The curate to Mr. Stumfold in Littlebath, eager to marry Margaret Mackenzie for her money, with which he hoped to establish himself in an independent church. When he learned that she was to marry her cousin and had lost her money, he imagined that it had been unlawfully taken from her, and that her marriage was arranged to prevent detection. He wrote a series of articles in the “Christian Examiner” of Littlebath denouncing the scheme under the thinly veiled title “The Lion and the Lamb.” Since the arrangement was entirely legal, and Margaret and John were really in love, his intervention came to nothing, and he was glad to marry Miss Colza, who had a small competence, and fade from the scene.

."...the possessor of a good figure, of a fine head of jet black hair, of a perfect set of white teeth, of whiskers which were also black and very fine .. and of the most terrible squint in his right eye which ever disfigured a face that in all other respects was fitted for an Apollo"