The Sheep-Stealers

Chapter Page I. The Two Communities 3 II. Rhys 8 III. The Dipping-Pool 19 IV. At the Yew-Stump and After 29 V. Rebecca 40 VI. A Dead Man and a Live Coward 51 VII. To Abergavenny...

XXIII. White Blossoms 213 XXIV. A Card House 223 XXV. Llangarth Fair 232 XXVI. Howlie and Llewellyn Understand Each Other 243 XXVII. Four Opinions 254 XXVIII. A Martyr 263 XXIX....

IN the earlier half of the nineteenth century, when most of the travelling done by our grandfathers was done by road, and the intercourse between districts by no means far apart...

IT was the day after Christmas. The frost and snow, supposed to be suitable to the time, had held off from the West country and were waiting ready to pounce upon the world with...

A GROUP of men, sitting round a blazing fire, some on heavy wooden chairs, some on a long settle, looked up as he entered. All were smoking. Those on the chairs gave them a defe...

THE mist lifted a little as Rhys Walters left the Dipping-Pool and turned out of the watercourse on to smooth turf. He could not help smiling as he thought of Charley Turnbull's...

AS though to drop connection with its predecessor and to start the world afresh, the new year brought a change of weather. The wind, which for some time had lain in the south-we...

WHILE Harry's brother officer was leaning over the dead man on the ground, Charley Turnbull was in terrible difficulties in an adjacent field behind the toll-house. As he heard...

THAT the toll-gate raid would end in a murder was the last thing expected by Rhys. In all the riots which had taken place since the beginning, nothing worse had happened than br...

A MAN was sitting on the low wall which enclosed the spectre of a garden trimming a ragged ash-plant into the plain dimensions of a walking-stick. He worked with the neatness di...

GEORGE and the Pig-driver left the cottage together a few minutes afterwards. Both men had business in Crishowell, and as Rhys Walters was now well enough to be left alone for a...

HEREFORD town is one of those slumbrous cities, guiltless of any bait with which to lure the sight-seer, but possessing both a cathedral and an individuality of its own. It is a...

THE Green Dragon stood in High Street within sound of the Cathedral bells, and was the point of migration to the worldly part of the county, just as the Cathedral was the point...

IT was well into the middle of January, and a few days after Isoline's arrival, before Rhys was sufficiently recovered from his injuries to move about; luckily for him, no bones...

MARY'S child opened its eyes prematurely on this world, only to wail itself out of it again in a couple of weeks. It was a miserable, feeble little creature, but the mother clun...

MISS ISOLINE RIDGEWAY was standing before an object which usually took up a good deal of her time and attention, namely, the looking-glass. As it was placed at right angles to h...

GEORGE WILLIAMS' education had been a very elementary and spasmodic thing. In days of comparative prosperity, when he was a small boy, he had learned to read and write and add u...

THE letter which had presented such difficulties to George was finished at last, and while Rhys was sitting with Isoline upon the rock, he was trudging down to Crishowell with i...

HE hurried along with the tread of a man who hopes to lose a remembrance in the tumult of his going. He had failed in every way; failed in respect to the creature whom he had re...

HE sat for some time on the hill-side turning things over in his mind and trying to make up some plan of action; in his pocket was the sum of eightpence-halfpenny, which would j...

THE Archæological Society which reckoned the border country by the Black Mountain as its special hunting-ground met every winter or early spring; it had two places of assemblage...

THE Vicarage at Crishowell looked duller than ever, Isoline thought, as she and Mr. Lewis came round the corner of the church and faced its homely front. Howlie was at the door...

WHEN the Pig-driver heard from Rhys that George had gone, apparently for good and all, his rage was great; his tight little lips had only one movement with which to express anyt...

THE Pig-driver climbed into his high cart like some obscure insect legging its way up the face of a wall. He did not take the reins himself, but let his boy continue driving, so...

IT was on one of those days which seem to occur only in our youth, that Isoline Ridgeway sat under a cherry-tree on the slope of the field overlooking Crishowell Vicarage. The l...

THE news of the engagement fell like a bombshell into the circle at Waterchurch; to all but Llewellyn it came as an absolute surprise. Harry's temporary attachment to any pretty...

Public admiration, which, in like instances, will often display itself in ornamenting a memory that is already the most ornamental thing possible, had been leavened by the commo...

HOWLIE SEABORNE, who liked to get his money's worth out of things, was anxious to see the performance through. He did not pay his neighbour of the black silk bonnet so much as t...

THOUGH Mr. Fenton had told the Vicar of Crishowell that he would write to him, he was in no hurry to do so. Harry's love affair was a nuisance, and he put off the consideration...

ISOLINE was panting when she arrived at the top of the field behind Crishowell Vicarage. She sat for a time to rest, looking down at the cherry-tree whose blossoms were beginnin...

HARRY was in a terrible state. Nevertheless, though he kept carefully out of his father's way, he poured out the tumult of his heart to his mother, for she had told him of her v...

ALTHOUGH the Pig-driver, as he sat in his cart at Llangarth Fair, was mainly concerned with the prospective beef, mutton, and pork collected before him, he found time to notice...

MARY sat behind her counter sewing, for customers were not frequent, and she had plenty of time on her hands. June was well advanced, and the fact was proclaimed by a long spray...

ALTHOUGH Isoline had now nothing left to fear from the importunities of her lover and was beginning to see a good broad streak of daylight through the entanglements which beset...

HARRY'S employment was not so congenial as to keep him one day at work after the news of his legacy had reached him, and, as soon as it was possible, he started for home.

IT was a quiet week which followed at Waterchurch, and when Harry set off to London on business which he refused to talk about, and which he vaguely referred to as connected wit...

THE Pig-driver had been absent from his usual haunts for more than ten days, business having taken him on a stealthy tour of inspection to the connecting links of his trade; it...

AT Great Masterhouse the mist clung round the doors and crept like a breathing thing against the windows, as though it would envelope and cut it off from the rest of the living...