Category: Novels

Anderby Wold

Everybody in Market Burton knew that Mrs. Bannister and her husband were driving to a tea-party at Anderby Wold. Everybody knew that the party had been arranged to celebrate the final clearance of the mortgage from the Wold Farm. Sarah knew that they knew. Their furtive glance...

Chapters

1. CHAPTER I

Everybody in Market Burton knew that Mrs. Bannister and her husband were driving to a tea-party at Anderby Wold. Everybody knew that the party had been arranged to celebrate the...

2. CHAPTER II

Sarah felt more comfortable when tea was served and the family established round the table. The meal was correct according to the best Robson tradition. All the food was rich, s...

3. CHAPTER III

While Uncle Dickie was proposing his toast in the Robsons' dining-room, another party was in progress up the village in the smoke-room of the _Flying Fox_. The _Flying Fox_ was...

4. CHAPTER IV

Next morning Mike's devotion met with its reward, for as he rode along the village street, swinging his legs from the shaft of a turnip cart, he saw Mary emerge from her garden...

5. CHAPTER V

It was a dreary winter. All day in the garden shrubbery Mary could hear the drop, drop of water from the trees. Christmas came and went in a sorrowful vapour of drifting rain.

6. CHAPTER VI

Ursula stood in front of the looking-glass inspecting the angle of her hat. It was a new hat. She had put it on to impress Mary. Mary dressed rather like the worthier type of vi...

7. CHAPTER VII

After Ursula's departure Mary doubled her parochial activities. She visited the wives of all John's married labourers; she ministered continually to the invalids and old age pen...

8. CHAPTER VIII

Mary drove home from Hardrascliffe along a dark, wind-swept road. She had been busy all the afternoon helping Ursula to establish herself in the nursing-home where she was to aw...

9. CHAPTER IX

"That's all very well, but when you've said everything you know the fact remains that you're not a farmer and never will be. You seem to have spent your time at a large country-...

10. CHAPTER X

At six o'clock the following evening all Anderby was having tea. From fifty chimneys in the valley rose columns of white smoke. In the Hinds' house at the Wold Farm, the foreman...

11. CHAPTER XI

April came and brought to Ursula a fine pink boy, whose body, bundled in rolls of shawl, squirmed deliciously in Mary's arms as she cuddled him in a sunny room of the Hardrascli...

12. CHAPTER XII

"I really think you might have had more common sense, Mr. Coast," said Mary. "It isn't as if the boys had never had a holiday for brassocking before. I really don't see that you...

13. CHAPTER XIII

All night Mike and Fred Stephens had kept vigil in the saddle-room at the Wold Farm, polishing brass and leather and fastening rosettes on to the best harness. The crowning triu...

14. CHAPTER XIV

It was the last week in July when, late on Saturday evening, John and Mary drove back together from Hardrascliffe market. As the dog-cart rounded the corner near the post office...

15. CHAPTER XV

Bert looked round, seeking the least committal seat in the room. They all looked too large or too small. Finally he chose John's arm-chair and crouched there miserably, trying t...

16. CHAPTER XVI

Violet entered the dining-room and looked hesitatingly from John to Mary. Foreman's real request was for the master, but since his illness Mary had given her orders that all suc...

17. CHAPTER XVII

"Oh, but as far as I can see, he didn't let them come in. That was all Mary's doing." Ursula pulled a cushion down more comfortably between her shoulders and smiled at the circl...

18. CHAPTER XVIII

Mr. Coast, who filled the double rôle of schoolmaster and organist at Anderby, attacked the opening hymn of the Harvest Thanksgiving Service with such violence that he whirled t...

19. CHAPTER XIX

While she was attending to this business herself, John lounged into the yard, his pipe in his mouth, and his hands thrust into the pockets of a light overcoat. He stood watching...

20. CHAPTER XX

"Ham, pie, cheese, bread, tarts, a custard and stewed apples. Well, I don't think we shall do so badly. Why didn't you roast a fowl and have done with it, Mary?"