64 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



intimate friends, sent over to say that they liked the 

 elder very much, but they could not call while he was 

 on such terms with their * dear pastor.' Two or three of 

 the ministers who came by invitation to preach in the 

 chapel, and who had been friendly, did indeed call once, 

 but were speedily given to understand by the leading 

 members of the congregation that dinners and slccpin^^ 

 accommodation had been provided elsewhere, and they 

 must not do so again. The ministers, being entirely in 

 the power of the congregations, had to obey. In short, 

 the elder and his family were excommunicated, spiritually 

 boycotted, interdicted, and cut off from social intercourse ; 

 without any of the magical ceremonies of the Vatican, 

 they were as effectually excommunicated as if the whole 

 seventy cardinals and the Pope in person had pro- 

 nounced the dread sentence. In a great town perhaps 

 such a thing would not be so marked or so much felt ; 

 in a little village where everybody knows everybody, 

 where there arc no strangers, and where you must per- 

 force come in contact constantly with persons you have 

 known for years, it is a very annoying process indeed. 

 There are no streets of shops to give a choice of butchers 

 and bakers, no competition of tea merchants and cheese- 

 mongers, so that if one man shows a dislike to serving 

 you, you can go on to the next and get better attention, 

 * Take it or go without it ' is village law ; no such thing 

 as independence ; you must walk or drive into the 

 nearest town, five miles away perhaps, if you wish to 

 avoid a sour face on the other side of the counter. No 

 one will volunteer the smallest service for the excom- 

 municant of the chapel ; nothing could more vividly 

 illustrate the command to ' love one another.' No one 

 can imagine the isolation of a house in a country place 

 interdicted like this. If the other inhabitants could find 



