being one of the founders, and his name on the deed could not be
excluded--gall and wormwood--without his signature nothing could be done.
Bitterer still, the chapel was heavily in debt to him. Had he chosen, in
American phrase, he could have 'shut up the shebang in mighty sudden
time.' The elder was tall; the elder was strong; the elder was grim; the
elder was a man who could rule hundreds of the roughest labourers; the
elder was a man who would have his say, and said it like throwing down a
hod full of bricks. With the irresistible logic of figures and documents
he demonstrated the pastor to be a liar, and told him so to his face.
With the same engines he proved that two or three of the other managers
were hypocrites, and told them so. Neither could pastor nor managers
refute it, but stood like sheep. Then he told them what he had done for
the chapel and for its minister, and no one could deny him. Indeed, the
minister had been heard to weakly confess that the elder had once been a
good friend to him. Perhaps his partisans, as is often the case, had
taken up the pastor's cause with more violence than he himself desired,
and by their vehemence had driven him into a position which he himself
would have avoided. Most likely he would have made peace himself; but the
blot on all chapel systems of government is that the minister is but the
mouthpiece of his congregation. Having thrown down his load of bricks
thump, the elder stalked out with his memoranda and with his cheque-book,
leaving them to face the spectre of bankruptcy. At least once a week the
elder, out of sheer British determination to claim his rights, stepped
into the chapel rooms with his private key, just to walk round. They put
another lock which his key did not fit, but he heaved the door open with
a crowbar, and their case must have been feeble indeed when they could
not even bring an action for trespass against him.

The historian knoweth not all things, and how this schism arose is hidden
from view. Very likely, indeed, it may have arisen out of the very