The lonely plough

Older than the old face at the table before him, than the office furniture, which had been there before he was born, than his father’s portrait over the desk; older even than th...

He went back into the house when the distance had snapped the last vibrating link, but he did not stay there. The office was still under the domination of the young man’s silent...

“He telephoned from the House in the middle of the morning,” she went on, with the high-pitched, running ease which always seemed to make every difficult situation doubly trying...

It was milking-time when Lanty left Ladyford, with Dockeray beside him, and they met the cattle coming in to the shippons. Their slow swing across the yard added to the drowsy o...

He saw her for a moment poised against the brooding sky, and then she dropped down the bank to his side. They stood alone on the desolate strip of road twisting whitely between...

Dandy Shaw looked round the Watters drawing-room with a little twist of the lips. She was perched on a high oak stool, with her feet on the rungs, and through the Chippendale mi...

“Afraid I’ve got to worry you a bit!” Bluecaster began apologetically in his slow, shy voice. He was big and broad-shouldered, with a manner toiling anxiously to meet your appro...

The next afternoon he ran into Harriet Knewstubb, wheeling her bicycle into his front hall. She bestowed upon him the kind of cool nod that you keep for the butcher’s boy when y...

The marsh-meeting was held at Pippin Hall, the principal farm at the head of the bay, standing boldly on the edge of the sand and looking strictly out to sea. From it the Lugg c...

Lup was waiting with the boat when Wolf came down to the channel. The tide was gone, now, but where the old man stood the still-shining sand sucked heavily at his boots. The son...

“Lancelot is a different creature to-day!” Helwise observed, hitting hard at the empty air, and getting the ball in her left eye for her pains. “Almost cheery and inclined to ga...

Brack was thinking hard as he drove along the north marsh-road, his hat pulled low over his eyes against the evening sun. He was on his way to Ninekyrkes, to unearth a rumour an...

In the country there are houses far more truly the recipients of formal visits than their occupants, just as, at public functions, your carriage comes up to your place’s name in...

Seated at his table in the window of the “Duke,” Lancaster could see the farmers come jogging into Sandwath, rounding the dangerous corner with a loose rein, and, as often as no...

It was a very dreamlike day on which Lup left Ninekyrkes, turning his back upon the marsh and all that had filled his life hitherto. He made no round of good-byes, no flurry of...

Slowly, very slowly, the faintly-shifting kaleidoscope of the months adjusted Dandy to her new conditions. The first sense of stagnation, following on the hurry of Halsted, was...

“The boy, too,” Hamer added. He often called Lancaster “the boy,” with a quaint, protective accent. “We’ll catch it from Mother if you don’t lend a hand, giving her all that tro...

As it happened, Harriet’s Attempt seized the Skirts of Happy Chance exactly at the right moment. Election fever had been rampant during the last six weeks, setting everybody can...

Hamer’s chairs in the chancel looked very select and correct. There were four of them on the stone steps, their fine austerity fittingly framed by the rough arch. The Vicar gaze...

It was still scarcely day when he heard the house rouse to action, and dragged his miserable body out of bed for a look at the weather. He had not slept much--most of the night...

The twenty-ninth of March. Lancaster had been at the Pride. Now he was walking along the north road, where he had stood with Francey Dockeray, months ago. They had had a good wi...

Robert Whinnerah looked in at the door of the little bedroom, and saw Lup standing by the window, knitting his dark brows over a sheet of flimsy. The yellow envelope lay on his...

It was dark when Brack got in, pitch-dark and blowing the very roof off the world. He found his housekeeper slumbering peacefully in the kitchen, with a bottle of gin peeping co...

Dawn saw a boat-load of haggard faces under the walls of the Pride. There was water as far as eye could see, and the grim light filtered through six great gaps in the bank. The...

It was a strange and fearful world that lifted its mangled face to the growing day. The wind was still blowing, but with less violence, and the rain drifted in a kind of desulto...

He dropped from the trap at his own gate, and walked up the drive. There had been no sound of his coming, so the door was not open, and the lack of welcome hurt him somehow, as...

In the late October afternoon Lancaster rode through the Lane fast, for he was behind time with his promise. Therefore he looked ahead of him to each flying curve, letting the G...

On the marsh there was the breath of mown hay that comes when the grass is ready, before ever the scythe is swung or the cutter yoked. On the eve of his wedding, Lancaster walke...