"Can't say they did. Indeed I never saw one in the whole of my
life."
"Then why do you call them bad?"
"Because everybody says they are."
"Not everybody. I don't; I have always found them the salt of the
earth."
"Then it is salt that has lost its savour. But perhaps you are one
of them?"
"No, I belong to the Church of England."
"Oh, you do. Then good-night to you. I am a Methodist. I thought
at first that you were one of our ministers, and had hoped to hear
from you something profitable and conducive to salvation, but - "
"Well, so you shall. Never speak ill of people of whom you know
nothing. If that isn't a saying conducive to salvation, I know not
what is. Good evening to you."
I soon reached the village. Singular enough, the people of the
very first house, at which I inquired about the Quakers' Yard, were
entrusted with the care of it. On my expressing a wish to see it,
a young woman took down a key, and said that if I would follow her
she would show it me. The Quakers' burying-place is situated on a
little peninsula or tongue of land, having a brook on its eastern
and northern sides, and on its western the Taf. It is a little
oblong yard, with low walls, partly overhung with ivy. The
entrance is a porch to the south. The Quakers are no friends to
tombstones, and the only visible evidence that this was a place of
burial was a single flag-stone, with a half-obliterated
inscription, which with some difficulty I deciphered, and was as
follows:-
To the Memory of THOMAS EDMUNDS
Who died April the ninth 1802 aged 60 years.
And of MARY EDMUNDS
Who died January the fourth 1810 aged 70.
The beams of the descending sun gilded the Quakers' burial-ground
as I trod its precincts. A lovely resting-place looked that little
oblong yard on the peninsula, by the confluence of the waters, and
quite in keeping with the character of the quiet Christian people
who sleep within it. The Quakers have for some time past been a
decaying sect, but they have done good work in their day, and when
they are extinct they are not destined to be soon forgotten. Soon
forgotten! How should a sect ever be forgotten, to which have
belonged three such men as George Fox, William Penn, and Joseph
Gurney?
Shortly after I left the Quakers' Yard the sun went down and
twilight settled upon the earth. Pursuing my course I reached some
woodlands, and on inquiring of a man, whom I saw standing at the
door of a cottage, the name of the district, was told that it was
called Ystrad Manach - the Monks' Strath or valley. This name it
probably acquired from having belonged in times of old to some
monkish establishment.
