St. Cuthbert's tower

Rishton Hall Farm was let at last. Lord Stannington had had it on his hands a long time, and had offered it at a lower and ever lower rent. It was an open secret that John Oldsh...

Old Sarah Wall, the key-bearer, who now came ambling up at a very slow pace, holding her hand to her side, and muttering feebly as she moved, was a poor exchange, Olivia thought...

“Ah thowt ye’d got all ye wanted,” she grumbled, as Olivia Denison followed her out on to the doorstep and asked her where she was going. “Ah wur goin’ whoam to get a coop o’ te...

“Yes, Mr. Brander is a clergyman. I hope you have no prejudice against the cloth,” he said, holding out his hand with a welcoming smile. “It’s not a proper clerical garment, I c...

To be able to inflict a severe physical defeat upon an obtrusive admirer may be a highly convenient accomplishment, but the necessity for its exercise cannot but be a humiliatin...

In spite of all her philosophy, of all her fortitude, Olivia Denison could not deny, even to herself, that the one terrible word “murderer,” applied to the man who had proved hi...

There was no denying that the arrival of these two spirited young women had caused a great flutter among the bachelors of Rishton and its neighborhood. For it is to be noted tha...

There was a long pause after the tramp had addressed Mr. Brander. In spite of herself, Olivia found herself at last holding her breath with impatience to hear the clergyman’s an...

When Olivia had come as near as she could to the porch without being seen from thence, she stopped, in the hope that Mrs. Denison, who was still grumbling at her step-daughter’s...

Any one who could have seen into the workings of Olivia Denison’s heart and mind when she was left to herself would probably have pronounced her to be “in love” with the Reveren...

Not for some minutes after the little carriage containing the Reverend Meredith Brander and his wife had driven on did either of the young people they had left break silence. Ol...

Vernon Brander left his brother’s house that evening in a frenzy of doubt and uncertainty, such as his passionate, self-torturing nature was liable to. He had so long been bound...

The second Mrs. Denison was, unfortunately for her husband’s household, one of those ladies who unite in themselves most of woman’s typical frailties. One of the most marked of...

Olivia Denison was by no means a nervous or weak-minded girl. On learning that the man who stood before her was the brother of Nellie Mitchell, she did not scream or stagger bac...

Olivia’s first thought, as the door closed on Mrs. Warmington, was to follow her out and make a dash for freedom. But as she started up with this impulse, a sliding movement on...

Olivia Denison’s outburst against the Vicarage folk and their treatment of Vernon Brander seemed to overwhelm the latter with consternation. He stood before the impulsive girl a...

When once the secret concerning the identity of the stranger at the cottage had been let out, it spread mysteriously throughout the length of the straggling village with astonis...

Ned had strolled into the churchyard, and was examining with a rather cynical expression a beautiful marble monument, one of the chief ornaments of the enclosure, on which were...

The Reverend Meredith Brander had not been Vicar of Rishton and compulsory student of the wiles of frail humanity for fourteen years for nothing. When from his study window he s...

The stolid calmness of Ned Mitchell’s every-day demeanor, which was but a mask for strong passions and still stronger resolutions, broke down entirely under his disappointment....

Ned Mitchell was not the sort of man to waste much time in the indulgence of an outbreak of passion. After a few minutes’ contemplation of the dead bodies of his hounds, he pull...

The haymaking in the glebe field of Rishton Vicarage was an annual affair, an institution of Meredith Brander’s own, dating from the young days of his reign. It had been at its...

Olivia Denison’s thoughts on the morning after the haymaking, were entirely occupied with Vernon Brander, his illness, the possibility of his innocence, and the chances of his e...

Like all persons of strong nature, Olivia Denison grew bolder as danger came nearer. When she recognized the man in the garden, underneath the corridor window, it did not occur...

Olivia hurried back towards the farm with the little packet in her hand which was to release her father from his hateful indebtedness to Fred Williams. It was true it rendered h...

Ned Mitchell, although he had let Meredith Brander off easily at the moment of the discovery of the body, had no intention of letting his sister’s murderer escape the just punis...