The Broom-Squire

An abandoned infant left at a roadside inn becomes the centre of a rural drama as neighbours, wanderers, and the local poor contend with sheltering, feeding, and discovering the child's origins. The story chronicles practical struggles during storms, frictions born of gossip and superstition, and escalating threats that lead to courtroom scenes and violent confrontations. Recurring rural locations — taverns, a broomshed, a mill, quarries and a named stone — frame revelations about identity, inheritance, and local enmities. Themes of communal responsibility, social marginality, and the fragile balance between charity and suspicion run through episodes of crisis, secret revelations, and eventual reckonings.