“Aye, aye; but he’s none so fond o’ your dissenters, for all that.”

“Maybe; I’m none so fond o’ Josh Tod’s thick ale, but I don’t hinder you from making a fool o’ yourself wi’t.”

There was a laugh at this thrust of Adam’s, but Seth said, very seriously.  “Nay, nay, Addy, thee mustna say as anybody’s religion’s like thick ale.  Thee dostna believe but what the dissenters and the Methodists have got the root o’ the matter as well as the church folks.”

“Nay, Seth, lad; I’m not for laughing at no man’s religion.  Let ’em follow their consciences, that’s all.  Only I think it ’ud be better if their consciences ’ud let ’em stay quiet i’ the church—­there’s a deal to be learnt there.  And there’s such a thing as being oversperitial; we must have something beside Gospel i’ this world.  Look at the canals, an’ th’ aqueduc’s, an’ th’ coal-pit engines, and Arkwright’s mills there at Cromford; a man must learn summat beside Gospel to make them things, I reckon.  But t’ hear some o’ them preachers, you’d think as a man must be doing nothing all’s life but shutting’s eyes and looking what’s agoing on inside him.  I know a man must have the love o’ God in his soul, and the Bible’s God’s word.  But what does the Bible say?  Why, it says as God put his sperrit into the workman as built the tabernacle, to make him do all the carved work and things as wanted a nice hand.  And this is my way o’ looking at it:  there’s the sperrit o’ God in all things and all times—­weekday as well as Sunday—­and i’ the great works and inventions, and i’ the figuring and the mechanics.  And God helps us with our headpieces and our hands as well as with our souls; and if a man does bits o’ jobs out o’ working hours—­builds a oven for ’s wife to save her from going to the bakehouse, or scrats at his bit o’ garden and makes two potatoes grow istead o’ one, he’s doin’ more good, and he’s just as near to God, as if he was running after some preacher and a-praying and a-groaning.”

“Well done, Adam!” said Sandy Jim, who had paused from his planing to shift his planks while Adam was speaking; “that’s the best sarmunt I’ve heared this long while.  By th’ same token, my wife’s been a-plaguin’ on me to build her a oven this twelvemont.”

“There’s reason in what thee say’st, Adam,” observed Seth, gravely.  “But thee know’st thyself as it’s hearing the preachers thee find’st so much fault with has turned many an idle fellow into an industrious un.  It’s the preacher as empties th’ alehouse; and if a man gets religion, he’ll do his work none the worse for that.”

“On’y he’ll lave the panels out o’ th’ doors sometimes, eh, Seth?” said Wiry Ben.

“Ah, Ben, you’ve got a joke again’ me as ’ll last you your life.  But it isna religion as was i’ fault there; it was Seth Bede, as was allays a wool-gathering chap, and religion hasna cured him, the more’s the pity.”

“Ne’er heed me, Seth,” said Wiry Ben, “y’ are a down-right good-hearted chap, panels or no panels; an’ ye donna set up your bristles at every bit o’ fun, like some o’ your kin, as is mayhap cliverer.”