The organ of communication between the members of the society at
Varley and those in other villages was the blacksmith, or as he
preferred to be called, the minister, John Stukeley, who on weekdays
worked at the forge next door to the "Spotted Dog," and on Sundays
held services in "Little Bethel"--a tiny meeting house standing
back from the road.
Had John Stukeley been busier during the week he would have had
less time to devote to the cause of "King Lud;" but for many hours
a day his fire was banked up, for except to make repairs in any of
the frames which had got out of order, or to put on a shoe which a
horse had cast on his way up the hill from Marsden, there was but
little employment for him.
The man was not a Yorkshireman by birth, but came from Liverpool,
and his small, spare figure contrasted strongly with those of the
tall, square built Yorkshiremen, among whom he lived.
He was a good workman, but his nervous irritability, his self
assertion, and impatience of orders had lost him so many places that
he had finally determined to become his own master, and, coming
into a few pounds at the death of his father, had wandered away
from the great towns, until finding in Varley a village without
a smith, he had established himself there, and having adopted the
grievances of the men as his own, had speedily become a leading
figure among them.
A short time after his arrival the old man who had officiated at
Little Bethel had died, and Stukeley, who had from the first taken
a prominent part in the service, and who possessed the faculty of
fluent speech to a degree rare among the Yorkshiremen, was installed
as his successor, and soon filled Little Bethel as it had never
been filled before.
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