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'
Then pray tell me where it is,' said Kit, 'for I have come on a pressing
matter, and must fetch her out, even if she was in the pulpit.'
It was not very easy to procure a direction to the fold in question, as
none of the neighbours were of the flock that resorted thither, and few
knew anything more of it than the name. At last, a gossip of Mrs
Nubbles's, who had accompanied her to chapel on one or two
occasions when a comfortable cup of tea had preceded her devotions,
furnished the needful information, which Kit had no sooner obtained
than he started off again.
Little Bethel might have been nearer, and might have been in a
straighter road, though in that case the reverend gentleman who
presided over its congregation would have lost his favourite allusion to
the crooked ways by which it was approached, and which enabled him
to liken it to Paradise itself, in contradistinction to the parish church
and the broad thoroughfare leading thereunto. Kit found it, at last,
after some trouble, and pausing at the door to take breath that he
might enter with becoming decency, passed into the chapel.
It was not badly named in one respect, being in truth a particularly
little Bethel - a Bethel of the smallest dimensions - with a small
number of small pews, and a small pulpit, in which a small gentleman
(
by trade a Shoemaker, and by calling a Divine) was delivering in a by
no means small voice, a by no means small sermon, judging of its
dimensions by the condition of his audience, which, if their gross
amount were but small, comprised a still smaller number of hearers,
as the majority were slumbering.
Among these was Kit's mother, who, finding it matter of extreme
difficulty to keep her eyes open after the fatigues of last night, and
feeling their inclination to close strongly backed and seconded by the
arguments of the preacher, had yielded to the drowsiness that
overpowered her, and fallen asleep; though not so soundly but that
she could, from time to time, utter a slight and almost inaudible
groan, as if in recognition of the orator's doctrines. The baby in her
arms was as fast asleep as she; and little Jacob, whose youth
prevented him from recognising in this prolonged spiritual
nourishment anything half as interesting as oysters, was alternately
very fast asleep and very wide awake, as his inclination to slumber, or
his terror of being personally alluded to in the discourse, gained the
mastery over him.
'
And now I'm here,' thought Kit, gliding into the nearest empty pew
which was opposite his mother's, and on the other side of the little
aisle, 'how am I ever to get at her, or persuade her to come out! I
might as well be twenty miles off. She'll never wake till it's all over,
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