Chapter I: Front Matter

Back o’ the Moon

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

“THE DRAKESTONE.”

Second Edition. Price 6s.

_Selection of Press Opinions._

“It is, both in construction and workmanship, very unlike the usual flimsy story which does duty as a modern novel. This book is more like the fiction of some fifty or sixty years ago, when the appearance of a novel was, to a certain extent, an event in the world of letters.”--_The Spectator._

“There is much sound work in the novel; quaint local customs are conscientiously reproduced, and the characters, with the exception of a rather shadowy heroine, are living beings.”--_The Athenæum._

“The book is thoughtfully as well as cleverly written, and at least maintains the promise of its forerunners.”--_The Times._

“The character-drawing is strong and clear, the run of the incident perfectly natural, and the outlook kind and manly in a spirit that puts to the blush a great deal of meretricious and catchpenny work.”--_Pall Mall Gazette._

“Mr. Onions’s canvas is crowded with well-drawn characters, and the whole presents a particularly lively and clever study of Yorkshire life and manners eighty years ago.”--_The Academy._

“Here he is thoroughly at home, and he writes with rare insight and uncommon skill of the country folk of our dales.”--_Leeds Mercury._

“The present story derives its main interest from the liveliness of its presentation of the countryside and rustic character of Yorkshire, as these appeared to the observant eye in the earlier half of the nineteenth century.”--_The Scotsman._

“As we have said, the book is devoid of sensationalism of any sort; but, for all its quiet tone, it is one of the few books of the season worth careful reading, and worth also a permanent place in any library.”--_The Westminster Gazette._

“Mr. Onions, who knows his Yorkshire nearly as well as any writer of the time, has improved amazingly, and ‘The Drakestone’ is of sufficiently high quality to make one anticipate with interest his next book.”--_The Yorkshire Post._

“It is a strong book all round, and the culminating catastrophe--the breaking-in of the marsh upon the moorland--is well rendered and effective. The work is one which will repay study, and we have few living writers who could better it.”--_The Sheffield Daily Telegraph._

“It is an _olla podrida_ of vivid sketches of Yorkshire life, more faithfully conceived and picturesquely rendered than we have ever seen before.”--_The Daily Mail._

“The humble lives of the peasant folk, their jealousies, bickerings and junkettings, take their proper place as background to the working out of the Drake prophecies, while the chief figures are limned with rare skill and insight. A clever and deeply-interesting book.”--_The Liverpool Post._

Back o’ the Moon

AND OTHER STORIES

BY

OLIVER ONIONS

AUTHOR OF

“The Drakestone,” “Tales from a Far Riding,” &c.

LONDON

HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED

1906

_All rights reserved_

TO

AG AND EM,

MY SISTERS