0 years, gabled,
red brick, and why it was put there nobody knew. Round it were
tombstones, many totally disfigured, and most of them awry. The grass
was always long and rank, full of dandelions, sorrel, and docks,
excepting once a year in June when it was cut, and then it looked raw and
yellow. Here and there was an unturfed, bare hillock, marking a new
grave, and that was the only mark it would have, for people who could
afford anything more did not attend the chapel now. The last
"respectable family" was a farmer's hard by, but he and his wife had
died, and his sons and daughters went to church. The congregation, such
as it was, consisted nominally of about a dozen labourers and their wives
and children, but no more than half of them came at any one time. The
windows had painted wooden shutters, which were closed during the week to
protect the glass from stone-throwing, and the rusty iron gate was always
locked, save on Sundays. The gate, the door, and the shutters were
unfastened just before the preacher came, and the horrible chapel smell
and chapel damp hung about the place during the whole service. When
there was a funeral of any one belonging to the congregation the Abchurch
minister had to conduct it, and it was necessarily on Sunday, to his
great annoyance. Nobody could be buried on any other day, because work
could not be intermitted; no labourer could stay at home when wife or
child was dying; he would have lost his wages, and perhaps his
occupation. He thought himself lucky if they died in the night.

The chapel was "supplied," as it was called, by an Abchurch deacon or
Sunday-school teacher, who came over, prayed, preached, gave out hymns,
and went away. That was nearly all that Cross Lanes knew of the "parent
cause." The supplies were constantly being changed, and if it was very
bad weather they stayed at home. On very rare occasions the Abchurch
minister appeared on Sunday evenings in summer, but that was only when he
wanted rest, and could deliver the Abchurch sermon of the morning, and
could obtain a substitute at home.

Crowhursts had been buried at Cross Lanes ever since it existed, but the
present Crowhursts knew nothing of their ancestors beyond the generation
immediately preceding. What was there to remember, or if there was
anything worth remembering, why should they remember it? Life was blank,
blind, dull as the brown clay in the sodden fields in November;
nevertheless, the Ligh