The farmers were engrossed with their harvesting, and after that with the fall ploughing, and later with the marketing of their grain.

And as the weeks passed Mr.Gwynne's indignant resolve that his customers should not do business on his money gradually cooled down.

The accounts were sent out as usual, and with the usual disappointing result.
Meantime Mr.Gwynne's attention was diverted from his delinquent debtors by an enterprise which to an unusual degree awakened his sympathy and kindled his imagination.

The Reverend Heber Harding, ever since his unfortunate encounter with the travelling evangelist, was haunted with the uneasy feeling that he and his church were not completely fulfilling their functions in the community and justifying their existence.

The impression had been the more painfully deepened in him by the sudden eruption of a spirit of recklessness and a certain tendency to general lawlessness in some of the young men of the village.