His mother had died when he was very young, and he had had but little education, but had lived shut up with his father in the lonely old farm-house.

And strange stories were in circulation among the villages about that house, not much to the credit of either father or son, which stories John Thornton must in his position as clergyman have heard somewhat of, so that one need hardly wonder at his uneasiness when he saw him enter.
For Mary adored him; the rest of the village disliked and distrusted him; but she, with a strange perversity, loved him as it seldom falls to the lot of man to be loved--with her whole heart and soul.
"I have brought you some snipes, Mr.Thornton," said he, in his most musical tones.

"The white frost last night has sent them down off the moor as thick as bees, and this warm rain will soon send them all back again.

I only went round through Fernworthy and Combe, and I have killed five couple." "Thank you, Mr.George, thank you," said John, "they are not so plentiful as they were in old times, and I don't shoot so well either as I used to do.

My sight's going, and I can't walk far.