disappointment we felt ourselves obliged to decline his generous offer, which refusal he attributed entirely to the price, and lowered his terms first to 3l. 10s. and then to 3l., equally without success; while it was easy to see that the dusky damsels considered our rejection of the proposal as a proof of our exceedingly bad taste, and were as much disappointed and chagrined as their master.
A little abashed at the manner in which we had treated his offer, the preacher sent away the two young ladies to the back of his premises, and, beginning to have a faint idea that he had somehow not risen in our estimation, he endeavoured to retrieve his lost ground by falling back upon his more legitimate occupation, and asked that we should delay our departure in order that he might preach a sermon to the men. The hypocrisy of this proposition, coming as it did immediately after the other, was more than we could stand, and, expressing our thoughts in unequivocal terms, we paid him what we owed, went out, and got the men together ready to march off. The village pastor, however, was not going to be done out of an opportunity of showing forth before his unsophisticated flock, and, while we were preparing to start, delivered an exhortation in which "the sword of the Lord and of Gideon," "soldiers of the Lord,"
