Affectionately dedicated to Father Hamilton Cowper Johnson...

From Waterloo Station to the small country town of Ramsgard in Dorset is a journey of not more than three or four hours, but having by good luck found a compartment to himself, Wolf Solent was able to...

His excitement grew rather than diminished as he got out of the train. He gave up his ticket to an elderly stationmaster, whose air, at once fussily inquisitive and mildly deferential, suggested the m...

“So this is to be your room,” said Mrs. Otter. “I knew you’d want to see it at once; as you have to dress, of course, for dining at the House? It’s not large, but I think it’s rather comfortable. My s...

The first sensation to which Wolf awoke in a morning of rainy wind and drifting clouds, was a sensation of discomfort. As his mind began concentrating on this discomfort, he realized it proceeded from...

The destinies certainly did appear anxious to “square” him; for when that evening, after dinner with the Otters, he repaired to the Manor House with his packages, Mr. Urquhart turned out to be so deli...

Breakfast in Pond Cottage on that Sunday morning proved to be the pleasantest meal that Wolf had yet enjoyed under the Otter roof. Mrs. Otter, dressed in stiff puce-coloured silk, and happy to have bo...

Wolf took good care not to reveal to his mother his own secret reservations as to the desirability of Lenty Cottage. But that first impression of something uncannily neat and trim about it still obsti...

They got rid of Lobbie at the corner of Chequers Street, and moved on, side by side, past the lighted shopwindows. It was a further revelation to him of the ways of girls, to notice that Gerda repeate...

The first person of their acquaintance they encountered, when Wolf and Mrs. Solent mingled with the lively crowd that filled Ramsgard’s famous Castle Field that afternoon, was none other than Mr. Albe...

The cheap wooden clock on the mantelpiece of his small parlour made itself audible to the ears of Wolf across the little passageway as he stood above his kitchen-stove. Eight times the clock struck; a...

He found on his arrival that his mother had already appeared. To his great surprise he discovered her standing by their kitchen-stove, with Gerda’s apron over her dress, helping to make the toast. He ...

The next two months brought no outward change in the existence of Wolf and the various people of his life; but when August arrived, all manner of strange developments, long prepared for under the surf...

The next day proved to be, as far as the weather was concerned, even more pleasant than its predecessor. Event followed event in harmonious and easy sequence. Gerda’s morning crossness was tempered by...

It was with a fairly untroubled mind that Wolf set off the following afternoon for King’s Barton. And it was with a peculiar sense of recovery that he found himself seated side by side with Mr. Urquha...

August was drawing to its end, and, with August, the holidays of the Blacksod Grammar School. The young aristocrats of Ramsgard had several weeks more before their new term began, but the humbler pupi...

Wolf was compelled that particular afternoon to walk a good deal faster than his wont, to reach the manor-house of King’s Barton in time for his daily labour. But his work itself was, when he did sett...

As soon as he reached Preston Lane, Wolf looked at his watch under the first of the three lampposts which were all the illumination that Blacksod had bestowed on that humble district. It was a quarter...

Gerda had refused point-blank to invite Darnley and Christie to supper on Monday night, thus bringing to nothing Christie’s premonition in the stubble-field. And now it was the middle of the long, sun...

The three autumn months that followed the School-Treat became for Wolf, as the days shortened and darkened, like a slowly rising tide, that, drawing its mass of waters from distances and gulfs beyond ...

Wolf’s inmost soul seemed torn up, like a piece of turf under a sharp ploughshare, as, driven by a power beyond his resistance, he put one foot in front of the other in his obstinate march to the Mala...

All through January and February Wolf lived out his life with obstinate, stoical acceptance. He led his pupils at the Grammar School patiently and thoroughly through the reigns of Richard II and Henry...

Gerda was asleep, or pretending to be asleep, when Wolf got into bed beside her that night on February the twenty-fifth. He was physically so exhausted with walking and so drowned by exposure to the w...

“Don’t you ever say ‘it’s too late’ again, Missy!” were his parting words, as he kissed Gerda, a few days later, across their iron gate. It was Thursday now, only two days before the King’s Barton wed...

In the middle of that night Wolf was aroused to consciousness by the voice of Gerda anxiously soothing him; and even in his confusion he was aware at that moment of something exceptionally tender in h...

“You’ll be sure to be back for tea!” These words were uttered by Gerda as she stood in their doorway, with Lobbie Torp at her side. “Make it fairly late, then,” said Wolf. “I don’t want to cut short o...