little raft?"

Curiously enough, the Sunday before, the vicar, having the Dissenter in
his mind, had said just the same of "unlettered schismatics," as he
called them.

Fitchew always had one argument for those friends who strove to convert
him. "I don't see as them that goes to church are any better than them
as don't. What's he know about it?" meaning the parson or the
minister, as the case might be.

Fitchew was very rough and coarse, and rather grasping in his dealings
with those who employed him, not so much because he was naturally mean,
but because he was always determined that well-dressed folk should not
"put on him." Nevertheless, he was in his way sympathetic and even
tender, particularly to those persons who suffered as he did, for he
was afflicted with a kind of nervous dyspepsia, not infrequent even
amongst the poor, and it kept him awake at night and gave him the
"horrors."

"Well, Fitchew, are you any better?" said Miriam.

"Bad just now. Ain't had no regular sleep for a fortnight. Last night
it was awful. I kicked about and sat up; the noise in my ears was
something, I can tell you; and then the wind in me! It's my belief
that that there noise in my ears is the wind a coming out through them.
I couldn't stand it any longer, and I got up and walked up and down the
road. Would you believe it, the missus never stirred; there she lay
like a stone, and when I came in she says to me, 'Wot's the matter with
you?' That's just like her. She goes to bed, turns rou