S 



DEDICA TION 



MY DEAR HARTCUP, 



Had your mother who found interest in these pages 

 and who to the end was fond of quiet reading about country 

 things lived to see them finished, I should have asked, as some 

 small token of their author's affection and respect, to be allowed 

 to set her name upon a book that tells of the home where she was 

 born and the fields in which she spent her distant youth. 



But it cannot be', so to you, as a friend and fellow inhabitant 

 of Arcady, to you who also have had experience of the frowning 

 face of adverse agricultural balance sheets, I venture to offer 



them. 



Believe me 



Ever sincerely yours, 



H. RIDER HAGGARD. 



DlTCHINGHAM : 1899. 



HERBERT HARTCUP, ESQ. 



