For the truth is, that though Gumbo held on to the book, along with pretty Molly, the porter's daughter, who had been the first to welcome the strangers to Castlewood, he sang and recited by ear and not by note, and could not read a syllable of the verses in the book before him.
This choral performance over, a brief sermon in due course followed, which, indeed, Harry thought a deal too short.

In a lively, familiar, striking discourse the clergyman described a scene of which he had been witness the previous week--the execution of a horse-stealer after Assizes.

He described the man and his previous good character, his family, the love they bore one another, and his agony at parting from them.

He depicted the execution in a manner startling, terrible, and picturesque.

He did not introduce into his sermon the Scripture phraseology, such as Harry had been accustomed to hear it from those somewhat Calvinistic preachers whom his mother loved to frequent, but rather spoke as one man of the world to other sinful people, who might be likely to profit by good advice.