The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, and Other Tales

I am willing to hope that my readers will not be sorry to hear some further particulars of their old acquaintance, _the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain_. They will call to mind that...

The first part of this history left off with the dreadful sudden death of Williams, the idle shoemaker, who died in a drunken fit at the Grayhound. It also showed how James Stoc...

You shall now hear what befell idle Jack Brown, who, being a farmer's son, had many advantages to begin life with. But he who wants prudence may be said to want every thing, bec...

something to say, and nothing to do was welcome. Every idle story was first spread, and every idle song first sung, in Brown's shop. Every customer who came to be measured was p...

Brown was no sooner lodged in his doleful habitation, and a little recovered from his first surprise, than he sat down and wrote his friend Stock the whole history of the transa...

good sense enough to know, that a man may be completely ruined, both in what relates to his property and his soul, without committing Old Bailey crimes. He well knew that idlene...

James Stock, and his journeyman Will Simpson, as I informed my readers in the second part, had resolved to work together one hour every evening, in order to pay for Tommy Willia...

The next evening Will Simpson being got first to his work, Mr. Stock found him singing very cheerfully over his last. His master's entrance did not prevent his finishing his son...

Tom White was one of the best drivers of a post-chaise on the Bath road. Tom was the son of an honest laborer at a little village in Wiltshire; he was an active, industrious boy...

Tom White, as we have shown in the first part of this history, from an idle post boy was become a respectable farmer. God had blessed his industry, and he had prospered in the w...

Hester Wilmot, I am sorry to observe, had been by nature peevish and lazy; she would, when a child, now and then slight her work, and when her mother was unreasonable she was to...

Poaching Giles lives on the borders of those great moors in Somersetshire. Giles, to be sure, has been a sad fellow in his time; and it is none of his fault if his whole family...

I think my readers got so well acquainted last month with black Giles the poacher, that they will not expect this month to hear any great good, either of Giles himself, his wife...

Mr. Bragwell and Mr. Worthy happened to meet last year at Weyhill fair. They were glad to see each other, as they had but seldom met of late; Mr. Bragwell having removed some ye...

Soon after supper Mrs. Worthy left the room with her daughters, at her husband's desire; for it was his intention to speak more plainly to Bragwell than was likely to be agreeab...

Mr. Bragwell, when he returned home from his visit to Mr. Worthy, as recorded in the second part of this history, found that he was not quite so happy as he had formerly been. T...

It was mentioned in the last part of this history, that the chief reason which had drawn Mr. Worthy to visit his friend just at the present time was, that Mr. Bragwell had a sma...

Mr. Bragwell and Mr. Worthy alighted at the Golden Lion. It was market-day: the inn, the yard, the town was all alive. Bragwell was quite in his element. Money, company, and goo...

Mr. Bragwell was so much afflicted at the disgraceful marriage of his daughter, who ran off with Timothy Incle, the strolling player, that he never fully recovered his spirits....

"I left your house, dear father," said Mrs. Incle, "with a heart full of vain triumph. I had no doubt but my husband was a great man, who put on that disguise to obtain my hand....

husband was dead in the West Indies of the yellow fever, which has carried off such numbers of our countrymen; we all wept together, and prayed that his awful death might quicke...