He found that it had its origin in a building standing alone in a field;
and though the evening was not yet dark without, lights shone from the
windows. In a few moments Somerset stood before the edifice. Being just
then en rapport with ecclesiasticism by reason of his recent occupation,
he could not help murmuring, ‘Shade of Pugin, what a monstrosity!’
Perhaps this exclamation (rather out of date since the discovery that
Pugin himself often nodded amazingly) would not have been indulged in
by Somerset but for his new architectural resolves, which caused
professional opinions to advance themselves officiously to his
lips whenever occasion offered. The building was, in short, a
recently-erected chapel of red brick, with pseudo-classic ornamentation,
and the white regular joints of mortar could be seen streaking its
surface in geometrical oppressiveness from top to bottom. The roof was
of blue slate, clean as a table, and unbroken from gable to gable;
the windows were glazed with sheets of plate glass, a temporary iron
stovepipe passing out near one of these, and running up to the height of
the ridge, where it was finished by a covering like a parachute. Walking
round to the end, he perceived an oblong white stone let into the wall
just above the plinth, on which was inscribed in deep letters:--
Erected 187-,