Stephens spoke well, and said some telling words in that place, of the cruel and relentless march of the great Juggernauth, Gold.

But I did not hear anything which seemed to me to justify his great reputation.

Really the most striking part of the performance, and that which I thought seemed to move the people most, was Oastler's mounting the pulpit and giving out the verses of a hymn, one by one, which the congregation sang after him." So says my diary.

Him I remember well, though Stephens not at all.

I remember, too, the pleasure with which I listened to his really fine delivery of the lines; his pronunciation of the words was not incorrect, and when he spoke, as I heard him on sundry subsequent occasions, his language, though emphasised rather, as it seemed, than marred by a certain roughness of Lancashire accent, was not that of an uncultivated man.
Yes! Oastler, the King of Lancashire as the people liked to call him, was certainly a man of power, and an advocate whom few platform orators would have cared to meet as an adversary.
When my mother's notes for her projected novel were completed, we thought that before turning our faces southwards, we would pay a flying visit to the lake district, which was new ground to both of us.