Several other fellow-townsmen expressed their opinions that it was a shame, and declared that they had not patience with the parson, and the consequence was that he was so talked over, that when he came back and set about his work of reformation he was met at his very first movement by a hedge of thorns that regularly surrounded the church. Every one of these thorns was a prejudice which he had to fight. "Church did very well for t' owd rector, and always has done," was the cry; "why won't it do for he?" "_Festina lente_," said the Reverend Eli to himself; and he set to work slowly, cautiously, and well, making such advance in his undertaking that plenty of money was promised, and he saw in the future a handsome, well-warmed church, with all the surroundings for reverent worship. "Poor old fellow!" he had said to himself as he listened to the clerk, for the old man would utter the three first words of a response in a shrill tenor, and then drop his voice, nothing, else being heard until it came to the end, when to a new-comer his peculiar "_Hup-men_" was almost startling in its strangeness. "_Week, week, week; wubble, wubble, wubble_," the school-children always declared he said, no matter what was the response; and then, after giving out the psalm or hymn so that no one could hear, the poor old fellow would sing in a shrill unmusical voice from behind a huge pair of tortoiseshell framed spectacles, holding his great hymn-book with both hands, and emphasising the words he sang by raising and lowering the book; turning to right and left, singing to the people below his desk, and then at the huge whitewashed beams of the ceiling, before turning three parts round to send his voice into the chancel, for the benefit of the old women from the Bede houses who sat there upon a very uncomfortable bench. "I dare say it is very wrong," said Lord Artingale, who had ridden over from Gatton one Sunday to welcome the Mallows back to Lincolnshire, "but much as I want to be reverent, I really don't think I could go to your church again, Mr Mallow, without laughing in the middle of the service." The Rector looked grave, for poor old Warmoth was a great trouble to him, and, as may be gathered, he had consulted the churchwardens on the question of the alterations, and among other things suggested that the old clerk should be asked to resign. The effect we have seen, and that same day Portlock, the farmer, went up and told the result of his chat with the old clerk. "It is very provoking, Mr Portlock, very. I want the old man to go quietly--in fact, to resign," said the Rector. "If I send him away the people will say that he is ill-used." "That they will, depend on't," replied the Churchwarden. "Our folk take a deal o' driving." "Well, well; what is to be done?" "Best let things bide as they are, sir; you wean't do any good by trying to alter 'em."