52 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



images and trampled on the pride of kings in the days 

 of Charles I. The translation of the Bible cut off 

 Charles I.'s head by letting loose such a flood of iron- 

 fisted controversy, and to any one who has read the 

 pamphlets of those days the resemblance is constantly 

 suggested. John Bunyan wrote about the Pilgrim. To 

 this chapel there came every Sunday morning a man 

 and his wife, ten miles on foot from their cottage home 

 in a distant village. The hottest summer day or the 

 coldest winter Sunday made no difference ; they tramped 

 through dust, and they tramped through slush and mire ; 

 they were pilgrims every week. A grimly real religion, 

 as concrete and as much a fact as a stone wall ; a sort of 

 horse's faith going along the furrow unquestioning. In 

 their own village there were many chapels, and at least 

 one church, but these did not suffice. The doctrine at 

 Bethel was the one saving doctrine, and there they 

 went There were dozens who came from lesser dis- 

 tances quite as regularly, the men in their black coats 

 and high hats, big fellows that did not look ungainly 

 till they dressed themselves up ; women as red as 

 turkey-cocks, panting and puffing ; crowds of children 

 making the road odorous with the smell of pomade ; 

 the boys with their hair too long behind ; the girls with 

 vile white stockings, all out of drawing, and without a 

 touch that could be construed into a national costume 

 — the cheap shoddy shop in the country lane. All with 

 an expression of Sunday goodness : ' To-day we are 

 good, we are going to chapel, and we mean to stay till 

 the very last word. We have got our wives and families 

 with us, and woe be to any of them if they dare to look 

 for a bird's nest ! This is business.' Besides the foot 

 people there come plenty in traps and pony- carriages, 

 and some on horseback, for a certain class of farmers 



