Spanish Gold. George A. Birmingham

MOY BAY is full of islands, inhabited and uninhabited, and has many smaller bays leading from its main waters far inland. If it were anywhere but in Connacht it would be the haunt of yachtsmen. Being where it is, a pleasure boat rarely sails on it. At the south-eastern corner of the bay stands the town of Ballymoy. It is rich, like most West of Ireland towns, in public-houses and ecclesiastical buildings. It is rich in nothing else. Westwards, along the shore of the bay, runs the road which connects the town with the farmhouses of the neighbourhood and at last with the poverty-stricken villages which are scattered over the great bog. On this road there is a great deal of traffic. Country carts, droves of cattle, donkeys laden with panniers of turf and Major Kent's smart dogcart come into the town along it on market days and fair days. Therefore during nine-tenths of the year it is extremely muddy. When it is not muddy the dust blows in great clouds over it, to the discomfort of wayfarers who are accustomed to wet feet and mud-clogged boots, but hate to feel limestone grit between their teeth and in their eyes.

The Rev. Joseph John Meldon bicycled along this road one afternoon near the end of May. The day was very hot and the little wind there was blew against him as he rode. The dust had powdered his black clothes till they looked grey, and lay thick in the creases of his trousers, which were bound round his ankles by thin steel clasps. He rode rapidly and was most uncomfortably hot. His hands were red and moist. Every now and then a drop of sweat gathered beside his nose, trickled down and lodged among the hairs of his thick red moustache. A soft felt hat, grey with dust like his clothes, was pushed back from his glistening forehead.

There was no reason why Mr. 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. It made no difference when he arrived there. Four o'clock, five o'clock, six o'clock, any hour up to seven o'clock, when he dined, would be the same to Major Kent, who was one of those fortunate gentlemen who have nothing particular to do in life. Mr. Meldon rode fast and got hot, when he might have ridden slowly and been no more than warm, because he was a young man of impetuous energy and liked going as quickly as he could on all occasions.

"I hope," he murmured, conscious of the heat while he enjoyed increasing it, "that old Kent will give me a proper drink when I arrive. I could do nicely this minute with a lemon squash."

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. He was more at his ease in a smoking-room than a drawing-room, and preferred a gun to a Sunday-school roll-book. He cared very little about his personal appearance, and considered that he paid sufficient respect to the virtue of cleanliness if he washed every morning. He was physically strong, played most games well, had been distinguished as an athlete in college, smoked black tobacco, and was engaged to be married. Also though no one ever gave him credit for being studious, he read a great many books.

"A dash of whisky," he murmured again, "would improve that lemon squash. To do the Major justice, he's free with his drinks. A fellow has to be careful of himself with that old boy."

A dogcart approached him, driven towards Ballymoy. The driver was a stout, fair man. Beside him, wrapped in a shabby, fur-lined coat, sat a thin, sallow youth.

"Hullo, Doyle," shouted Meldon, "what brings you out here?"

He dismounted from his bicycle and stood in the middle of the road. He recognized that the sallow youth in the fur coat was a stranger in Ballymoy. Meldon wanted to find out something about him all about him if possible. Ballymoy is situated in a district

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