Wesley could not, of course, know that Pritchard was at that time in the Mill awaiting his arrival. But it was the case that the water-finder, learning that the coming of Mr. Wesley was looked for during the afternoon, had gone to the Mill early and had rejected the suggestion made by the blacksmith and Jake Pullsford, that he should not appear in the presence of Mr. Wesley until he was sent for. He was almost indignant at the hint conveyed to him in an ambiguous way by Hal Holmes, that it would show better taste if he were to remain away for the time being.

“Take my word for 't, Dick, you'll be brought face to face with him soon enow,” said Hal. “You'll be wishful that you had ne'er been born or thought of. Mr. Wesley is meek, but he isn't weak, and 'tis the meek ones that's the hardest to answer when the time comes, and it always comes too soon. Before your Monday comes you'll be wishful to hide away and calling on the mountains to cover ye.”

“List to me, Hal; there's naught that will say nay to me when my mind is made up, and go to face Mr. Wesley I shall,” Dick had replied.

The blacksmith folded his big bare arms and looked at him with curiosity from head to foot.

“A change has come o'er a good many of us since Mr. Wesley began to preach, but what's all our changes alongside yours, Dick Pritchard?” he said, shaking his head as though he relinquished this task of solving the problem which had been suggested to him. “Why, you was used to fear and tremble at the thin noise of your own voice, Dick Pritchard. With these ears I have heard you make an apology for saying 'Thank ye,' on the score that you were too bold. But now you are for rushing headlong to meet the man that you scarce dare lift your hat to a month or two agone.”

“I hadn't learned then all that there's in me now, Hal,” replied the water-finder. “I always did despise myself, being unmindful that to despise myself was to do despite to Heaven. Doesn't it stand to reason, Hal, that the greater a man thinks himself, the greater is the honour he does to his Maker? I think twice as much of God since I came to see what a man He made in me.”

“That's a square apology for conceit, Dick, and I don't think aught the better of you for putting it forward at this time and in such a case as this. What, good fellow, would you be at the pains to magnify a man's righteousness pace for pace with his conceit? At that rate, the greater the coxcomb the more righteous the man.”

Dick was apparently lost in thought for some time. At last he shook his head gravely, saying:

“Not for all cases, Hal, not for all cases. You be a narrow-souled caviller, I doubt; you cannot comprehend an argyment that's like a crystal diamond, with as many sides to it as a middling ignorant man would fail to compute.”

“That may be, but I've handled many a lump of sea-coal that has shown as many sides as any diamond that was ever dug out of the earth, and it seems to me that your talk is more like the sea-coal than the crystal, Dick, my friend,” said the blacksmith. “Ay, your many-sided argyments are only fit to be thrust into the furnace, for all, their sides.”

“Mr. Wesley will comprehend,” said Pritchard doggedly; “though even Mr. Wesley might learn something from me. Ay, and in after years you will all be glad to remember that you once dwelt nigh a simple man by name Richard Pritchard.”

“In after years?” cried Hal Holmes. “Why, where are your after years to come from, if the end of all things is to be on us on Monday?”

“Don't you doubt but that 'twill come to an end on Monday,” said the water-finder, “however you may twist and turn. Be sure that you be prepared, Hal Holmes. You have been a vain-living blacksmith, I am feared, and now you side with them that would persecute the prophets. Prepare yourself, Hal, prepare yourself.”

This was the style in which the man had been talking for some time, astonishing everyone who had known his extreme modesty in the past; and this was the strain in which he talked when he had entered the Mill, and found the miller, Jake Pulls-ford and Mr. Hartwell seated together awaiting the arrival of Wesley.

The man's entrance at this time surprised them. They knew he was aware that Mr. Wesley was returning in haste, owing solely to his, Pritchard's, having put himself forward in a way that his brethren could not sanction, and it never occurred to them that he would wish to meet Mr. Wesley at this time. They were, as was Hal Holmes, under the impression that when Wesley arrived Pritchard's former character might show itself once more, causing him to avoid even the possibility of meeting the preacher face to face.

They were soon undeceived. The water-finder was in no way nervous when he came among them.

