Page 284 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

and patronage, a wealthy ex-prisoner, grown fat on the prof-
its of rum. The population that was abroad on that sunny
December afternoon had certainly an incongruous appear-
ance to a dapper clergyman lately arrived from London, and
missing, for the first time in his sleek, easy-going life, those
social screens which in London civilization decorously con-
ceal the frailties and vices of human nature. Clad in glossy
black, of the most fashionable clerical cut, with dandy boots,
and gloves of lightest lavender—a white silk overcoat hint-
ing that its wearer was not wholly free from sensitiveness to
sun and heat—the Reverend Meekin tripped daintily to the
post office, and deposited his letter. Two ladies met him as
he turned.
‘Mr. Meekin!’
Mr. Meekin’s elegant hat was raised from his intellectual
brow and hovered in the air, like some courteous black bird,
for an instant. ‘Mrs. Jellicoe! Mrs. Protherick! My dear led-
dies, this is an unexpected pleasure! And where, pray, are
you going on this lovely afternoon? To stay in the house is
positively sinful. Ah! what a climate—but the Trail of the
Serpent, my dear Mrs. Protherick— the Trail of the Ser-
pent—’ and he sighed.
‘It must be a great trial to you to come to the colony,’ said
Mrs. Jellicoe, sympathizing with the sigh.
Meekin smiled, as a gentlemanly martyr might have
smiled. ‘The Lord’s work, dear leddies—the Lord’s work.
I am but a poor labourer in the vineyard, toiling through
the heat and burden of the day.’ The aspect of him, with his
faultless tie, his airy coat, his natty boots, and his self-satis-