Mary Barton

"Thou stand'st here arraign'd, That, with presumption impious and accursed, Thou hast usurp'd God's high prerogative, Making thy fellow mortal's life and death Wait on thy moody...

Learned he was; nor bird, nor insect flew, But he its leafy home and history knew; Nor wild-flower decked the rock, nor moss the well, But he its name and qualities could tell.

John Barton was not far wrong in his idea that the Messrs. Carson would not be over much grieved for the consequences of the fire in their mill. They were well insured; the mach...

"A life of self-indulgence is for us, A life of self-denial is for them; For us the streets, broad-built and populous, For them unhealthy corners, garrets dim, And cellars where...

"Deal gently with them, they have much endured. Scoff not at their fond hopes and earnest plans, Though they may seem to thee wild dreams and fancies. Perchance, in the rough sc...

Despair settled down like a heavy cloud; and now and then, through the dead calm of sufferings, came pipings of stormy winds, foretelling the end of these dark prognostics. In t...

"_Dixwell._ Forgiveness! Oh, forgiveness, and a grave! _Mary._ God knows thy heart, my father! and I shudder To think what thou perchance hast acted. _Dixwell._ Oh! _Mary._ No c...

She was where no words of peace, no soothing hopeful tidings could reach her; in the ghastly spectral world of delirium. Hour after hour, day after day, she started up with pass...

"What thoughtful heart can look into this gulf That darkly yawns 'twixt rich and poor, And not find food for saddest meditation! Can see, without a pang of keenest grief, Them f...

"Oh, had he lived, Replied Rusilla, never penitence Had equalled his! full well I know his heart, Vehement in all things. He would on himself Have wreaked such penance as had re...

"And must it then depend on this poor eye And this unsteady hand, whether the bark, That bears my all of treasured hope and love, Shall find a passage through these frowning roc...

"Know the temptation ere you judge the crime! Look on this tree--'twas green, and fair, and graceful; Yet now, save these few shoots, how dry and rotten! Thou canst not tell the...

I left Mary, on that same Thursday night which left its burden of woe at Mr. Carson's threshold, haunted with depressing thoughts. All through the night she tossed restlessly ab...

I must now go back to an hour or two before Mary and her friends parted for the night. It might be about eight o'clock that evening, and the three Miss Carsons were sitting in t...

"There was a listening fear in her regard, As if calamity had but begun; As if the vanward clouds of evil days Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear Was, with its stored t...

"Not for a moment take the scorner's chair; While seated there, thou know'st not how a word, A tone, a look, may gall thy brother's heart, And make him turn in bitterness agains...

The events recorded in the last chapter took place on a Tuesday. On Thursday afternoon Mary was surprised, in the midst of some little bustle in which she was engaged, by the en...

To envy nought beneath the ample sky; To mourn no evil deed, no hour mis-spent; And, like a living violet, silently Return in sweets to Heaven what goodness lent, Then bend bene...

The murder had been committed early on Thursday night, and between then and the dawn of the following day there was ample time for the news to spread far and wide among all thos...

Mr. Carson stood at one of the breathing-moments of life. The object of the toils, the fears, and the wishes of his past years, was suddenly hidden from his sight,--vanished int...

It was perhaps four or five days after the events mentioned in the last chapter, that one evening, as Mary stood lost in reverie at the window, she saw Will Wilson enter the cou...

"I can like of the wealth, I must confess, Yet more I prize the man, though moneyless; I am not of their humour yet that can For title or estate affect a man; Or of myself one b...

"I lov'd him not; and yet, now he is gone, I feel I am alone. I check'd him while he spoke; yet, could he speak, Alas! I would not check. For reasons not to love him once I soug...

In the middle of that same night a neighbour of the Bartons was roused from her sound, well-earned sleep, by a knocking, which had at first made part of her dream; but starting...

There are some fields near Manchester, well known to the inhabitants as "Green Heys Fields," through which runs a public footpath to a little village about two miles distant. In...

"O sad and solemn is the trembling watch Of those who sit and count the heavy hours, Beside the fevered sleep of one they love! O awful is it in the hushed mid night, While gazi...

"How infinite the wealth of love and hope Garnered in these same tiny treasure-houses! And oh! what bankrupts in the world we feel, When Death, like some remorseless creditor, S...

"Something there was, what, none presumed to say, Clouds lightly passing on a smiling day,-- Whispers and hints which went from ear to ear, And mixed reports no judge on earth c...

"Yon is our quay! Hark to the clamour in that miry road, Bounded and narrowed by yon vessel's load; The lumbering wealth she empties round the place, Package and parcel, hogshea...

"I saw where stark and cold he lay, Beneath the gallows-tree, And every one did point and say, ''Twas there he died for thee!' * * * * * * "Oh! weeping heart! Oh, bleeding heart...

Although Mary had hardly been conscious of her thoughts, and it had been more like a secret instinct informing her soul, than the result of any process of reasoning, she had fel...

"A wet sheet and a flowing sea, A wind that follows fast And fills the white and rustling sail, And bends the gallant mast! And bends the gallant mast, my boys, While, like the...

"Here we are, wife; didst thou think thou'd lost us?" quoth hearty-voiced Wilson, as the two women rose and shook themselves in preparation for their homeward walk. Mrs. Barton...

At five minutes before two, Job Legh stood upon the door-step of the house where Mr. Bridgenorth lodged at Assize time. He had left Mrs. Wilson at the dwelling of a friend of hi...

passed the house, and seemed to give her a respite, she continued, "Do, Sally, dear Sally, go and tell him I don't love him, and that I don't want to have any thing more to do w...

"Touch us gently, gentle Time! We've not proud nor soaring wings, Our ambition, our content, Lies in simple things; Humble voyagers are we O'er life's dim unsounded sea; Touch u...

"To think That all this long interminable night, Which I have passed in thinking on two words-- 'Guilty'--'Not Guilty!'--like one happy moment O'er many a head hath flown unheed...

"Poor Susan moans, poor Susan groans; The clock gives warning for eleven; 'Tis on the stroke--'He must be near,' Quoth Betty, 'and will soon be here, As sure as there's a moon i...

The early trains for Liverpool, on Monday morning, were crowded by attorneys, attorneys' clerks, plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses, all going to the Assizes. They were a mot...