E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Graeme Mackreth, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) A SON OF HAGAR. A Romance of Our Time by HALL CAINE, Author of "The Bondsman," "The Deemster," etc. "God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is." New York Hurst & Company Publishers. TO R.D. BLACKMORE. It must be an exceeding great reward, beyond all the rewards of material success, to know that you have written a book that is deep, tranquil, strong and pure. Again and again you have nobly earned that knowledge. Across the more than thirty years that divide us, the elder from the younger brother, the veteran from the raw comrade, let me offer my hand to you as to a master of our craft. To the author, then, of a romance that has no equal save in Scott, I humbly dedicate this romance of mine. H.C. * * * * * CUMBRIAN WORDS. barn=child; dusta=dost thou; hasta=hast thou. laal=little; leet=alight; girt=great. sista=seëst thou. varra=very. wadsta=wouldst thou. wilta=wilt thou. Shaf!=_an expression of contempt_. PREFACE. In my first novel, "The Shadow of a Crime," I tried to penetrate into the soul of a brave, unselfish, long-suffering man, and to lay bare the processes by which he raised himself to a great height of self-sacrifice. In this novel the aim has been to penetrate into the soul of a bad man, and to lay bare the processes by which he is tempted to his fall. To find a character that shall be above all common tendencies to guilt and yet tainted with the plague-spot of evil hidden somewhere; then to watch the first sharp struggle of what is good in the man with what is bad, until he is in the coil of his temptation; and finally, to show in what tragic ruin a man of strong passions, great will and power of mind may resist the force that precipitates him and save his soul alive--this is, I trust, a motive no less worthy, no less profitable to study, in the utmost result no less heroic and inspiring, than that of tracing the upward path of noble types of mind. For me there has been a pathetic, and I think purifying, interest in looking into the soul of this man and seeing it corrode beneath the touch of a powerful temptation until at the last, when it seems to lie spent, it rises again in strength and shows that the human heart has no depths in which it is lost. If this character had been equal to my intention, it might have been a real contribution to fiction, and far as I know it to fall short of the first deep blow of feeling in which it was conceived, it is, I think, new to the novel, though it holds a notable place in the drama--it would be presumptuous to say where--unnecessary, also, as I have made no disguise of my purpose.