66 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



we shall go acorning ' — a clear survival of the belief in 

 transmigration, for he who is eaten by a pig becomes a 

 pig, and goeth forth with swine to eat acorns. 



There had been some very strong language and 

 straightforward observations at the chapel meetings, the 

 private vestry of the managers ; the elder being one of 

 the founders, and his name on the deed could not be 

 excluded — gall and wormwood — without his signature 

 nothing could be done. Bitterer still, the chapel was 

 heavily in debt to him. Had he chosen, in American 

 phrase, he could have ' shut up the shebang in mighty 

 sudden time/ The elder was tall ; the elder was 

 strong ; the elder was grim ; the elder was a man who 

 could rule hundreds of the roughest labourers ; the elder 

 was a man who would have his say, and said it like 

 throwing down a hod full of bricks. With the irresist- 

 ible logic of figures and documents he demonstrated the 

 pastor to be a liar, and told him so to his face. With 

 the same engines he proved that two or three of the 

 other managers were hypocrites, and told them so. 

 Neither could pastor nor managers refute it, but stood 

 like sheep. Then he told them what he had done for 

 the chapel and for its minister, and no one could deny 

 him. Indeed, the minister had been heard to weakly 

 confess that the elder had once been a good friend to 

 him. Perhaps his partisans, as is often the case, had 

 taken up the pastor's cause with more violence than he 

 himself desired, and by their vehemence had driven him 

 into a position which he himself would have avoided. 

 Most likely he would have made peace himself ; but the 

 blot on all chapel systems of government is that the 

 minister is but the mouthpiece of his congregation. 

 Having thrown down his load of bricks thump, the 

 elder stalked out with his memoranda and with his 



