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.
 
  CHAPTER I
  ELEMENTS OF EDUCATION

    If anybody
        cares to read
               a simple tale
              told simply,
           I,
         John Ridd,
           of the parish of Oare,
         in the county of Somerset,
           yeoman and churchwarden,
         have seen
            and had a share
                   in some doings
                       of this neighborhood,
           which I
            will try
                  to set down in order,
         God sparing
               my life and memory.

    And they
         who light upon this book
            should bear
                   in mind not only
             that I
                  write for the clearing
                       of our parish
                     from ill fame and calumny,
           but also a thing
              which will,
         I trow,
           appear too often in it,
         to wit
          --that I
            am nothing
                   more than
                       a plain unlettered man,
           not read in foreign languages,
         as a gentleman might be,
           nor gifted with long words
         (even in mine own tongue),
            save what
             I may have won
                   from the Bible
                  or Master William Shakespeare,
               whom,
             in the face
                   of common opinion,
               I do value highly.

    In short,
           I am an ignoramus,
         but pretty well
               for a yeoman.

    My father
        being of good substance,
           at least as
             we reckon in Exmoor,
         and seized
               in his own right,
           from many generations,
         of one,
           and that the best
               and largest,
         of the three farms into
              which our parish is divided
         (or rather the cultured
               part thereof),
          he John Ridd,
               the elder,
             churchwarden,
               and overseer,
             being a great admirer
                   of learning,
               and well able
                  to write his name,
             sent me his only son
                  to be schooled at Tiverton,
               in the county of Devon.

    For the chief boast of
         that ancient town
           (next to its woollen staple)
          is a worthy grammar-school,
               the largest
                   in the west of England,
             founded and handsomely
                  endowed in the year 1604
                       by Master Peter Blundell,
               of that same place,
             clothier.

    Here,
           by the time
             I was twelve years old,
         I had risen
               into the upper school,
           and could
              make bold
                   with Eutropius and Caesar
         --by aid
               of an English version--
           and as much
               as six lines of Ovid.

    Some even said
         that I might,
           before manhood,
         rise almost
               to the third form,
           being of a perservering nature;
        albeit,
           by full consent of all
         (except my mother),
            thick-headed.

    But that would have been,
           as I now perceive,
         an ambition
               beyond a farmer's son;
        for there is
             but one form above it,
           and that
              made of masterful scholars,
         entitled rightly
           'monitors'.

    So it came to pass,
           by the grace of God,
         that I
            was called away from learning,
           whilst sitting
               at the desk
                   of the junior first
               in the upper school,
         and beginning the Greek verb