When he had in some measure recovered from his surprise, the miller said: “We looked not for thy coming so soon, Dick, but maybe 'tis as well that thou 'rt here.”

“How could I be away from here unless I had hastened to meet Mr. Wesley on his way hither?” said Pritchard. “I have been trembling with desire to have his ear for the past week. It is laid on me to exhort him on some matters that he neglected. These matters can be neglected no longer.”

The miller looked at Jake Pullsford, and the latter sat aghast. He was so astounded that he could only stare at Pritchard, with his hands on his knees and his head in its usual poise, craning forward. Some moments had passed before he succeeded in gasping out, after one or two false starts:

“You—you—you—Dick Pritchard—you talk of exhorting Mr. Wesley? Oh, poor fellow! poor fellow! Now, indeed, we know that you are mad!”

“Mr. Wesley should ha' found out the gift that is mine,” said Pritchard, quite ignoring the somewhat frank utterance of the carrier. “I suspected myself during several months of having that great gift of prophecy.'Twas no more than a suspicion for some time, and I dare not speak before I was sure.”

“And what made thee sure, Dick?” asked the miller.

“'Twas reading how the great prophet, Moses, made water flow from the rock,” replied Pritchard. “'What,' said I to my own self. 'What, Richard Pritchard, hath not all thy life been spent in performing that great miracle of Moses, and hast not known the greatness of thy gift?' And then I made search and found that water-finding has been the employment of most of the great prophets, Elijah being the foremost. Like to a flash from a far-off cannon gun, that reaches the eyes before ever the sound of the boom comes upon the ear, the truth was revealed to me. I knew then that the gift of the Tishbite was mine.”

It was Jake Pullsford who now looked at the miller. The miller shook his head.

“'Twould not matter much what you thought of yourself, Dick,” said the miller, “if only you had not been admitted to our fellowship; but things being as they be—-”

He shook his head again.

“What overcomes me is the thought of thy former habit of life, Dick,” said the carrier. “Why, up to a month agone, a man more modest, shy and tame speaking, wasn't to be found in all the West Country. Why, man, I've seen thee sweat at the sound of thine own voice, like as if thou hadst been a thief a-hearing o' the step of an officer! Meek! Meek is no name for it! I give thee my word that it oft made me think shame of all manhood in the world to hear thee make apology for a plain truth that, after all, thou wast too bashful to utter!”

“You could not see my heart, Miller,” said Pritchard. “'Twas only that I was humble in voice; I know now that in spirit I was puffed up with pride, so that I could hardly contain myself. But even after the truth came upon me in that flash, I was ready to treat the likes of you, Miller—ay, even the likes of thee, Jake Pullsford, as mine equal, so affable a heart had I by birth.”

“You promoted yourself a bit, Dick,” remarked the miller. “But I've always observed that when a man tells another in that affable way that he regards the other as his equal, he fancies in the inwardness of his heart, that he is far above the one he gives such an assurance to.”

“I feel a sort of light of knowledge within me ready to break forth and tell me a wonderful reply to that remark of yours, Miller,” said Pritchard. “Tarry a while, and give me time for the light to-break forth with fulness, and you'll be rewarded; friends, you will hear a reply that will make you all stand back in amaze, and marvel, as I have done, how noble a thing is the gift of speech—saying a phrase or two that makes the flesh of man tingle. All I ask is time. It may not come to me within the hour, but——”

“Here's one that hath come to thee, my man, and he will listen to all you have to say: I hear the sound of his horse on the lane,” cried the miller.

Jake Pullsford sprang from the settle, and strained himself to look out of the window.

“Right; 'tis Mr. Wesley, in very deed,” he said.

“That's as should be,” cried Pritchard, with an air of satisfaction that made the others feel the more astonished.

