It was a weekday evening when the preacher came to the gaunt little
chapel which affronted the skies at the highest curve of the moorland
road. Annie had put on her Sunday clothes, though she had ripped the
feather out of her bonnet as a concession to the spirit of repentance,
and she dressed Ishmael with care in the fine little nankeen suit with
braided tunic that the Parson's housekeeper had made for him. She oiled
his unruly black hair till it looked as though painted on to his bullet
head, except for the obstinate forelock that would fall over his eyes;
then she took him firmly by the hand and they set out together. Vassie,
to whom any gathering was better than none, was already gone with a girl
friend; John-James, who was the Martha of the family, had too much to
attend to at the farm; while Archelaus was frankly a scoffer, though an
uneasy one. Neither was Annie anxious for the presence of her other
children at chapel. The belief that as a judgment on her these
dearly-loved ones were not to be among the saved had been growing; it
was to be Ishmael whom the Lord demanded of her; it was by the tail of
his little tunic that she, clinging, should also be swept into the
region of the secure. Archelaus had failed her; that must be meant to
show that it was not the children of her heart who were chosen by the
Almighty. It was with a set mind and look that she urged Ishmael along
the rough track that curved inland over the moor, its rain-filled ruts
shining in the glamorous evening light.

They were not the only people on that errand; the pale road was
scattered with moving specks of blackness--solitary old men and women
that stumbled on faster than they had done for years in their anxiety
lest no place should be left for them; family groups already discussing
all they had heard of the preacher; knots of youths, half-ribald and
half-curious, encouraging each other as over their reluctant spirits