we sent most conscientiously, and ran the risk of walking into the pits with which the place abounds, and which were so covered with snow that he was near being lost. 'No words,' he writes me, 'could describe the sensations of this poor village at seeing a waggonload of coal (we sent) enter the place.' I feel indignant to think that so small a sum can create such feelings when one knows what sums one has wasted."
It was an anxious winter. "The teaching of the teachers is not the least part of the work," another letter says. "Add to this, that having about thirty masters and mistresses with under-teachers, one has continually to bear with the faults, the ignorance, the prejudices, humours, misfortunes, and debts of all these poor well-meaning people."
Yet things were much improving: Mr. Drewitt, the curate of Cheddar, "preached most faithfully on Sundays, and gave a lecture in church on Tuesday evenings, all for £25 per annum."
The Dissenters were beginning to take umbrage at Hannah's doings, and the High Church suspected her independence. She was advised "to publish a short confession of her faith," as her attachment both to the religion and government of the country had become questionable to many persons. "I aver I was rather glad to hear it, as I was afraid I had leaned too strongly to the other side, and had sometimes gone out of my way to show on which side my bias lay. I have not
