The next-door neighbours of No. 8 were on the one hand a carpenter's
yard, the view of which was charming to the children, and the noises
not too obnoxious to their parents, and on the other the rectory
garden, which separated them from the churchyard, now of course
disused. It had no entrance towards their lane, and to reach the
church, it was necessary to turn the corner of the wall, and go in
through the south porch, which opened close upon the High Street.
In this old street lay the two buildings that chiefly concerned the
young Underwoods, i.e. the two schools. That for boys was an old
foundation, which had fallen into decay, and had been reformed and
revivified in nineteenth-century fashion, to suit the requirements of
the town. The place, though in the south of England, had become noted
as a pottery, owing partly to the possession of large fields of a
peculiar clay, which was so bad for vegetable growth as to proclaim
its destiny to become pots and pans, partly to its convenient
neighbourhood to the rising seaport of Dearport, which was only an
hour from it by railway. The old St. Oswald's school had been moulded
under the influence of newcomers, who had upset the rules of the
founder, and arranged the terms on the broadest principles of
liberality, bringing, instead of the drowsy old clerical master, a
very brisk and lively young layman, who had a knack of conveying
instruction of multifarious kinds such as had never occurred to his
predecessor.
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