The Runaway

Oliver Wainwright is still a boy when he first sets eyes on the fair, delicate Florence—the aristocratic granddaughter of Sir Philip Oldfield. And, determined never to be a servant or follow in his father’s footsteps as a quarry worker on the Oldfield estate, he runs away to Middlefield, that very day. Slowly but surely, he sets about becoming a man of property and a cotton industry king. He works single-mindedly to achieve his ambition—until he meets Rosie, a married mill hand who distracts …