The whole of the surrounding country had been put under contribution, and everyone had responded either with generosity or with scorn. Old Sir John Bilder, of Bilder's Entire, had replied with ponderous humour that he "would supply all the ale required." When he received a request for three gross of pint bottles of a particular kind of temperance ale he had been surprised. "Well, I'm damned!" was his comment; but being a sportsman he had sent the ale, which he regarded as a fair price for a good story.
Barton Bridge was proud of its Temperance Society, but prouder still of its breadth of mind. It had been a tradition for a quarter of a century that the Society should be non-sectarian. It is nothing to the discredit of Barton Bridge that the Temperance Society was the only thing in the place that had not been warped from its orbit by sect.
For a churchman to be discovered eating bread of Mr. Lacey's baking, Mr. Lacey being a nonconformist, would have meant social ostracism. He must, by virtue of his beliefs, masticate none but bread kneaded and baked by Mr. Carter, the church baker.
A one-time vicar had sought to demolish this "ridiculous wall of prejudice" by dealing alternately with church and chapel tradesmen. There had been no protest from the chapel people, but the indignation of the church tradesmen had been so great, and their absence from service so persistent, that the vicar had been forced to give way. Tolerance was an acquired habit rather than an instinctive virtue in Barton Bridge, and the temperance meetings were solemn minglings of bodies accompanied by a warring of souls.
A witty Frenchman has said that, "In order to preserve the purity of his home life, the Englishman invented the Continental excursion." It is a cynicism; but at least it shows how dear tradition is to the Englishman's heart. It was this same spirit of tradition that raised above the strife of sect the Barton Bridge Temperance Society.
The question of the doctor was another instance of the effect of tradition upon what, at first glance, might appear to be a grave problem. There was not room for two doctors at Barton Bridge, and no doctor could reasonably be expected to be a bi-religionist. It therefore became the accepted thing that the Barton Bridge doctor should attend neither church nor chapel; but it was incumbent upon him to become a member of the Temperance Society.