to be severe. And he knew, moreover, that no
severity of expression would have been of avail. He couldn't have
stopped Sam from going had he preached to him for an hour.

After that the building of the chapel went on apace, the large
tradesman from Salisbury being quicker in his work than could have
been the small tradesman belonging to Bullhampton. In February there
came a hard frost, and still the bricklayers were at work. It was
said in Bullhampton that walls built as those walls were being built
could never stand. But then it might be that these reports were
spread by Mr. Grimes, that the fanatical ardour of the Salisbury
Baptist lent something to the rapidity of his operations, and that
the Bullhampton feeling in favour of Mr. Fenwick and the Church
Establishment added something to the bitterness of the prevailing
criticisms. At any rate, the walls of the new chapel were mounting
higher and higher all through February, and by the end of the first
week in March there stood immediately opposite to the Vicarage gate a
hideously ugly building, roofless, doorless, windowless;--with those
horrid words,--"New Salem, 186--" legibly inscribed on a visible
stone inserted above the doorway, a thing altogether as objectionable
to the eyes of a Church of England parish clergyman as the
imagination of any friend or enemy could devise. We all know the
abominable adjuncts of a new building,--the squalid half-used heaps
of bad mortar, the eradicated grass, the truculent mud, the scattered
brickbats, the remnants of timber, the debris of the workmen's
dinners, the morsels of paper scattered through the dirt! There had
from time to time been actual encroachments on the Vicarage grounds,
and Mrs. Fenwick, having discovered that the paint had been injured
on the Vicarage gate, had sent an angry message to the Salisbury
Baptist. The Salisbury Baptist had apologised to Mr. Fenwick, saying
that such things would happen in the building of houses, &c., and Mr.
Fenwick had assured him that the matter was of no consequence. He was
not going to descend into the arena with the Salisbury Baptist. In
this affair the Marquis of Trowbridge was his enemy, and with the
Marquis he would fight, if there was to be any fight at all. He would
stand at his gate and watch the work, and speak good-naturedly to
the workmen; but he was in truth sick at heart. The thing, horrible
as it was to him, so fascinated him that he could not keep his mind
from it. Duri