Page:Hannah More (1887 Charlotte Mary Yonge British).djvu/145

Rh in consequence of this strain, ill with an ague that lasted seven months.

Sir Abraham Elton, however, continued his gallant championship, preaching again at the Cheddar Club feast, where seventy gentry gathered, including Mr. Tudway, the member for Wells. Patty laments having to act like the rest of the world, and give a dinner to those who did not want it, and only tea to many hundreds who had no dinner at home.

It was almost a triumph; and Dr. Moss wrote most kindly to her; but Wedmore was as troublesome as ever, and the farmers actually presented the two sisters at the Archdeacon's Visitation for teaching without a licence, declaring they would never rest till they had worried the ladies out of the parish. Nevertheless, Patty went bravely the round of all the parishes, holding the feasts and making the little addresses, while her sister was too ill for the exertion.

Sir Abraham at last obtained from the Bishop the thirteen affidavits which the curate of Blagdon had taken against Young. Of them Hannah wrote to Wilberforce—

Among Bere's affidavits, which are as plenty as blackberries, one is taken by a lunatic, whom as such I have helped to maintain. People start out of ditches and from under hedges to listen to the talk of our poor pious labourers as they are at work, and then go and make oath (which, it seems, is unexampled). Mr. Bere (who doubtless set them to listen) receives depositions in his own cause. I really did not take the pains to read them through, it was such wretched stuff. Six, I think, go to prove that Young is a Calvinist; several that he was