The Methodist Nick Stick

The young woman took her seat towards the middle of the row of pews which lined the small Wesleyan Chapel; she had removed her hat on the way in and now she placed it on her lap, letting out a sigh more audible than she had intended.

A big man, sitting to the front of her half-turned and winked, alerted to her presence by the weary exhalation. Jane nodded in acknowledgement. He usually meant little harm; unless he was drunk, but at least he tended to save that for Saturdays. The landlord of the public-house had usually thrown him out by late afternoon, upon which time he would sit leerily leaning against the cross in the village. Erected by the local freeholders to commemorate the election of Ralph Milbanke to Parliamment, it served a useful secondary purpose in holding up a local drunk or two.

The school house was formerly a chapel under the cloth of the Church of Scotland. The old Presbytarian ways were long forgotten though, even the 'new' Methodist ways which had taken sway in the dale waxed and waned. Many men had visited Weardale over the years; believing the lead miners and farm men of the area to be lacking in godliness and to be desperate for salvation, their hearts filled with a fear that without them God might neglect this quiet corner of his Kingdom altogether.

Some men had enriched their standing in the community, becoming officers of the Methodist movement; keeping an eye over the local flock

http://afinitas.org/Watson/WearMeth/MR1898a.html