Few books he had younger than a thousand years; of these, Yarrow and Ellis and good pre-Methodist sermons made the bulk.

He was a man of moderate height, a little shortened in appearance by his equatorial dimensions, and a face that had been mellow from the first was now climacterically ripe.

The beard of a David hid his redundancy of chin; he wore no watch chain out of refinements and his modest clerical garments were made by a West End tailor....

And he sat with a hand on either shin, blinking at his village in beatific approval.

He waved a plump palm towards it.