Hetty Wesley

He continued to stare out of the window long after the gig had disappeared over the low horizon: a small, nervous, indomitable figure of a man close upon his sixty-second birthd...

That same evening, in Mr. Matthew Wesley's parlour, Johnson's Court, Captain Bewes told the whole story--or so much of it as he knew. The disappearance from on board his ship of...

Molly's protest against the tyranny of home had long since passed into a mere withholding of assent. She went about her daily task more dutifully than ever. She had always been...

You who can read between the lines of these letters will have remarked a new accent in Hetty--a hard and bitter accent. She will suffer her punishment now; but, even though it b...

The frozen canal ran straight towards the sunset, into a flooded country where only a line of pollard willows, with here and there an alder, marked the course of its left bank....

John remained at Epworth until Thursday evening. Dark was falling when he set out to tramp back to Wroote, but the guns of a few late partridge-shooters yet echoed across the co...

A broad-shouldered man looked down on them from the summit of the knoll, which he had climbed on its westward side; a tradesman to all appearance, clad in a dusty, ill-fitting s...

From Epworth John Wesley rode on to Sheffield, and then southward through Coventry, Evesham and Painswick to Bristol, preaching as he went, sometimes thrice a day: from Bristol...

"_To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against him: neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in his laws which he set...

Dear Son,--Your brother will receive 5 pounds for you next Saturday, if Mr. S. is paid the 10 pounds he lent you; if not, I must go to H. But I promise you I shan't forget that...

In a corner of the Isle of Axholme, in Lincolnshire, and on the eastern slope of a knoll a few feet above the desolate fenland, six sisters were seated. The eldest, a woman of t...

John Wesley laid his Bible down beside him on the rustic seat under the filbert-tree, and leaned back against the trunk with half-closed eyes. By and by he frowned, and the frow...

Hetty had found a patch of ragged turf and mallow where the woodstack hid her from the parsonage windows; and sat there in the morning sun--unconsciously, as usual, courting its...

She moved across the green to the corner where Charles was coolly sponging his face and chest over a basin. "In a moment, ma'am!" said he, looking up with a twinkle in his eye a...

This was at the close of August, 1728, and the Rector's letter entreating his good offices for Johnny Whitelamb reached John Wesley on the eve of his taking Priest's Orders, for...

My brother Wesley had designed to have surprised us, and had travelled under a feigned name from London to Gainsborough; but there, sending his man for guide out to the Isle the...

Mr. Wesley slept that night at Lincoln, and rode back the next afternoon, reaching Wroote a little before nightfall. After stabling the filly he went straight to his study. Thit...

In a chilly dawn, high among the mountains to the north of Berar, two Britons were wandering with an Indian attendant. They came like spectres, in curling wreaths of mist that m...

At the entrance of Dean's Yard, Westminster, a small King's Scholar, waving his gown and yelling, collided with an old gentleman hobbling round the corner, and sat down suddenly...

January 20th, 1727. Poor Sister Hetty! 'twas but a week before I left London that I knew she was at it. Little of that time you may be sure, did I lose, being with her almost co...

At first Hetty walked swiftly across the fields, not daring to look back. "Is it he?" she kept asking herself, and as often cried out against the hope. She had no right to pray...

Of the letters received from home by him during the struggle to raise money for his Ordination fees, the above are but extracts. Let us go back to the month of May, and to Kelst...

For six months of the year, sometimes for longer, the thatched parsonage at Wroote rose out of a world of waters, forlorn as a cornstack in a flood, and the Rector of Epworth jo...

My Lord,--The small rectory of Wroote, in the diocese and county of Lincoln, adjoining to the Isle of Axholme, is in the gift of the Lord Chancellor, and more then seven years s...

The answer came back that Mr. Wesley would see Mr. Wright in his study; and thither accordingly Mr. Wright lurched, after pulling out a red handkerchief and dusting his boots on...

Hetty's lover faced her across the round table in the lodging-house parlour. The table was spread for two, and Hetty's knife and plate stood ready for her with a covered dish be...

John Romley was the cause of her exile. This young man had been a pupil of the Rector's, and studied divinity with him for a while before matriculating at Lincoln College, Oxfor...

"I never knew you were such a needlewoman, Hetty. It has been nothing but stitch-stitch for these two hours--and the same yesterday, and the day before. See, the kettle's boilin...

Late that evening and a little after moonrise, Johnny Whitelamb, going out to the woodstack for a faggot, stood still for a moment at sight of a figure half-blotted in the shadow.

A few words will tie together the following letters or extracts from letters. John was ordained on September 19th. A few weeks later he preached his first sermon at South Leigh,...

Twilight with invisible veils closed around Epworth, its parsonage, and the high-walled garden where Molly, staff in hand, limped to and fro beside Johnny Whitelamb--promoted no...

Two mornings after Patty's arrival, Hetty sat in the schoolroom telling a Bible story to her pupils, George Grantham and small Rebecca; the one aged eight, the other barely five...

Late in September, having been chosen to preach on St. Michael's Day in St. Michael's Church the sermon annually delivered by a Fellow of Lincoln, John travelled up to Oxford, w...

At Surat, by a window of his private office in the East India Company's factory, a middle-aged man stared out upon the broad river and the wharves below. Business in the factory...

All the world has heard how John Wesley rode, eight years later, into Epworth; and how, his father's pulpit having been denied to him, he stood outside upon his father's tomb an...

The worst (or perhaps the best) of a temper so choleric as Mr. Wesley's is that by constant daily expenditure on trifles it fatigues itself, and is apt to betray its possessor b...

Hetty held the dear deformed body against her bosom for a while, then relaxing her arms, turned towards the small window in the eaves. "My dear," she answered with a wry smile,...

Beyond the kitchen-garden a raised causeway led into the Bawtry road, between an old drain of the Tome River and a narrower ditch running down to the parsonage duck-pond. The di...

On the day fixed, and at nine in the morning, Dick Ellison, who had promised to drive Hetty over to Kelstein, arrived with his gig. Sukey accompanied him, to join in the farewel...

Six weeks later Mr. Wesley married William Wright and Hetty in the bare little church of Wroote. Her sisters (among them Patty, newly returned from Kelstein) sat at home: their...

William Wright stared at the door as it closed upon them. Hetty did not stir. To reach it she must pass him. She stood by the writing-table, her profile turned to him, her body...

"She graced my humble roof and blest my life, Blest me by a far greater name than wife; Yet still I bore an undisputed sway, Nor was't her task, but pleasure, to obey; Scarce th...