TO F.A., IN THE NAME OF THE CHILDREN OF FOX HOW, THIS REVIVAL OF A
CHILD'S STORY WRITTEN TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO, UNDER THE SPELL OF ROTHA
AND FAIRFIELD, IS INSCRIBED BY THE WRITER.




PREFACE


After many years this little book is once more to see the light. The
children for whom it was written are long since grown up. But perhaps
the pleasure they once took in it may still be felt by some of the
Millys and Ollys of to-day. Up in the dear mountain country which it
describes, the becks are still sparkling; "Brownholme" still spreads its
green steeps and ferny hollows under rain and sun; the tiny trout still
leap in its tiny streams; and Fairfield, in its noble curve, still
girdles the deep valley where these children played: the valley of
Wordsworth and Arnold--the valley where Arnold's poet-son rambled as a
boy--where, for me, the shy and passionate ghost of Charlotte Brontë
still haunts the open door-way of Fox How--where poetry and generous
life and ranging thought still dwell, and bring their benediction to the
passers-by. "Aunt Emma" in her beautiful home, unchanged but for its
vacant chairs, is now as she ever was, the friend of old and young; and
the children of to-day still press to her side as their elders did
before them. The parrot alas! is gone where parrots may; but amid the
voices that breathe around Fox How--the voices of seventy years--his
mimic speech is still remembered by the children who teased and loved