RED SPIDER
BY
SABINE BARING-GOULD
THE AUTHOR OF 'JOHN HERRING' 'MEHALAH' &c.
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.
London
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1887
[The right of translation is reserved]
PREFACE.
Fifty years ago! Half a century has passedsince the writer was a child in the parish wherehe has laid the scene of this tale.
There he had a trusty nurse, and a somewhatromantic story was attached to her life.Faithful, good creature! She was carrying thewriter in her arms over a brook by a bridgeelevated high above the water, when the plankbroke. She at once held up her chargeover her head, with both arms, and made noattempt to save herself, thinking only of him,as she fell on the stones and into the water.He escaped wholly unhurt, owing to herdevotion.
Many years after, the author read a littleGerman story which curiously recalled to himhis nurse and her career. When a fewyears ago he revisited the scenes of hischildhood, he thought to recall on paper many andmany a recollection of village life in thesouth-west of England in one of its most still andforgotten corners. So he has taken this threadof story, not wholly original in its initiation, andhas altered and twisted it to suit his purpose, andhas strung on it sundry pictures of what wasbeginning to fade half a century ago in Devon.Old customs, modes of thought, of speech,quaint sayings, weird superstitions are alldisappearing out of the country, utterly and forever.
The labourer is now enfranchised, educationis universal, railways have made lifecirculate freer; and we stand now before a greatsocial dissolving view, from which old thingsare passing away, and what is coming on wecan only partly guess, not wholly distinguish.
In revisiting the parish of Bratton Clovelly,the author found little of the outward scenerychanged, but the modes of life were in a stateof transition. The same hills, the same dearold moors and woods, the same green coombs,the same flowers, the same old church, andthe same glorious landscape. The reader willperhaps accept with leniency a slight tale forthe sake of the pictures it presents of what isgone for ever, or is fast fading away. Coryndon'sCharity, of course, is non-existent inBratton parish. The names are all taken,Christian and sire, from the early registersof the parish. Village characteristics, incidents,superstitions have been worked in, fromactual recollections. The author has triedto be very close in local colour; and, if it benot too bold a comparison, he would have thislittle story considered, like one of Birket Foster'swater-colours, rather as a transcript fromnature than as a finished, original,highly-arranged and considered picture.
CONTENTS