Crying for the Light

At Sloville’s cattle-show, Sir Watkin Strahan tears up a dirty, ill-written letter without reading it. The lodge-keeper knows who sent it: an old woman from the workhouse, and she is determined to reach him.

In rural England, beneath bright hedgerows and ancient elms, the county show brings farmers face to face with the steam machinery threatening their livelihoods—and with the old power of the landowners. Sir Watkin rides through the admiring crowd beside a wealthy merchant and his daughter, at ease among tenants who look to him with deference. But the woman he dismisses may have a claim on him that no landlord’s title can silence. As the show gathers around him, what is she trying to tell Sir Watkin—and what might it cost him to hear?

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