George A. Birmingham

“ Another man, while dwelling with pleasure on the expectation of a drink, would have also wished for a wash and the use of a clothes brush. The ideal curate, the "dilettante, delicate-handed priest" of Tennyson's poems, the beloved of ladies in English country towns, would have wished first to be clean and then desired some mild refreshment—tea, perhaps, served in an old china cup. But Mr. Meldon was no such curate. Indeed, those who knew him well wondered at his being a curate at all. ”

“ The stories of the exile's misdeeds, when we get to know them, as we always do in the end, are frequently most diverting.
Meldon leaped to the conclusion that Mr. Doyle's Companion belonged to the class of scandalous livers. He had not the look of benevolent intelligence which is always to be found on the faces of men connected with the Government, and he wore a fur coat, whereas officials, Members of Parliament, and journalists always wear brown tweed suits and disdain luxurious overcoats when they wander in wild places. ”

“ Meldon, curate of Ballymoy, should have ridden fast on such a day. He was out upon no desperate enterprise, rode no race against death or misfortune, would win no bet by arriving anywhere at any specified time. His day's work, not a very arduous one for members of the Church of Ireland are few in Ballymoy was done. He might have ridden slowly if he liked, might have walked, need not have travelled the road at all unless he chose. The afternoon and evening were before him, and he proposed to spend them with Major Kent at Portsmouth Lodge. ”

“ Joseph John Meldon in spite of the curate's free-and-easy manners, habitual unpunctuality, and incurable untidiness. It is said that men are attracted to those who differ from them, that like does not readily mate with like. If this is a law of nature, the friendship between Major Kent and the curate formed a fine example of its working.
Meldon entered the dining-room of Portsmouth Lodge and found the Major at the writing-table with a pile of papers and parchments beside him. Papers of any kind, except the Times, which the Major read regularly, were rare in Portsmouth Lodge. ”

“ The second class consists of men who have come to grief somewhere else, through wine, women, or one of the other usual causes of disgrace, and are seeking seclusion till the memory of their misdeeds has faded from the minds of relatives and friends. Respectable relatives and friends, English for the most part, have apparently come to the conclusion that the pastures of the West of Ireland are peculiarly suitable to black sheep. ”

“ He'll poison half the county with the stuff he sells as whisky in those tents of his. Then nothing would do the chestnut filly but to cut her near hind leg on the barbed wire, and she had to be seen to. Then Jemmy Doyle came over with some stranger who wanted to hire the Spindrift. As if I'd lend my boat to a man I've never set eyes on before—a fellow in a fur coat, who most likely knows no more about sailing than I do about midwifery. And now it's you, J. J. But sit down and light your pipe. I suppose you want a drink. There's whisky and a syphon of soda on the side-board. ”

“ The old boy hasn't been near the place this twenty years, but he paid up like a man. Now the property has gone to a nephew, who means to sell it, I hear, as soon as he can, and who doesn't care a rap about the church. ”