The idea of the moors and the old ruin as setting for a secret prayer-meeting struck the group of excited lads as singularly attractive.

They parted cheerfully upon it, in spite of their bruises.
David, however, walked home fuming.

The self-abandonment of the revival had been all along wellnigh intolerable to him--and now, that he should have allowed the Timminsites to know anything about his prayers! He very nearly broke off from it altogether in his proud disgust.
However he did ultimately nothing of the sort.

As soon as he grew cool again, he was as much tormented as before by what was at bottom more an intellectual curiosity than a moral anguish.

There was _some_ moral awakening in it; he had some real qualms about sin, some real aspirations after holiness, and, so far, the self-consciousness which had first stirred at Haworth was deepened and fertilised.