n the middle of England, there lies a narrow ridge of high table-land,
dividing, as by a straight line, the collieries and ironworks of the
great coal district from the green and pleasant scenery of the western
Midlands. Along the summit of this ridge runs the High Street of the
bleak little town of Sedgehill; so that the houses on the east side of
this street see nothing through their back windows save the huge
slag-mounds and blazing furnaces and tall chimneys of the weird and
terrible, yet withal fascinating, Black Country; while the houses on the
west side of the street have sunny gardens and fruitful orchards,
sloping down toward a fertile land of woods and streams and meadows,
bounded in the far distance by the Clee Hills and the Wrekin, and in the
farthest distance of all by the blue Welsh mountains.

In the dark valley lying to the immediate east of Sedgehill stood the
Osierfield Works, the largest ironworks in Mershire in the good old
days when Mershire made iron for half the world. The owners of these
works were the Farringdons, and had been so for several generations. So
it came to pass that the Farringdons were the royal family of Sedgehill;
and the Osierfield Works was the circle wherein the inhabitants of that
place lived and moved. It was as natural for everybody born in Sedgehill
eventually to work at the Osierfield, as it was for him eventually to
grow into a man and to take unto himself a wife.

The home of the Farringdons was called the Willows, and was separated by
a carriage-drive of half a mile from the town. Its lodge stood in the
High Street, on the western side; and the drive wandered through a fine
old wood, and across an undulating park, till it stopped in front of a
large square house built of gray stone. It was a handsome house inside,
with wonderful oak staircases and Adams chimneypieces; and there was an
air of great stateliness about it, and of very little luxury. For the
Farringdons were a hardy race, whose time was taken up by the making of
iron and the saving of souls; and they regarded sofas and easy-chairs in
very much the same light as they regarded theatres and strong drink,
thereby proving that their spines were as strong as their consciences
were stern.

Moreover, the Farringdons were of "the people called Methodists";
consequently Methodism was the established religion of Sedgehill,
possessing there that prestige which is the inalienable attribute of all
state churches. In the