CHAPTER IX.
THE MENDIP MINING DISTRICTS.
On her return from London, Hannah found Cheddar in a satisfactory state; Mrs. Baker had proved herself equal to managing the school all the winter, as well as to conducting what would now be called a Bible Class for the elders, which had received clerical sanction, and was doing great good.
This encouraged the two sisters so much that they ventured to take in hand Shipham and Rowborrow, two neighbouring villages on the top of the Mendips, whose inhabitants were even more savage and deplorable than those of Cheddar, brutal in manners, and so ferocious that they were almost beyond the law, since anyone who durst arrest an inhabitant was sure, before long, to disappear. It was a hundred years since the vicarage had been inhabited, and the actual incumbent,
