68 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 
causes. The excommunication, however, was real 
enough, and ten times more effectual because the sen- 
tence was pronounced not by the pastor but by the con- 
gregation. 
Still nothing disturbed the dignity of the elder. He 
worked away as usual, always with tools in his hands. 
He would tear away with a plane at a window-frame or 
a coffin-lid, and tell the listener his wrongs, and how he 
had been scorned and insulted by people whom he had 
helped for years, and how they had reversed the teach- 
ing of the gospel in their bearing towards him—heavier 
blows and longer shavings—as if there were no such 
thing as true religion. And, indeed, he would say, in 
his business transactions, he had over and over again — 
found that men who were not ‘ professors’—ze, who did 
not claim to be ‘saved ’—were more truthful and more 
to be depended on in their engagements than those who : 
constantly talked of righteousness. For all that—with 
a tremendous shaving—for all that, the gospel was true. - 
So he planed and hammered, and got a large contract, 
on a building estate near a great town, busy as busy, 
where it was necessary to have a tramway and a loco- 
motive, or ‘dirt-engine,’ to drag the trucks with the earth 
from the excavations. This engine was a source of 
never-failing amusement to the steady, quiet farmers 
whose domains were being invaded; very observant, 
people, but not pushing. One day a part of the engine’ 
was tied up with string ; another day it was blowing off 
steam like a volcano, the boiler nearly empty and getting 
red-hot, while the men rushed to fetch water with a 
couple of buckets; finally, the funnel rusted off and a 
wooden one was put up—a merry joke! But while 
they laughed the contractor pushed ahead in Yankee 
style, using any and every expedient, and making 
