The persons least surprised at the Rev.Amos's deficiencies were his clerical brethren, who had gone through the mysteries themselves.
At eleven o'clock, Mr.Barton walked forth in cape and boa, with the sleet driving in his face, to read prayers at the workhouse, euphemistically called the 'College'.

The College was a huge square stone building, standing on the best apology for an elevation of ground that could be seen for about ten miles around Shepperton.

A flat ugly district this; depressing enough to look at even on the brightest days.

The roads are black with coal-dust, the brick houses dingy with smoke; and at that time--the time of handloom weavers--every other cottage had a loom at its window, where you might see a pale, sickly-looking man or woman pressing a narrow chest against a board, and doing a sort of treadmill work with legs and arms.

A troublesome district for a clergyman; at least to one who, like Amos Barton, understood the 'cure of souls' in something more than an official sense; for over and above the rustic stupidity furnished by the farm-labourers, the miners brought obstreperous animalism, and the weavers in an acrid Radicalism and Dissent.