y shaping themselves in the world under the great modern
fluctuations of classes and creeds.

Somerset was still full of the subject when he arrived at the end of
his walk, and he fancied that some loungers at the bar of the inn were
discussing the heroine of the chapel-scene just at the moment of his
entry. On this account, when the landlord came to clear away the dinner,
Somerset was led to inquire of him, by way of opening a conversation, if
there were many Baptists in the neighbourhood.

The landlord (who was a serious man on the surface, though he
occasionally smiled beneath) replied that there were a great many--far
more than the average in country parishes. 'Even here, in my house,
now,' he added, 'when volks get a drop of drink into 'em, and their
feelings rise to a zong, some man will strike up a hymn by preference.
But I find no fault with that; for though 'tis hardly human nature to be
so calculating in yer cups, a feller may as well sing to gain something
as sing to waste.'

'How do you account for there being so many?'

'Well, you zee, sir, some says one thing, and some another; I think they
does it to save the expense of a Christian burial for ther children. Now
there's a poor family out in Long Lane--the husband used to smite for
Jimmy More the blacksmith till 'a hurt his arm--they'd have no less than
eleven children if they'd not been lucky t'other way, and buried five
when they were three or four months old. Now every one of them children
was given to the sexton in a little box that any journeyman could nail
together in a quarter of an hour, and he buried 'em at night for a
shilling a head; whereas 'twould have cost a couple of pounds each if
they'd been christened at church.... Of course there's the new lady
at the castle, she's a chapel member, and that may make a little
difference; but she's not been here long enough to show whether 'twill
be worth while to join 'em for the profit o't or whether 'twill not. No
doubt if it turns out that she's of a sort to relieve volks in trouble,
more will join her set than belongs to it already. "Any port in a
storm," of course, as the saying is.'

'As for yourself, you are a Churchman at present, I presume?'

'Yes; not but I was a Methodist once--ay, for a length of time. 'Twas
owing to my taking a house next door to a chapel; so that what with
hearing the organ bizz like a bee through the wall, and what with
finding it saved umbrellas on wet Zundays, I went