The Landloper

Walker Farr is a sunburned, sharp-tongued wanderer with the manners of a gentleman and the clothes of a tramp, drifting through a countryside full of oddities, secrets, and sudden moral tests. On the road he collides with petty authority, encounters a broken-down automobile carrying a rich man, a stern older woman, and the striking Kat Kilgour, and soon finds himself drawn into a world where eccentricity often masks deeper purpose. A roadside brook, a shabby old house, and a Quaker destroying his own coffin all prepare the reader for a story in which humor and mystery move side by side. That strange household belongs to Jared Chick, a bookish idealist who has built homemade armor for a self-appointed mission of peace, mercy, and reconciliation. Farr doubts the wisdom of such theatrical reform, especially after Jared's appearance nearly causes a horse accident, but the encounter sharpens the novel's central tension between noble intention and hard reality. Farr's restless intelligence then leads him toward civic and labor struggles, where he meets principled men like Archer Converse and enters a tenement world of mill yards, children, and quiet courage. There, Father Etienne and Zelie Dionne reveal the human cost of exploitation, corruption, and speaking out. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.