"If only everybody in England could move as I am moving now," he thought. "If only I could be granted the power to show a few people, so that they could show others, and those others show all the world. How confidently that yellow-hammer repeats his song! How well he knows that his song is right! How little he envies the linnet and how little the linnet envies him! The fools that talk of nature's cruelty, the blind fatuous sentimental coxcombs!"
Thus apostrophizing, Mark came to a wayside inn; discovering that he was hungry, he took his seat at a rustic table outside and called for bread and cheese and beer. While he was eating, a vehicle approached from the direction in which he would soon be travelling. He took it at first for a caravan of gipsies, but when it grew near he saw that it was painted over with minatory texts and was evidently the vehicle of itinerant gospellers. Two young men alighted from the caravan when it pulled up before the door of the inn. They were long-nosed sallow creatures with that expression of complacency which organized morality too often produces, and in this quiet countryside they gave an effect of being overgrown Sunday-school scholars upon their annual outing. Having cast a censorious glance in the direction of Mark's jug of ale, they sat down at the farther end of the bench and ordered food.
"The preaching friars of to-day," Mark thought gloomily.
"Excuse me," said one of the gospellers. "I notice you've been looking very hard at our van. Excuse me, but are you saved?"
"No, are you?" Mark countered with an angry blush.
"We are," the gospeller proclaimed. "Or I and Mr. Smillie here," he indicated his companion, "wouldn't be travelling round trying to save others. Here, read this tract, my friend. Don't hurry over it. We can wait all day and all night to bring one wandering soul to Jesus."
Mark looked at the young men curiously; perceiving that they were sincere, he accepted the tract and out of courtesy perused it. The tale therein enfolded reminded him of a narrative testifying to the efficacy of a patent medicine. The process of conversation followed a stereotyped formula.
_For three and a half years I was unable to keep down any sins for more than five minutes after I had committed the last one. I had a dizzy feeling in the heart and a sharp pain in the small of the soul. A friend of mine recommended me to try the good minister in the slum. . . . After the first text I was able to keep down my sins for six minutes . . . after twenty-two bottles I am as good as I ever was. . . . I ascribe my salvation entirely to_. . . . Mark handed back the tract with a smile.