Will any of you take any refreshments before you go? Will
you, Brother Bushel?"
Brother Bushel did not believe in Mr. Broad's refreshments, save
those which were spiritual, and declined them with some abruptness,
preferring much a glass of hot brown brandy and water at the inn
where his horse was. Brother Wainwright would have taken anything,
but was bound to follow Brother Bushel, who was about to give him a
lift homewards; and Brother Scotton was a teetotaller, one of the
first who was converted to total abstinence in Cowfold, and just a
trifle suspected at Tanner's Lane, and by Bushel in particular, on
that account. Water-drinking was not a heresy to which any definite
objection could be raised; but Tanner's Lane always felt that if once
a man differed so far from his fellows as not to drink beer and
spirits, there was no knowing where the division might end. "It was
the thin end of the wedge," Mr. Broad observed confidentially to
Bushel once when the subject was mentioned.
The preliminary meeting, therefore, was held, and Mr. Broad having
communicated the charges against the Allens--absenting themselves
from public worship, disturbance of the peace of the church,
intercourse with infidel associates, and finally so far as George was
concerned, "questionable behaviour," as Mr.
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