Page:Arthur Machen - The Hill of Dreams.djvu/70

THE HILL OF DREAMS In the back street by which he passed out of the town he saw a large 'healthy' boy kicking a sick cat; the poor creature had just strength enough to crawl under an outhouse door; probably to die in torments. He did not find much satisfaction in thrashing the boy, but he did it with hearty good will. Further on, at the corner where the turnpike used to be, was a big notice, announcing a meeting at the schoolroom in aid of the missions to the Portuguese. 'Under the Patronage of the Lord Bishop of the Diocese,' was the imposing headline; the Reverend Merivale Dixon, vicar of Caermaen, was to be in the chair, supported by Stanley Gervase, Esq., J.P., and by many of the clergy and gentry of the neighbourhood. Senhor Diabo, 'formerly a Romanist priest, now an evangelist in Lisbon,' would address the meeting. 'Funds are urgently needed to carry on this good work,' concluded the notice. So he lay well back in the shade of the hedge, and thought whether some sort of an article could not be made by vindicating the terrible Yahoos; one might point out that they were in many respects a simple and unsophisticated race, whose faults were the result of their enslaved position, while such virtues as they had were all their own. They might be 60