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“Been up to Beulah?” William asked.

“Yep!”

“Anything new?”

“Nothin’ much, Bill,” replied McBratney, as he seated himself in the low, yellow rocking-chair and began to teeter back and forth. “The only stir is the new preacher, I guess. I heard he was comin’ down the Lantern Marsh this afternoon to make some calls.”

“I reckon that’s why you cleaned out, Dave!” said Bard.

“You bet; but they say he’s quite a nice, sociable little chap. Joe Taylor was telling me in Abe Lavanagh’s barber shop that he seen the new preacher up at the post office, waitin’ for the mail to be distributed. He says he was grabbin’ right aholt o’ everybody’s paw, just like a regular old-timer.”

“What’s his wife like, Dave?” Bard enquired.

“I don’t know. Dad was sayin’ last night, it don’t matter about the preacher so much; it all depends on his wife, whether they’re goin’ to take with the people.”

“Surely,” agreed Bard. “You take McGuire who was here before Squires. McGuire may have had his faults—I’m not sayin’ he didn’t—but he wasn’t too bad a little fellow at all. But that wife o’ his—why, she’d a’ ruined any man!”