194 LONGSHORE MEMORIES 
but I fear the number of the orthodox faithful 
was very small. My own people were attached to 
the ' Hew Agag in pieces ' school, and, as a rule, I 
was taken to hear their favourite preachers. I re- 
member well the fervour with which these depicted 
the horrors of the infernal regions, to the edification 
of such as had scapegoats, as they always called the 
scapegraces of their families possibly with more 
truth than they imagined. As a boy, I have shivered 
with fear and perspired in real agony under some 
of these discourses. And yet there was another side 
also to this, and in the annals of our fishing village 
I have told how the influence of some of those uncon- 
ventional Christians affected us at times in a more 
healthy manner. On Sunday you would see a few 
figures moving across the marshes, patiently trudging 
for miles on their way to church or chapel ; grave 
men and sedate women, and the plovers crying and 
flapping, unheeded, about them as they walked. 
The beautiful grey and white gulls, resting in and 
around the clear shallow splashes, barely drew their 
attention from the path they were travelling by. 
These were so mixed up in their daily lives that 
they would only have noticed their absence. When 
the gulls rested like that, and the pewits ran and 
flapped all around, they knew it would be settled 
