there blew the first breath of that dread which was to send them,
shaking, to the penitents' bench. Little children, sagging sideways from
the hand of a grown-up relation, dragged their feet along that road,
taken to the means of salvation willy-nilly.

Ishmael's heart began to stir within him; the sight of so many people
all intent on the same way affected him curiously with a tingling of
excitement. But at the first glimpse of the hideous chapel--one of those
buildings found throughout the Duchy which rebuke God for ever having
created beauty--seemed to Ishmael like some awful monster sucking in its
prey. The chapel had one chimney cocked like an ear, and two large front
windows that were the surprised eyes in a face where the door made a
mouth, into which the black stream of people was pouring. If he had ever
heard of Moloch he would have been struck by the resemblance, and
unfairly so, for when revivals were not in the air that ugly little
chapel was served very faithfully by a spiritually-minded minister, who
hurled himself all the year round against the obduracy of the people.
Ishmael had a quick movement of withdrawal as his mother led him in
through the prosaic yellow-grained doors, but it availed him nothing.
Another moment and he was being propelled into a pew.

They were in good time, and Ishmael stared about him curiously. The
place was very bare and ugly--the walls washed a cold pale green, the
pews painted a dull chocolate that had flaked off in patches, the pulpit
a great threatening erection that stood up in the midst of the pews and
dominated them, like a bullying master confronting a pack of little
boys.

The chapel was lit by lamps hung in iron brackets, and, the oil used
being extracted from pilchards, a strong fishy odour pervaded the air.