The Life of Thomas Wanless, Peasant

The grandfather of Thomas Wanless had been a small Warwickshire yeoman, whom the troublous times towards the latter end of the last century, family misfortunes, and the pressure...

In the years that elapsed between the close of the Napoleonic wars and the passing of the Reform Bill, as indeed often since, the debasement and misery of the agricultural poor...

The village gossips were right. Lady Harriet Wiseman did find the vicar a wife, though not just then. The vicar's young zeal, his vague ideas, had first to be moderated or aband...

Nothing serious came directly of the Ashbrook fight. There was a talk of bringing certain labourers before the justices, and the Pembertons in particular uttered loud threats ag...

Captain Hawthorn had been duly apprised of Thomas's misfortune, but was unable to do anything directly to help him. Because of his obnoxious opinions Hawthorn was not a justice...

During these two years the attitude of Thomas's mind changed much towards society and its institutions. He may be said for the first time to have become a religious man, and his...

Had Thomas Wanless known what was in store for him in the future he might have elected to leave Ashbrook for ever, and continue the life of a railway navvy. As such his pay was...

It so happened that what servants call "a good place" was not so difficult to find when Sally went to seek it, as it had been some years before. The growing wealth of a portion...

Sarah Wanless did not quite suit the housekeeper, Mrs. Weaver, as still-room maid. She was not sufficiently acquainted with the work, and got flurried when the deputy tyrant of...

After the high-born Captain Cecil Wiseman had accomplished his purpose, Sarah Wanless lost her attraction for him. With a fiendish guile he had tracked her down, and now that th...

Lady Harriet did not even hear of her son's ongoings with Sally Wanless, though to the menials of her household and the gossips of the village they had furnished for months back...

Mother and daughter parted almost the moment that the former was assured of Sally's readiness to come home, and Sally, nearly half-an-hour late, sped on her errand. It was with...

I wonder where Christians find authority for our modern treatment of illegitimacy? Preachers of all sects are never tired of telling us that they preach peace and goodwill among...

BRINGS THE DOUBTLESS RELUCTANT READER ONCE MORE INTO CONTACT WITH A "GALLANT" WOOER, AND GIVES FURTHER PROOF OF THE DIFFICULTY WHICH BESETS ALL ATTEMPTS TO HARMONISE TRUTH AND F...

Unthinkingly, Mrs. Robins repeated this story to Mrs. Wanless one day in Sally's hearing, and immediately repented of her folly, for Sally uttered a low moan and fainted. From t...

Thomas Wanless set out for London, within a week after his daughter's disappearance, on a dull, cold, January morning. His farewells were cheerful, but his heart was downcast en...

The winter was moving away thus, and Thomas Wanless was rapidly losing his vigour. Hard work and constant vigils, coupled with a sore heart, and a weak appetite, pulled the man...

When Wanless crept out a minute or two later, still feeling heart-sore at the Vicar's treatment, he caught sight of that poor wretch through the adjoining door of the private ba...

A great additional strain had been put upon the spirit of Thomas Wanless, by the death of Adelaide Codling, and he was becoming too weak in body to hold to his purpose. There we...

There was deep joy in Mrs. Thomas Wanless's cottage that night--joy all the deeper for the pain that lay beneath it. Mrs. Wanless was not a demonstrative woman at any time, but...

The closing years of Thomas Wanless's life were years of peace. His strength never came back to him after his daughter's death. Indeed, all the summer that followed it he was be...