A Man of the Moors

A mile and a half due west of Marshcotes, on the highroad that takes you straight to the Lancashire border, lies another village--little more than an overgrown hamlet it is--whi...

Griff Lomax, waking at half-past five of a morning towards the end of August, lay on his back for awhile, and thought how fine the moors would be looking at this time of day. Th...

When Griff reached home and looked at himself in the glass, he was struck by the disarrangement of his features. The left eye was swollen and rapidly discolouring; his upper lip...

"Gone wi' him, didst 'a say? Afore iver yon lawyer chap hed sent 'em his bits o' paper? They mun ha' getten it on their minds, an' proper, not to bide till th' law set 'em free."

Joe Strangeways the husband was called; and if roughness could make any man a diamond, then he was emphatically of the purest water. But, apart from his roughness, the untrained...

After Griff had done with his peats, and had eaten a dinner proportionate to his labours, he set off for Marshcotes. Mrs. Lomax, with a cross-country tramp in mind, was just com...

"Kate," said Lomax, a few days after his adventure with the preacher, "not a stroke of work shall I do this morning; the sun is hot, and the breeze cool, and altogether it's a d...

The Marshcotes Moor was bounded, on the side remote from the village, by a broad stretch of "intake"--sparsely covered grass land, wrested from the heath by long years of sweat...

At eight of the next evening, Griff Lomax was surprised by a visit from the preacher--surprised, because only a few hours ago they had parted at the end of a long ride together.

Lomax, feeling a sudden desire to stretch his legs, set off at five of an October afternoon to walk to Ludworth. His mother was staying at Gorsthwaite for a day or two, and ther...

At the top of the rise that overlooked Wynyates, the chimney-stack of Bents Foot stood out, black and rigid as a funeral mute, against the grey-white of the sky. Griff plodded h...

The mistal at the rear of Gabriel Hirst's house was noisy, this May evening, with the clatter of milking-pails, the mooing of cattle in their stalls, and the semi-audible runnin...

Griff, during the next few months, was greatly exercised in mind touching his friend the preacher. Gabriel Hirst's moods were swinging to wider extremes nowadays; the constant s...

They had been at the Manor for a week, Kate and he, before it seriously occurred to Griff that they could not go on living here for ever. Mrs. Lomax had been very urgent, more t...

Just as Greta and the preacher, in Miller Rotherson's parlour, were struggling out of their dream--just as the woman was beginning to wonder how it would fare with Gabriel if Lo...

For generations past Gorsthwaite Moor had been a meeting place for gamblers from the little manufacturing towns that encroached on the furthest limits of the heath. Town-bred th...

Griff Lomax bethought him, early on Monday morning, that his friend the preacher would be better for a little more of the same treatment to which he had subjected him yesterday....

Although the summer was well advanced now, Joe Strangeways, despite his ready acquiescence in the old witch's advice, had but lately summoned resolution enough to take him to La...

At four of the same afternoon, while the sun was setting redly into the snow-banks, Griff Lomax sat in the parlour of Gorsthwaite, with his child's dead body on his knees. The g...

It was nine o'clock of the next evening when Lomax, remembering his arrangement with the preacher, went to saddle his good mare Lassie. Lassie had almost forgotten what a gallop...

Things had gone hard with the preacher since Greta and he went hand-in-hand, like a couple of guilty children, across the moor to Gorsthwaite. It was out of the question that Gr...

They dined in the middle of the day at Marshcotes Manor, and they dined well. Mrs. Lomax, consequently, liked to have a clear hour's sleep in the afternoon--a luxury which Griff...

He reached out his arms for her into the dark, and found her, and stroked her tumbled hair, mutely thanking God that he had time to collect himself before she could see his face.

The bar of the Dog and Grouse hostelry at Ling Crag was very noisy on Wednesday night. The serving-maid was beginning to show signs of temper, for orders were being hurled at he...

Kate Strangeways, after her sudden collapse before Joe's accusation, nerved herself to the fight once more. Joe attempted to take up the same line on the next night, and was bea...

By the time that Lassie had been put up in the stable, groomed, and fed, the snow had ceased, though the frost bit harder than ever. Griff fastened the stable-door, and moved ir...

"Come in, can't you? Why do you stand there with that perennial grin on your face, as if you were posing for a full-length portrait of the happy bridegroom? Away with you newly-...

Between Marshcotes and Cranshaw the highroad runs for a mile and a half. From Cranshaw to Ludworth in Lancashire is a very good six. The hill rises sharp after you pass Cranshaw...

They talk yet of that winter in Marshcotes parish. Some recall it for its twelve weeks of frost, others for the depth of snow that covered all but the tallest tombstones in the...

January was here, and the frost had long ago set a sharp finger and thumb on the world. The grouse were visibly tamer than they had been a week ago; the peewits came nearer to f...

"Divorce!" he cried. "Why did I never think of that before? Why didn't Roddick suggest it last night? If only Strangeways will do it, we shall have our chance of happiness."