“Praise God! Bless His Name! I’m a joined Methody!”
“Which in no respect prevents you from being at the same time a drunkard and a swindler. I saw you one night a week ago laid dead-drunk by the roadside, as I returned from Stilbro’ market; and while you preach peace, you make it the business of your life to stir up dissension. You no more sympathize with the poor who are in distress, than you sympathize with me: you incite them to outrage for bad purposes of your own; so does the individual called Noah o’ Tim’s. You two are restless, meddling, impudent scoundrels, whose chief motive-principle is a selfish ambition, as dangerous as it is puerile. The persons behind you are some of them honest though misguided men; but you two I count altogether bad.”
Barraclough was going to speak.
“Silence! You have had your say, and now I will have mine. As to being dictated to by you, or any Jack, Jem, or Jonathan on earth, I shall not suffer it for a moment. You desire me to quit the country; you request me to part with my machinery; in case I refuse, you threaten me. I do refuse—point-blank! Here I stay; and by this mill I stand; and into it will I convey the best machinery inventors can furnish. What will you do? The utmost you can do—and this you will never dare to do—is to
