Chapter 1: Page 8: Line 27

 The Verger has taken to nodding at him.

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Line 27 Vulgarized:
The church official who assists in church services and various acts within the church and maintains the grounds, often also the digging of graves, now recognizes Cherrycoke due to his frequent visits.

Subtext:
Cherrycoke spends far too much time in the graveyard of late. In other words, he's lost in the past. He has become sick from longing for a place that no longer exists. Perhaps the verger recognizes the look in Cherrycoke's eyes, his pallor, his demeanor, sees in them all things he's seen in the lovesick who have recently lost a spouse, who come to the gravesite over and over again, having lost so much will to live that they soon join their deceased companion.
    This soon into the novel, I can't be certain that Cherrycoke is mourning the loss of Mason specifically or just a time now gone. I suppose, in the end, it hardly matters. The yearn to return to a place and time from the past includes the dead as well as the youth of the living. The verger, recognizing some perhaps mortal sickness in Cherrycoke's spirit, is the only one of the two living in the present and looking toward the future. He sees in Cherrycoke's face where Cherrycoke may be heading. The verger digs the graves as they're needed and shovels dirt over the past, patting the dirt down solidly, giving a final tump of the shovel, and moves on. He lets history go by packing it neatly away, unseen to be eventually forgotten.