Wastralls: A Novel

Trevorrick River was but a little stream to have fretted so deep a cleft between the hills as that which sloped from the main road of Tregols parish to the sea. From the source...

Meanwhile, under Sabina's judicious management, the farm prospered. Neither cared to spend, the one because she had no wants, the other because what he desired could not be boug...

He cursed the impatience which had led him astray. If he had waited, the matter would have arranged itself in accordance with his wishes. Now, if Sabina recovered, it was only t...

"I want some one of my own flesh and blood. I should love to 'av one of your li'l maids. Why couldn't I 'av Gray? We've always 'greed like chickens."

"A red sky at night, is the shepherd's delight," muttered the man, flinging himself down above the booming uproar of the water. Below, the shags were nesting on inaccessible led...

"'Tis a pack o' tommy-rot," she said at last, anger beginning to colour her unhappy amazement, "a man of his years runnin' after young maidens; but once Gray's married 'e won't...

In order that Gray might start for the market in good time, Mrs. Byron had swung herself out of bed that morning as soon as she had swallowed her simple breakfast of tea and but...

The man turned and stared at the distorted figure in the cone of basket-work. He had not heard her come up but his mind was too deeply occupied with other matters for him to be...

"You'll catch afire one of these days if you keep on gruddlin' so," said Byron, with a fathering wish. Sabina could not follow his thought, in fact she mistook it for solicitude...

The wind which blew in gusts, dropping now and again into a deceitful lull, sent a cold breath up the valley and Sabina, lingering by the gate, drew the shawl closer about her s...

She drew the pork towards her and cut it. She was reconsidering her decision to wait till morning before telling her husband that Gray was definitely beyond his reach. If his qu...

If he were to smoke a pipe he would be more at ease! Pipes were associated in his mind with long dreams of Gray, when he had wandered over the springy turf of the headland, seen...

This door had a strong lock and was of stout wood. Nevertheless, it was being shaken from within and, for a moment, Byron's courage failed. Remembering the draught in which his...

She had been in the justice-room many a time, had sat gossiping with Sabina while she rested, had listened to her complaints of the ache in those legs which were no longer there...

When the women whom she had summoned made their appearance, however, though red-eyed, she had herself in hand. She and Mrs. Con Rosevear being the nearest relatives, the family,...

If that well-regulated organ, which Dr. Derek called his heart, ever varied in its beat this was one of the occasions. He had been convinced that with such injuries as had been...

"Iss," said her sister-in-law who if not 'gifted wi' good looks' was easy-natured, "but 'twas because she said she wouldn't drink that 'ell-brew, not even to please the Passon....

A death in the family brings to some members of it unwelcome holiday. Tom Rosevear, though not particularly fond of his cousin, would not have thought it 'decent' to do more wor...

Byron, striding out of the yard, struck across the wide spread of shallow water and up the natural rock embankment which, on that side of Trevorrick valley, prevented the sea fr...

As the funeral procession was to leave Wastralls at 1.30 P.M., by eleven that morning the road from Four Turnings was black with farmers' carts, with people from the hamlets of...

For Byron the morning had been chequered. Some of the mourners, in particular those from a distance, had met him with an assumption of friendliness. Though a stranger he was now...

"The land, house and hereditaments of Wastralls," began the lawyer in his dry voice, each word clipped of sound and the whole giving the effect of a well-kept but withered hedge.

To the Hember and St. Cadic Rosevears this was no news; but Mrs. Byron's death on the night of the wedding, the subsequent rush of work, the funeral, had prevented it from being...