Walter Thirsk

Walter Thirsk is the novel's narrator and its clear-eyed barometer. He arrives in the insular village about 12 years before the novel begins. He is the manservant to Master Kent, who inherits the village's lands by marriage to Lucy Jordan. Although comfortable living in the manor house with the master, Thirsk soon falls in love with the village's land (and one of its inhabitants, Cecily, whom he marries), and Master Kent gives him permission to live and work among the village's residents. Although Thirsk has established friendships with, and is standing among, the village's longtime residents at the novel's beginning, the community still does not fully accept him as one of their own.

When the novel opens, Cecily has died of a lethal fever. Thirsk, now a widower, has a mostly sexual relationship with his neighbor Kitty Gosse, who is also widowed. He still works and lives among...