lodgers. If he finds a window open (and in
fine weather they are all open), he stops, and
in a low, solemn voice, announces to those
inside, that brother Goosetrap Witness is
going to preach at three o'clock on the green.

"Who is brother Goosetrap Witness?"
ask the visitors, who are drinking in floods of
sea-air, watching the distant steamers through
telescopes, and thinking much more of the
health of the body than of the health of the
soul. "Who is brother Goosetrap Witness,
and what has he got to say worth walking
out in the heat for?"

"Oh, a dangerous man, sir! a dangerous
man," says the landlady, who is just come in
to tell them when the church service begins.
"Oh, a very dangerous, audacious man!
Turns all the poor people's heads here;
frightens the servant girls till they can't
sleep of nights; says all the clergy are
wicked impostors; won't have any doctors
to his silly disciples, and says nobody is a
Christian but himself and his dupes."

"And do the people believe him?"

"Ay, that they do, by hundreds; they
swear by him; he goes all round the country,
and the silly geese come from all round the
country to hear him."

"Upon my word," say the visitors, "it is
worth while to hear him for once;" and away
they go.

Mounted on a chair on the green, with the
sea rolling its fresh billows just by, they find
a short, somewhat broadset man, of a lean and
swarthy aspect, standing with his hymn-book
in his hand, in the midst of a group of people,
mostly of the labouring classes. The outer
circle appears a miscellaneous collection of
fishermen and mechanics. The inner one of
the more especial Goosetrappists, bearing
unmistakable evidence of being chiefly agricultural
labourers, and their wives and daughters
and sisters. These are part of the perambulatory
church that accompany their head on
these excursions, and enliven his appearances
with their hymns. They appear very modest
in their demeanour, and some of them very
good-looking; all, undoubtedly, perfectly
sincere in their faith in what brother Witness
tells them, and perform their vocal duty with
sufficient skill.

Directing your chief attention to brother
Goosetrap Witness, you behold a man of,
perhaps, fifty years of age, as we have said,
with a whalebony, wiry, swarthy visage, and
black hair, worn somewhat thin by time.
His small, dark eyes peer forth with a keen
but composed inquiry from beneath a pair
of strong, dark, shaggy eyebrows, and one of
those large, coarse mouths, which are equally
common to great eaters and great talkers,
bespeaks a possessor of what is called " the
gift of the gab." Altogether, the countenance
and the man are strongly expressive of a
domineering and pertinacious will, of a coarse,
strong sense, rather than prominent talent;
but of a close, scheming, and onward-boring
character. There is that assumed look of
sanctity which such men commonly wear,
but under it you can readily detect an
amount of self-esteem, that would make its
owner insensible to any degree of contempt.

His dress and air are those of a shoemaker,
—as, in fact, he is; and it is a singular
circumstance that no craft has furnished so
many field-preachers and religious enthusiasts
as that of St. Crispin. George Fox was a
shoemaker; Jacob Behmen was a shoemaker;
the two families of Jöllenbeck, which were so
conspicuous there in the strange heresy, were
shoemakers; Matheo di Casale was a shoe-
maker; and, amongst the religious fermentations,
some of them of an extraordinary
character, of late years, in Prussia and Saxony,
and especially in Pomerania, the Mark, and
Lower Silesia, the chief actors have been
shoemakers, weavers, and tailors—all people
of sedentary trades. The agricultural
labourers, smiths, bricklayers, carpenters, and
all the followers of pursuits of greater physical
activity, have stood aloof. The only exceptions
being shepherds, whose solitary life is calculated
to affect the imagination, and whose
employment is almost as inactive as that of
the sitting trades.

The sort of discourse which our visitors
would hear from brother Witness, we shall
anon make the reader acquainted with, from
our own experience; for, hearing his fame on
all hands, during a few days' sojourn in the
little half-town of Periwinkle Port, we
determined to pay him a visit at his proper
domicile and work-a-day tabernacle, which
is found in the little quiet market-town of
Gudgeon-Brook. A pleasant walk over pleasant
fields brought us—that is, a party of some
four or five ladies and gentlemen—to Gudgeon-
Brook. Advancing up its clean and very
quiet streets, we made due inquiries for the
whereabouts of brother Goosetrap Witness;
an inquiry which produced a sensation. We
were directed onward and onward, and
behind us we could perceive groups issuing
from the houses, and looking after us with
much curiosity, and at the same time engaged
in earnest conversation. No doubt, they set
us down for brethren and sisters of the
faith, and concluded that the influence and
renown of brother Goosetrap Witness were
spreading farther and farther.

We soon found brother Witness's locale,
house, chapel, workshop, all congregated in a
little court. A rent in a boot was the ostensible
object of the visit, but this did not
deceive the shrewd perception of brother
Witness. He evidently attributed our arrival to
the spread of his fame.  I was soon
accommodated with a seat, and a disciple of a most
taciturn and mysterious manner began to
operate on the boot. Brother Witness devoted
his exclusive attention to the rest of the
company, who were furnished with chairs in the
court, and was soon afloat in an ocean of
doctrine and declamation. From my taciturn