





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 distinction.  He visited among them in a way which no mere
lawyer had ever done b