Dissent had been strong throughout the whole county ever since the Commonwealth. The old meeting-house held about 700 people, and was filled every Sunday. It was not the gifts of the minister, certainly after the days of my early childhood, which kept such a congregation steady. The reason why it held together was the simple loyalty which prevents a soldier or a sailor from mutinying, although the commanding officer may deserve no respect. Most of the well-to-do tradesfolk were Dissenters. They were taught what was called a “moderate Calvinism”, a phrase not easy to understand. If it had any meaning, it was that predestination, election, and reprobation, were unquestionably true, but they were dogmas about which it was not prudent to say much, for some of the congregation were a little Arminian, and St. James could not be totally neglected. The worst of St. James was that when a sermon was preached from his Epistle, there was always a danger lest somebody in the congregation should think that it was against him it was levelled. There was no such danger, at any rate not so much, if the text was taken from the Epistle to the Romans.
In the “singing-pew” sat a clarionet, a double bass, a bassoon, and a flute: also a tenor voice which “set the tune”. The carpenter, to whom the tenor voice belonged, had a tuning-fork which he struck on his desk and applied to his ear. He then hummed the tuning-fork note, and the octave below, the double bass screwed up and responded, the leader with the tuning-fork boldly struck out, everybody following, including the orchestra, and those of the congregation who had bass or tenor voices sang the air. Each of the instruments demanded a fair share of solos.
The institution strangest to me now was the Lord’s Supper. Once a month the members of the church, while they were seated in the pews, received the bread and wine at the hands of the deacons, the minister reciting meanwhile passages from Scripture. Those of the congregation who had not been converted, and who consequently did not belong to the church and were not communicants, watched the rite from the gallery. What the reflective unconverted, who were upstairs, thought I cannot say. The master might with varying emotions survey the man who cleaned his knives and boots. The wife might sit beneath and the husband above, or, more difficult still, the mistress might be seated aloft while her husband and her conceited maid-of-all-work, Tabitha, enjoyed full gospel privileges below.
Dependent on the mother “cause” were chapels in the outlying villages. They were served by lay preachers, and occasionally by the minister from the old meeting-house. One village, Stagsden, had attained to the dignity of a wind and a stringed instrument.
The elders of the church at Bedford belonged mostly to the middle class in the town, but some of them were farmers. Ignorant they were to a degree which would shock the most superficial young person of the present day; and yet, if the farmer’s ignorance and the ignorance of the young person could be reduced to the same denomination, I doubt whether it would not be found that the farmer knew more than the other. The farmer could not discuss Coleridge’s metres or the validity of the maxim, “Art for Art’s sake”, but he understood a good deal about the men around him, about his fields, about the face of the sky, and he had found it out all by himself, a fact of more importance than we suppose. He understood also that he must be honest; he had learnt how to be honest, and everything about him, house, clothes, was a reality and not a sham. One of these elders I knew well. He was perfectly straightforward, God-fearing also, and therefore wise. Yet he once said to my father, “I ain’t got no patience with men who talk pōtry (poetry) in the pulpit. If you hear that, how can you wonder at your children wanting to go to thēatres and cathredrals?”
Of my father’s family, beyond my grandfather, I know nothing. His forefathers had lived in Bedfordshire beyond memory, and sleep indistinguishable, I am told, in Wilstead churchyard. He was Radical, and almost Republican. With two of his neighbours he refused to illuminate for our victories over the French, and he had his windows smashed by a Tory mob. One night he and a friend were riding home on horseback, and at the entrance of the town they came upon somebody lying in the road, who had been thrown from his horse and was unconscious. My grandfather galloped forwards for a doctor, and went back at once before the doctor could start. On his way, and probably riding hard, he also was thrown and was killed. He was found by those who had followed him, and in the darkness and confusion they did not recognize him. They picked him up, thinking he was the man for whom they had been sent. When they reached the Swan Inn they found out their mistake, and returned to the other man. He recovered.
I had only one set of relations in Bedford, my aunt, who was my father’s sister, her husband, Samuel Lovell, and their children, my cousins. My uncle was a maltster and coal merchant. Although he was slender and graceful when he was young, he was portly when I first knew him. He always wore, even in his counting-house and on his wharf, a spotless shirt—seven a week—elaborately frilled in front. He was clean-shaven, and his face was refined and gentle. To me he was kindness itself. He was in the habit of driving two or three times a year to villages and solitary farm-houses to collect his debts, and, to my great delight, he used to take me with him. We were out all day. His creditors were by no means punctual: they reckoned on him with assurance. This is what generally happened. Uncle draws up at the front garden gate and gets out: I hold the reins. Blacksmith, in debt something like £15 for smithery coal, comes from his forge at the side of the house to meet him.
“Ah, Mr. Lovell, I’m glad to see you: how’s the missus and the children? What weather it is!”
“I suppose you guess, Master Fitchew, what I’ve come about: you’ve had this bill twice—I send my bills out only once a year—and you’ve not paid a penny.”