Chapter One
When Hattie Penderglass, weaver of fine silks, joined her house with that of Jeremiah Strangewayes, tailor, it was with no expectation that he would someday vanish from Berrie Wynweald, and leave her quite alone.
He was a good man and a steady husband, so she would do him the justice to suppose that he had not intended to be parted from his wife. But by poor luck and ill fortune, he had crossed the Wynspan into Southtown on the morning of its vanishment, there to deliver a completed tunic and waistcoat to the house of Nathaniel Roseberry. He had not returned.
Three months afterwards, when the mists of autumn had settled over Berrie North and the mornings grown chill, the Wynspan terminated still in the midst of the strange velvet moor and Hattie Strangewayes remained alone.
