But all took care not to join the
Methodists on the Green, and identify themselves in that way with the
expectant audience, for there was not one of them that would not have
disclaimed the imputation of having come out to hear the "preacher
woman"--they had only come out to see "what war a-goin' on, like." The
men were chiefly gathered in the neighbourhood of the blacksmith's shop.
But do not imagine them gathered in a knot. Villagers never swarm: a
whisper is unknown among them, and they seem almost as incapable of an
undertone as a cow or a stag. Your true rustic turns his back on his
interlocutor, throwing a question over his shoulder as if he meant to
run away from the answer, and walking a step or two farther off when the
interest of the dialogue culminates. So the group in the vicinity of the
blacksmith's door was by no means a close one, and formed no screen in
front of Chad Cranage, the blacksmith himself, who stood with his black
brawny arms folded, leaning against the door-post, and occasionally
sending forth a bellowing laugh at his own jokes, giving them a
marked preference over the sarcasms of Wiry Ben, who had renounced the
pleasures of the Holly Bush for the sake of seeing life under a new
form. But both styles of wit were treated with equal contempt by Mr.
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