And when Wesley had entered and greeted his-friends, including the water-finder, they were a good deal more astonished at the attitude taken by Pritchard. Without wasting time over preliminaries, he assumed that Wesley had come to the Mill in order not to admonish him, but to be admonished by him. Before Mr. Wesley had time to say more than a word, Pritchard had become fluent on the subject of the preacher's responsibilities. It was not for Mr. Wesley to go wandering in the uttermost parts of Cornwall, he said; he should have remained at Porthawn to consolidate the work that he had begun; had he done so until he had gathered in every soul, the Lord might have been as merciful to the world as He had been to Nineveh in the days of Jonah. But Mr. Wesley had, like Jonah, fled from his duty, and the next Monday was to be the Day of Judgment.

Wesley listened gravely until the man got upon his feet and with an outstretched finger toward him, cried:

“I have been mocked by some, and held in silent despite by others—all of them professing to be of the Household of Faith, because the Spirit of prophecy came upon me, and I announced the truth. Nor, Mr. Wesley, will you dare to join with the disbelievers and say straight out that the first Monday will not be the Last Day that will dawn on this world?”

“No,” said Wesley, “I would not be so presumptuous as to lay claim to any knowledge that would entitle me to speak on a subject of such awful import. 'Ye know not the day nor the hour'—those were the words of our Lord, and anyone who makes profession of knowing either, commits a grievous sin.”

“Ay, anyone but me,” said Pritchard. “But the revelation was made to me—I take no glory to myself. The great and terrible Day of the Lord cometh next Monday, and they shall cry unto the rocks to fall on them and the mountains to cover them. What other place could that refer to if not Ruthallion and Porthawn; is't not that Buthallion is in the heart of the hills and Porthawn the place of rocks?”

With all gentleness Wesley spoke to the man of the great need there was for caution on the part of anyone venturing to assign times and seasons to such prophecies as had been uttered respecting the mystery of the Last Judgment. He tried to show him that however strong his own conviction was on the subject of the Revelation, he should hold his peace, for fear of a mistake being made and enemies being afforded a reason for railing against the cause which they all had at heart. The interpretation of prophecy, he said, was at all times difficult and should certainly not be lightly attempted even by those men who had spent all their lives dealing with the subject, with the light of history to guide them. Nothing could exceed the tact, patience and gentleness with which the pastor pleaded with this erring one of his flock—the miller and Jake Pullsford were amazed at his forbearance; they learned a lesson from him which they never forgot. He was patient and said no word of offence all the time that they were waxing irritable at the foolishness of the man who sat shaking his head now and again, and pursing out his lips after the manner of pig-headed ignorance when objecting to the wisdom of experience.

It was all to no purpose that Wesley spoke. The man listened, but criticised with the smile of incredulous superiority on his face almost all the time that Wesley was speaking—it varied only when he was shaking his head, and then throwing it back defiantly. It was all to no purpose.

“You are right, Mr. Wesley, in some ways,” he cried. “But you talk of the interpretation of prophecy. Well, that is within your sphere, and I durstn't stop you so far. Ay, but I am not an interpreter of prophecy—I am the very prophet himself. Friends, said not I the truth to you this hour past—how I felt as it were a burst of flame within me, whereby I knew that I had been possessed of the spirit of prophecy? The gift of water-finding, which has been mine since my youth, was only bestowed upon the major prophets, Moses being the chief; and when I read of Elijah, who in the days of the grievous water famine was enabled by the exercise of his gift, and guided by the hand of the Lord, to find water—even the running brook Chereth—in the midst of a land that was dusty dry, all unworthy doubt was set at rest. Is it not written that Elijah, the prophet, was to come back to earth to warn the people of the Great Day being at hand?”

“Dear friend, stay thy tongue for a moment—say not words that might not be forgiven thee even by the Most Merciful,” cried Wesley.

“You are a great preacher and a faithful servant—up to a certain point, Mr. Wesley; but you are not as I am,” replied Pritchard firmly, but not without a tone of tenderness. “You are a preacher; I am the prophet. I have spoken as Jonah spoke to the men of Nineveh: 'Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.' 'In eleven days the world shall be overthrown,' said I, feeling the flame within me.”

“The people of Nineveh repented and the destruction was averted,” said Wesley. “Have there been signs of a great repentance among the people who got tidings of your prediction?”

“My prophecy has everywhere been received with ridicule,” replied the man proudly.

