Note 24 — Chapter III
Reading edition
The congregation in a church near Newcastle were one Sunday morning plentifully powdered with chips from the white ceiling of the church, which had been crept under, being above an old mine. "It is only the pit a-creeping," said the parish clerk, by way of encouragement to the people to remain. But it would not do; for there was a sudden creep out of the congregation. The clerk went at last, with a powdered head, crying out, "It's only a creep."—"Our Coal-Fields and our Coal-Pits."