Mr.Raymond, under his direction, had been purchasing the necessary tools for some months past, and now the main expense was the cost of coal, which pinched them a little.
But they managed to keep the fire alight, and the work went forward briskly.

Save that he still forbade the parish to lend them the least help, the old Squire had ceased to interfere.
Mr.Raymond's hair was greyer, and Taffy might have observed--but did not--how readily towards the close of a day's laborious carpentry he would drop work and turn to Dindorf's _Poetae Scenici Graeci_, through which they were reading their way.

On Sundays the congregation rarely numbered a dozen.

It seemed that, as the end of the Vicar's task drew nearer, so the prospect of filling the church receded and became more shadowy.

And if his was a queer plight, Jacky Pascoe's was queerer.