If his horse wanted shoeing, he would give him three new shoes, and use an old one for the fourth.

If he ever gave money, it was by way of a bargain; and if he ever took up a cause, good or bad, it was grudgingly, and in a way which robbed his support of all graciousness.
It took me some months to discover all this about my new master.
When first I found myself an inmate of Knockowen, I was so sore with disappointment and anger that I cared about nothing and nobody.

His honour, whose professions of interest in me were, as I well knew, all hollow, concerned himself very little about my well-being under his roof.

Why he had taken me at all I could not guess.

But I was sure, whatever the reason, it was because it suited his interest, not mine.