ger is obliged to accept them against his will, any more than a
horse need drink water put before him.

1. In estimating the influence of the Church (Dissent has but a small
following here) it should be remembered that until some time after the
enclosure of the common the village held no place of worship of any
denomination. Moreover, the comparatively few inhabitants of that time
were free from interference by rich people or by resident employers.
They had the valley to themselves; they had always lived as they liked,
and been as rough as they liked; and there must have been memories
amongst them--quite recent memories then--of the lawless life of other
heath-dwellers, their near neighbours, in the wide waste hollows of
Hindhead. We may therefore surmise that when the church was built a
sprinkling at least of the villagers were none too well pleased. This
may partly explain the sullen hostility of which the clergy are still
the objects in certain quarters of the village, and which the Pharisaism
of some of their friends does much to keep alive. The same causes may
have something to do with the fact that the majority of the labouring
men appear to take no interest at all in religion.

Still, there are more than a few young men, and of the old village stock
too, who yield very readily to the influences of the Church. A family
tradition no doubt predisposes them to do so; for, be it said, not all
of the old villagers were irreligious. Echoes of a rustic Christianity,
gentle and resigned as that which the Vicar of Wakefield taught to his
flock, may be heard to-day in the talk of aged men and women here and
there; and though that piety has gone rather out of fashion, the taste
for something like it survives in these young men. The Church attracts
them; they approve its ideas of decorous life; it is a school of good
manners to them, if not of high thinking, with the result that they
begin to be quite a different sort of people from their fathers and
grandfathers. A pleasant suavity and gentleness marks their behaviour.
They are greatly self-respecting. Their tendency is to adopt and live up
to the middle-class code of respectability.

Neither by temperament nor by outlook are they equipped for the hardship
of real labouring life. These are the men, rather, who get the lighter
work required by the residential people in the villa gardens; or they
fill odd places in the town, where character is wanted more than
strength or