Luke the Labourer

About the show

The play's action takes place in an agricultural Yorkshire setting. Clara Wakefield receives financial help from farmhand Charles to free her father, Farmer Wakefield, from debtor’s jail. Luke, the titular character, is Farmer Wakefield's former employee whom he previously mistreated for being drunken, and has experienced extreme poverty resulting in the death of his wife. He has somehow saved enough money to lend to Farmer Wakefield, whose failing business cannot pay the debt. Clara frees her father, and he returns home to Clara and her mother. The local Squire, enlisting Luke's service, attempts to kidnap Clara, but she is saved by sailor Philip’s intervention. Philip is welcomed into the Wakefield household, where he reveals that he knew the family’s lost son, and is given Farmer Wakefield’s bed for the night. Luke, thinking that Philip is Wakefield, breaks in and tries to shoot him as revenge, but ends up being killed. In the chaos that ensues, an old local 'gypsy' reveals that he witnessed Wakefield's missing son being stolen and sold to a sailboat by Luke, and identifies Philip as the lost son.