dead."
"Is there a village near it?
"There is, and the village is called by the same name."
"Are there any Quakers in it?"
"Not one, nor in the neighbourhood, but there are some, I believe, in
Cardiff."
"Why do they bury their dead there?"
"You should ask them, not me. I know nothing about them, and don't want;
they are a bad set of people."
"Did they ever do you any harm?"
"Can't say they did. Indeed I never saw one in the whole of my life."
"Then why do you call them bad?"
"Because everybody says they are."
"Not everybody. I don't; I have always found them the salt of the
earth."
"Then it is salt that has lost its savour. But perhaps you are one of
them?"
"No, I belong to the Church of England."
"Oh, you do. Then good-night to you. I am a Methodist. I thought at
first that you were one of our ministers, and had hoped to hear from you
something profitable and conducive to salvation, but--"
"Well, so you shall. Never speak ill of people of whom you know nothing.
If that isn't a saying conducive to salvation, I know not what is. Good
evening to you."
I soon reached the village. Singular enough, the people of the very
first house, at which I inquired about the Quakers' Yard, were entrusted
with the care of it. On my expressing a wish to see it, a young woman
took down a key, and said that if I would follow her she would show it
me. The Quakers' burying-place is situated on a little peninsula or
tongue of land, having a brook on its eastern and northern sides, and on
its western the Taf. It is a little oblong yard, with low walls, partly
overhung with ivy. The entrance is a porch to the south. The Quakers
are no friends to tombstones, and the only visible evidence that this was
a place of burial was a single flag-stone, with a half-obliterated
inscription, which with some difficulty I deciphered, and was as
follows:--
To the Memory of THOMAS EDMUNDS
Who died April the ninth 1802 aged 60 years.
And of MARY EDMUNDS
Who died January the fourth 1810 aged 70.
The beams of the descending sun gilded the Quakers' burial-ground as I
trod its precincts. A lovely resting-place looked that little oblong
yard on the peninsula, by the confluence of the waters, and quite in
keeping with the character of the quiet Christian people who sleep within
it. The Quakers have for some time past been a
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