Stepping Westward

IN A NORTH COUNTRY VILLAGE THE STORY OF DAN A DAUGHTER OF THE SOIL MAIME O’ THE CORNER FRIEZE AND FUSTIAN AMONG THE UNTRODDEN WAYS MISS ERIN THE DUENNA OF A GENIUS YEOMAN FLEETW...

But here was the wood at length, and the narrow little moss-grown path along which she had so often tripped as a child. Phoebe had been born and bred in that wood, as had her mo...

“So I was thinkin’,” continued Phoebe, “you’d best keep an eye to her while I’m gettin’ childern to bed, an’ then so soon as I do come down I’ll look after her. She’d best get e...

“I was readin’ a while back,” continued Jess, without heeding these signs of disapproval, “how some colliery chaps what was wantin’ shorter hours got their way—they did go on st...

She paused, polishing the top of the gate with a fore-finger crinkled from its recent immersion in the suds. “Maybe if ye was to say summat o’ the kind to he, he mid overlook it.”

Moreover the wound in his head was sufficiently painful to make a further rest advisable. Sally set forth therefore alone, feeling tired and miserable enough. She was the most m...

Timothy whistled under his breath. “And ’twasn’t yours, ye say?” he remarked after a pause. “Ye stole it then, did ye? Ye’ll be put in prison so sure as I be a-lookin’ at ye.”

“I hope so, I’m sure,” he replied. “’Tis a bad thing when ye come to think on’t, Sally, for the man to be laid by—him as has to earn the money to fill all the little mouths. Wet...

“She have,” agreed his wife with a sigh. “I d’ ’low ’tis a hard struggle for she. There, she were a-tellin’ me she be often put to it to find a bit to put in little Abel’s mouth...

Maimie coloured and looked down; the farmer gazed at her sternly for a full minute, and then made a sudden lunge at the youngest child who sat next to him.

“An’ we’n summat to say, too,” said Luke, firmly. “Mother, I know very well what you’re goin’ to say, an’ I’ll ha’ my say out first. You an’ Mester Barnes here are goin’ to make...

John scratched his head and reflected. Jinny was his own flesh and blood, and he loved her after his fashion; but there was no doubt things were very uncomfortable at home, and...

“Step a bit up the road, John, do,” remarked Jinny in a loud aside; as soon as this injunction had been obeyed, she turned to the Rector. “I doubt my new lodger’s a black ’un—le...

When he reached the scene of the catastrophe, however, he found the fellow so hopelessly intoxicated, that it was clear no help was to be expected from him, and he was forced to...

One March afternoon he was driven indoors by a heavy fall of snow—one of those late storms which are all the more severe because so untimely. He was standing, drumming impatient...

After a time, however, peace was in some measure restored; the young folks silently resolved to achieve their end, while Farmer Joe loudly announced that, as the chap was bound...

“Yigh, ma’am; and it wur theer he took his last look at me afore he went away and left me. We’d been married then a good few month and I niver thought he’d be for leaving me aga...

“Here, Hannah, wait a bit, what be in sich a stew for?” She poked Alice, who still lay under the blankets, with her elbow. “Have anythin’ strange happened? You do look so queer—...