"Yes, old," he said, "and the reason I mentioned my unfortunate childhood was to point a moral in content. When I was young I was made to go to chapel twice on Sundays, three times counting Sunday-school, and here I find you all wandering about the moor."
"I'd rather have had the chapel," Miriam said. "One could at least look at people's hats."
"The hats in our particular Bethel were chiefly bonnets. Bonnets with things in them that nodded, and generally black." He stared across the moor. "I don't know that the memory of them is a thing to cherish."
Helen tried to do justice to the absent. "We were never told not to go. We could do what we liked."
"Ah, but we weren't encouraged," Miriam chuckled. "You have to be encouraged, don't you, Zebedee, before you go into places like that?"
"My father had other methods," he said grimly.
The silence tightened on his memories, and no one spoke until Miriam said, almost gently, "Please tell us some more."
"The pews were a bright yellow, and looked sticky. The roof was painted blue, with stars. There was a man in a black gown with special knowledge on the subject of sin."
"That," Miriam said pensively, "must have been amusing."
"No. Only dreary and somehow rather unclean. I liked to go to the surgery afterwards and smell the antiseptics."