The mysterious tank, whose dark waters had so repelled her at the last moment, was boarded over: a table stood on its centre, with an open quarto Bible upon it, behind which Havill, in a new suit of black, sat in a large chair.
Havill held the office of deacon: and he had mechanically taken the deacon's seat as usual to-night, in the face of the congregation, and under the nose of Mr.Woodwell.
Mr.Woodwell was always glad of an opportunity.

He was gifted with a burning natural eloquence, which, though perhaps a little too freely employed in exciting the 'Wertherism of the uncultivated,' had in it genuine power.

He was a master of that oratory which no limitation of knowledge can repress, and which no training can impart.

The neighbouring rector could eclipse Woodwell's scholarship, and the freethinker at the corner shop in Markton could demolish his logic; but the Baptist could do in five minutes what neither of these had done in a lifetime; he could move some of the hardest of men to tears.
Thus it happened that, when the sermon was fairly under way, Havill began to feel himself in a trying position.

It was not that he had bestowed much affection upon his deceased wife, irreproachable woman as she had been; but the suddenness of her death had shaken his nerves, and Mr.Woodwell's address on the uncertainty of life involved considerations of conduct on earth that bore with singular directness upon Havill's unprincipled manoeuvre for victory in the castle competition.