The Gold Stealers by Edward Dyson — Read

The small, wooden Wesleyan chapel at Waddy was perched on an eminence at the end of the township furthest from the Drovers' Arms. The chapel, according to the view of the zealous brethren who conducted it, represented all that counted for righteousness in the township, and the Drovers' Arms the head centre of the powers of evil. For verbal convenience in prayer and praise the hotel was known as 'The Sink of Iniquity,' and the chapel as 'This Little Corner of the Vineyard,' and through the front windows of the latter, one sabbath morn after another for many years, lusty Cornishmen, moved by the spirit, had hurled down upon McMahon and his house strident and terrible denunciations.

Materially the chapel had nothing in common with a vineyard; it was built upon arid land as bare and barren as a rock; not even a blade of grass grew within a hundred yards of its doors. The grim plainness of the old drab building was relieved only by a rickety bell-tower so stuffed with sparrows' nests that the bell within gave forth only a dull and muffled note. The chapel was surrounded with the framework of a fence only, so the chapel ground was the chief rendezvous of all the goats of Waddy -- and they were many and various. They gathered in its shade in the summer and sought its shelter from the biting blast in winter, not always content with an outside stand; for the goats of Waddy were conscious of their importance, and of a familiar and impudent breed.