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Preface
This work is called a 'romance,' because the incidents,
characters, time, and scenery, are alike romantic. And
in shaping this old tale, the Writer neither dares, nor
desires, to claim for it the dignity or cumber it with
the difficulty of an historic novel.
And yet he thinks that the outlines are filled in more
carefully, and the situations (however simple) more
warmly coloured and quickened, than a reader would
expect to find in what is called a 'legend.'
And he knows that any son of Exmoor, chancing on this
volume, cannot fail to bring to mind the nurse-tales of
his childhood--the savage deeds of the outlaw Doones in
the depth of Bagworthy Forest, the beauty of the
hapless maid brought up in the midst of them, the plain
John Ridd's Herculean power, and (memory's too
congenial food) the exploits of Tom Faggus.
March, 1869.
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