Tales from Longpuddle. Thomas Hardy

THOMAS HARDY

      Tales from Longpuddle

      TALES FROM LONGPUDDLE

      In the old days, people did not move around so much. They often lived in the same village all their lives. Everybody knew everybody, knew their parents, their children, their grandparents, and probably knew all their secrets too.

      So when John Lackland’s son returns to the village of Longpuddle after thirty years in America, he knows he will find many of the same families there. In the town he catches the Longpuddle wagon, and on the way to the village he asks the other passengers for news.

      The passengers are very happy to tell him stories. There’s a good story about Tony Kytes and all his young women – oh yes, Mr Lackland must hear that one. And what about Andrew and Jane, and the parson and the fox? The postmistress tells Mr Lackland that story, and then the schoolteacher tells him why the church band stopped playing their fiddles in the church twenty years ago. And does Mr Lackland remember Netty Sargent? He does, and so Mrs Pawle, a farmer’s wife, tells him what Netty had to do to get her uncle’s house …

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DPOxford University Press is a department of the University of OxfordIt furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide inOxford New YorkAuckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei TorontoWith offices inArgentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine VietnamOXFORD and OXFORD ENGLISH are registered trade marks of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countriesThe four stories in this volume are from Thomas Hardy’s A Few Crusted Characters and in their original versions were published under the titles Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver; Andrey Satchel and the Parson and Clerk; Absent-Mindedness in a Parish Choir; Netty Sargent’s CopyholdThis simplified edition © Oxford University Press 2008Database right Oxford University Press (maker)First published in Oxford Bookworms 20032 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1No unauthorized photocopyingAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the ELT Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address aboveYou must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirerAny websites referred to in this publication are in the public domain and their addresses are provided by Oxford University Press for information only. Oxford University Press disclaims any responsibility for the contentISBN 978 0 19 479079 6A complete recording of this Bookworms edition of Tales from Longpuddle is available on audio CD ISBN 978 0 19 479002 4Word count (main text): 6490 wordsFor more information on the Oxford Bookworms Library, visit www.oup.com/bookwormswww.oup.com/bookwormse-Book ISBN 978 0 19 478679 9e-Book first published 2012