The Three Brothers

Both the yeoman and gentle families of Devon have undergone a wide and deep disintegration during the recent past. Many are swept away, and the downfall dates back beyond the ei...

"He said very little indeed about her, except that he didn't like her clothes and that she had a poor appetite," explained Mark. "Of course, I asked him a thousand questions, bu...

Some few weeks after it was known that young Mark Baskerville would marry Cora Lintern, a small company drank beer at 'The White Thorn' and discussed local politics in general,...

The accident of a heavy cold had suddenly aggravated the morbid condition of Nathan Baskerville's throat, and set all doubt of the truth at rest. Often on previous occasions he...

An elderly man called Abraham Elford became tenant of 'The White Thorn' after Baskerville's death. He lacked the charm of Nathan, and it was rumoured that the quality of his liq...

Nathan Baskerville's bedroom faced the south. A text was nailed upon the wall over his head, and an old photograph of his father stood upon the mantelpiece. To right and left of...

In a triangle the wild land of the Rut sloped down from Hawk House to the valley beneath, and its solitary time of splendour belonged to Spring, when the great furzes were bloom...

When Cora Lintern returned home she brought with her a resolution. Her intentions were calculated to cause pain, and she carried them so much the quicker to execution, that the...

He had conceived, that only by limiting the ties of the flesh and trampling love of man from his heart, might one approximate to contentment, fearlessness, and rest. He had supp...

Susan Hacker and her master sat together in the kitchen. He had lighted his pipe; she was clearing away the remains of a somewhat scanty meal, and she was grumbling loudly as sh...

Jack Head presently carried his notorious grievances to Humphrey Baskerville, and waited upon him one evening in summer time. They had not met for many weeks, and Jack, though h...

At high summer two men and two maids kept public holiday and wove romance under the great crown of Pen Beacon. From this border height the South Hams spread in a mighty vision o...

Upon the highway between Cadworthy and the border village of Cornwood there stands an ancient granite cross. For many years the broken head reposed in the heather; then it was l...

When man builds a house on Dartmoor, he plants trees to protect it. Sometimes they perish; sometimes they endure to shield his dwelling from the riotous and seldom-sleeping wind...

As Humphrey Baskerville had pointed out to his nephew Ned, disaster usually hits the weak harder than the strong, and the lazy man suffers more at sudden reverses than his neigh...

From Great Trowlesworthy's crown of rosy granite the world extended to the moor-edge, and thence, by mighty, dim, air-drenched passages of earth and sky, to the horizons of the...

Certain human dust lay in a place set apart from the main churchyard of St. Edward's. Here newborn babies, that had perished before admission into the Christian faith, were buri...

Where Wigmore Down descends in mighty shoulders clad with oak, there meet the rivers Plym and Mew, after their diverse journeyings on Dartmoor. The first roars wild and broken f...

A jay, with flash of azure and rose, fluttered screaming along from point to point of a coppice hard by Hawk House, and Cora Lintern saw it. She frowned, for this bird was assoc...

Nathan Baskerville, like his brother Humphrey, was a widower. Very early in life he had married a young woman of good means and social position superior to his own. His handsome...

Gipsy blood runs thin in England to-day, but a trickle shall be found to survive among the people of the booth and caravan; and glimpses of a veritable Romany spirit may yet be...

Mr. Masterman and his sister made more friends than enemies. The man's good-nature and energy attracted his parishioners; while Miss Masterman, though not genial, was sincere. A...

Thanks more to the diplomacy of Nathan Baskerville than Ned's own skill in reconciliation, Cora forgave her lover and their marriage day was fixed. Not a few noticed that the ma...

Alice Masterman, the vicar's sister, came in to speak with Dennis after Jack Head had gone. He was composing a sermon, but set it aside at once, for the tone of her voice declar...

The doctor who attended Nathan Baskerville in his last illness heard from Eliza Gollop what had been done, and he took a serious view of it. From the standpoint of his opinions...

The hamlet of Shaugh Prior, a gift to the monks of Plympton in time past, stands beneath Shaugh Moor at the edge of a mighty declivity. The Church of St. Edward lifts its battle...

Cora Lintern waited for Ned Baskerville at the fork of the road above Shaugh. Here, in the vicarage wall, the stump of a village cross had been planted. Round about stitchwort f...

Mrs. Lintern arrived by appointment, for while one instinct of his nature pressed Humphrey to evade this problem and take no hand in the solution, another and more instant impul...

The Reverend Dennis Masterman was a bachelor. He came to Shaugh full of physical energy and certain hazy resolutions to accomplish notable work among a neglected people. His sch...

"I've got together another five pounds," explained the labourer, "and I know you'll do for me what you do for all--put it by with the rest. We come to you, Mr. Baskerville, and...

Humphrey Baskerville continued to stalk the stage of life like a lonely ghost, and still obscured from all men and women the secrets of his nature, and the fierce interest of hi...

"No, Jack. 'Tis what makes all other writing but a broken reed. A fountain that never runs dry, I promise you. No man will ever get the whole truth out of the Bible."

"You foolish women! Let him bide his turn then. The eldest first, I say. 'Tis quite in reason that Ned, with his fashion of mind, should take a wife. I've nought against that----"

Life is a compromise and a concession. According to the measure of our diplomacy, so much shall we win from our fellows; according to our physical endowment, so much will Nature...

Milly and her husband Rupert came on a Sunday to drink tea at Hawk House. They found Humphrey from home, but he had left a message with Susan Hacker to say that he would return...

Dennis Masterman took the opportunity that offered after a service to meet his parish clerk and perambulate the churchyard. For the vicar's sister had pointed out that the buryi...

The effect of his financial tribulation on Jack Head was not good. Whatever might have been of Humphrey Baskerville's theories as to the value worldly misfortune and the tonic p...

"Some say they believe the old saying and some say they don't," declared Mr. Abraham Elford to a thin bar at six o'clock on Christmas Eve; "but for my part I know what I've prov...

The sensitive Cora could endure no shadow of ridicule. To laugh at her was to anger her, for she took herself too seriously, the common error of those who do not take their fell...

A day of storm buffeted the Moor. Fitful streaks of light roamed through a wild and silver welter of low cloud; and now they rested on a pool or river, and the water flashed; an...

The setting sun burnt upon Dewerstone's shoulder and beat in a sea of light against the western face of North Wood, until the wind-worn forest edge, taking colour on trunk and b...

Joe Voysey walked over one evening to talk with his lifelong friend Thomas Gollop. The gardener felt choked to the throat with injustice, and regarded his dismissal from the vic...

They came unexpectedly, though Rupert had told Heathman they would not be unwelcome. May was from home, and the business of preparing tea fell upon Milly Baskerville. Phyllis he...

Humphrey Baskerville had hoped that his nephew might visit him on Christmas Eve; but he learned that it was impossible, because Rupert had joined the carol-singers, and would be...

Some weeks after Christmas had passed, Mr. Joseph Voysey and others met at 'The White Thorn' and played chorus to affairs according to their custom. The great subject of discuss...

While the desolation of Mark Baskerville came to be learnt, and some sympathised with him and some held that Cora Lintern had showed a very proper spirit to refuse a man cursed...

At the approach of another Christmas, Humphrey Baskerville stood in the churchyard of St. Edward's and watched two masons lodge the stone that he had raised to his brother Natha...

Humphrey Baskerville still sought to determine his need, and sometimes supposed that he had done so. More than once he had contemplated the possibility of peace by flight; then...