“I can testify to that,” said Jake Pullsford. “I travel about, as you know, and I hear much of what is talked over from here to Devon, and only for a few light-headed women—ready to believe that the moon was the sun if they were told so from the pulpit—only for these, it might be said that Dick's foolishness would ha' fallen on ears as deaf as an adders.”

“I, myself, can bear witness to the evil effect that has been produced among a people who were, I hoped, ready for the sowing of the good seed,” said Wesley. “It was a great sorrow to me to hear the lightness of talk—the offer of wagers—the excuse of drunkenness—all the result of Richard Pritchard's indiscretion.”

“And everywhither it has been received as coming from us—from us whom you have instructed in the Truth, sir,” said Jake. “'Tis not Dick Pritchard that has been ridiculed, but we whom they call Methodists. That is the worst of it.”

“And now that I have paved the way for you, the preacher, Mr. Wesley, you will be able for three days to exhort the people to repentance,” said Pritchard, with the air of a man accustomed to give advice on grave matters, with confidence that his advice would be followed.

“My duty is clear,” said Wesley. “I shall have to disclaim all sympathy with the statements made by Richard Pritchard. Souls are not to be terrorised to seek salvation. I am not one of those ministers who think that the painting of lurid pictures of the destruction of the earth and all that is therein the best way of helping poor sinners. Nay, there have come under mine own eyes many instances of the very temporary nature of conversions brought about by that paradox of the gospel of terror. But need we look for guidance any further away than the history of Jonah and the Ninevites? The prophet preached destruction, and the people repented. But how long did the change last? The fire and brimstone had to be rained down upon them before the sackcloth that they assumed was worn out.”

“On Monday the fire and brimstone will overwhelm the whole world, and woe be to him that preacheth not from that text till then!” cried Pritchard. He was standing at one end of the table facing the window that had a western aspect, and as he spoke, the flaming beams of the sinking sun streamed through the glass and along the table until they seemed to envelop him. In spite of the smallness of his stature he seemed, with the sunbeams striking him, to possess some heroic elements. The hand that he uplifted was thin and white, and it trembled in the light. His face was illuminated, not from without only; his eyes were large and deep, and they seemed staring at some object just outside the window.

Watching him thus, everyone in the room turned toward the window—Wesley was the only exception; he kept his eyes fixed upon the man at the foot of the table. He saw his eyes move as if they were following the movements of someone outside, and their expression varied strangely. But they were the eyes of a man who is the slave of his nerves—of a visionary who is carried away by his own ill-balanced imagination—of the mystic who can see what he wishes to see.

Wesley was perplexed watching this man whose nature seemed to have completely changed within the month. He had had a good deal of strange experience of nervous phases, both in men and women who had been overcome by his preaching, but he had never before met with a case that was so strange as this. The man was no impostor; an impostor would have been easy to deal with. He was a firm believer in his own mission and in his own powers, and therein lay the difficulty of suppressing him.

And while Wesley watched him, and everyone else seemed striving to catch a glimpse of the object on which the man's eyes were fixed, the light suddenly passed out of his eyes and they became like those of a newly dead man, staring blankly at that vision which comes before the sight of a soul that is in the act of passing from the earth into the great unknown Space. There he stood with his hand still upraised, and that look of nothingness in his staring eyes..

Wesley sprang up from the table to support him when he fell, and he appeared to be tottering after the manner of a man who has been shot through the heart while on his feet; and Wesley's movement caused the others to turn toward the man.

In a second the miller was behind him with outstretched arms ready to support him. Pritchard did not fall just then, however. Breathlessly and in a strained silence, the others watched him while he swayed to the extent of a hand's breadth from side to side, still with his hand upraised and rigid. For some minutes—it might have been five—he stood thus, and in the end he did not collapse. He went slowly and rigidly backward into Wesley's arms, and then down into his own chair, his eyes still open—still blankly staring, devoid of all expression.

“Dead—can he be dead?” whispered Jake, slipping a hand under his waistcoat.

Wesley shook his head.

“He is not dead, but in a trance,” he replied.