The bulk of Mr. Romer’s stone-works were on the Hill itself; but others, intended for the more delicate finishing touches, were situated in a convenient spot close to Nevilton Station. Out of these sheds and yards, built along the railway-track, arose, from morning to night, the monotonous, not unpleasing, murmur of wheels and saws and grindstones. The contrast between these sounds and the sylvan quietness of the vicarage garden, which sloped down towards them, was one of the most significant indications of the clash of the Two Mythologies in this place. The priest meditating among his roses upon the vanity of all but “heavenly habitations” might have been in danger of being too obtrusively reminded of the pride of the houses that are very definitely “made with hands.” Perhaps this was one of the reasons why the present incumbent of Nevilton had preferred a more undisturbed retreat. The general manager of Mortimer Romer’s quarries was a certain Mr. Lickwit, who served also as his confidential adviser in many other spheres. The works at Nevilton Station were left to the superintendence of two brothers named Andersen, skilled stone-cutters, sons of the famous Gideon Andersen known to architects all over the kingdom for his designs in Leonian stone. Both Gideon and his wife Naomi were buried in Nevilton churchyard, and the brothers were condemned in the village as persons of an almost scandalous piety because of their innocent habit of lingering on warm summer evenings over their parents’ grave. They lived together, these two, as lodgers with the station-master, in a newly built cottage close to their work. Their social position in the place was a curious and anomalous one. Their father’s reputation as a sculptor had brought him into touch with every grade of society; and the woman who became his wife was by birth what is usually termed a lady. Gideon himself had been a rough and gross fellow; and after his wife’s death had hastened to take his sons away from school and apprentice them to his own trade. They were in many respects a noteworthy pair, though scarcely favourites, either with their fellow-workmen or their manager. James Andersen, the elder by some ten years, was of a morose, reserved temper, and though a capable workman never seemed happy in the work-shop. Luke, on the contrary, possessed a peculiarly sunny and serene spirit.