PREFACE.


The central incident of this novel is that most extraordinary of all
punishments known to English criminal law, the _peine forte et dure_.
The story is not, however, in any sense historical. A sketchy
background of stirring history is introduced solely in order to
heighten the personal danger of a brave man. The interest is domestic,
and, perhaps, in some degree psychological. Around a pathetic piece of
old jurisprudence I have gathered a mass of Cumbrian folk-lore and
folk-talk with which I have been familiar from earliest youth. To
smelt and mould the chaotic memories into an organism such as may
serve, among other uses, to give a view of Cumberland life in little,
has been the work of one year.

The story, which is now first presented as a whole, has already had a
career in the newspapers, and the interest it excited in those
quarters has come upon me as a surprise. I was hardly prepared to find
that my plain russet-coated dalesmen were in touch with popular
sympathy; but they have made me many friends. To me they are very
dear, for I have lived their life. It is with no affected regret that
I am now parting with these companions to make way for a group of
younger comrades.

There is one thing to say which will make it worth while to trouble
the reader with this preface. A small portion of the dialogue is
written in a much modified form of the Cumbrian dialect. There are
four variations of dialect in Cumberland, and perhaps the dialect
spoken on the West Coast differs more from the dialect spoken in the
Thirlmere Valley than the latter differs from the dialect spoken in