It was nothing so very terrible approaching either, being only a tall, well-built, handsome young man of six or seven and twenty, his hands in the pockets of his loose jacket, and a cigar in his mouth.
Part 1, Chapter III. The State of Lawford
When the new rector was appointed to the living he resolutely refused to go without a fresh rectory was built, for the old house, with its low rooms, was ten yards from the churchyard, which in the course of centuries had gone up, while the old rectory seemed to have gone down, so that you walked along a slope and then descended three steps into the ancient, damp, evil-smelling place, which had more the aspect of a furnished mausoleum than a house.
The consequence was that a grant was made for the building of a new rectory, which was erected a mile and a half out of the town; and as the living was rich, the Rev. Eli Mallow borrowed a couple of thousand pounds to have the house made handsomer, and to add conservatories and greenhouses to the place, got it all in excellent order, and then went on the Continent for a few years, when the old rectory did very well for Mr Paulby, the curate who was left in charge.
Difficulties of pocket had certainly had something to do with the absenteeism of the Rev. Eli Mallow, but there had been other troubles as well in connection with his sons, whom he had made several efforts to start in life and get away from Lawford. They were the sons of a clergyman, but two more unclerical youths never troubled father, and so unfortunate were his efforts, so persistently did the young men return home to their fond and indulgent mother and their proud weak father, that the Lawford people, famous among themselves for nick-naming those that they did not like, called Frank Mallow, the elder brother, The Bad Shilling, while Cyril, consequent upon a visit to Australia, they named The Boomerang.
They were an old-fashioned people at Lawford, and the owd rector had been old-fashioned too. It was past the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and forty, and Victoria was seated upon the throne, but the old rector thought it no wrong to go to one of the inns
and sit and drink his mug of ale and chat and gossip with any townsman who came in.
As to the church, a colder, damper, more musty-smelling place could not have been found. Its glory was its whitewash, which was so rich and fat and thick that every here and there it bore a crop of curious spindly mushrooms, which grew and flourished and died, leaving great black patches on the walls like hatchments to record their vegetable deaths, till about once in a generation the whitewash brush came into use again, and a new coat was laid on to moulder and grow damp, and fall in patches of a goodly thickness upon the stained stone pave.
The worst of that whitewash was that it was not white, only a dirty wash that covered the ceiling and face of the wall, great blank patches of which used to be mentally studied by the schoolboys as maps of unknown regions, for the moisture that streamed down from the roof soon marked black rivers, while dark boundary lines seemed to be traced by cracks and mould of strange continents, islands, and seas, upon which in summer-time bluebottle flies and spiders made islands or cruising barks.
In the moist autumn times the place always broke out into a cold perspiration, the wet standing in great tears upon the flat tombstones and even upon the broad slab of old blackened oak that served for Sammy Warmoths desk, where his books, like those above his head, were patterned on their covers with white mould-spots exhaling an odour of mushrooms not fit to eat.
The pews were of dull white deal; the sacramental table was covered with a ragged green baize in the sere and yellow leaf, and as worthy of being called green as the church whitewash was of being termed white. Taken altogether, there was a strong suggestion on entering Lawford church of going into a cellar without the sawdust, and wanting in the wine; and old Mrs Marley, lately gone to her rest, and over whom as a very ancient friend Sammy Warmoth had affectionately patted down the earth with his spade, moistening it a little with his tears to make it stick, afterwards building up her grave with a mound of the finest, most velvety turf he could cut, that he protected with brambles from the sheep old Mrs Marley, when she was schoolmistress, always made a point in winter of taking a large stone bottle of hot water with her to the church, smuggling it regularly beneath her cloak, and pitying the four-and-twenty blue-nosed little children, whom she led, because only two could sit by her at a time and warm their hands.
Humphrey Bone, the schoolmaster, also made a point of taking a bottle to church, but his was small, and he made occasions for bending his head beneath the front of the pew and imbibing portions of its contents through a very long turkey quill.
The church had remained in statu quo during the Rectors stay abroad, but now that he had returned, it was with ideas similar to the new broom he meant to sweep clean. Perhaps the Rev. Eli Mallow was a little conscience-stricken for past neglect. At all events the Rector had now set himself to work on a general reform, but his absence had embittered a by no means friendly people.