CHAPTER 1.
'No!' said lawyer Dempster, in a loud, rasping, oratorical tone, struggling against chronic huskiness, 'as long as my Maker grants me power of voice and power of intellect, I will take every legal means to resist the introduction of demoralizing, methodistical doctrine into this parish; I will not supinely suffer an insult to be inflicted on our venerable pastor, who has given us sound instruction for half a century.' It was very warm everywhere that evening, but especially in the bar of the Red Lion at Milby, where Mr.Dempster was seated mixing his third glass of brandy-and-water.

He was a tall and rather massive man, and the front half of his large surface was so well dredged' with snuff, that the cat, having inadvertently come near him, had been seized with a severe fit of sneezing--an accident which, being cruelly misunderstood, had caused her to be driven contumeliously from the bar.

Mr.Dempster habitually held his chin tucked in, and his head hanging forward, weighed down, perhaps, by a preponderant occiput and a bulging forehead, between which his closely-clipped coronal surface lay like a flat and new-mown table-land.

The only other observable features were puffy cheeks and a protruding yet lipless mouth.

Of his nose I can only say that it was snuffy; and as Mr.Dempster was never caught in the act of looking at anything in particular, it would have been difficult to swear to the colour of his eyes.
'Well! I'll not stick at giving myself trouble to put down such hypocritical cant,' said Mr.Tomlinson, the rich miller.