A Dark Night's Work

A Dark Night's Work, by Elizabeth Gaskell
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Title: A Dark Night's Work
Author: Elizabeth Gaskell Release Date: May 17, 2005 Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) [eBook #2522]
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Transcribed from the 1896 Smith, Elder and Co. “Lizzie Leigh and Other Tales” edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk.
A DARK NIGHT’S WORK by Elizabeth Gaskell
CHAPTER I.
In the county town of a certain shire there lived (about forty years ago) one Mr. Wilkins, a conveyancing attorney of considerable standing. The certain shire was but a small county, and the principal town in it contained only about four thousand inhabitants; so in saying that Mr. Wilkins was the principal lawyer in Hamley, I say very little, unless I add that he transacted all the legal business of the gentry for twenty miles round. His grandfather had established the connection; his father had consolidated and strengthened it,
and, indeed, by his wise and upright conduct, as well as by his professional skill, had obtained for himself the position of confidential friend to many of the surrounding families of ...