THE HAWKS OF HAWK-HOLLOW. A TRADITION OF PENNSYLVANIA. BY THE AUTHOR OF "CALAVAR," AND "THE INFIDEL." Where dwellest thou?---- Under the canopy,--i' the city of kites and crows. _Coriolanus_. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. _Philadelphia_: CAREY, LEA, & BLANCHARD. 1835. Entered according to the act of Congress, in the year 1835, by CAREY, LEA, & BLANCHARD, in the clerk's office of the district court for the eastern district of Pennsylvania. _I. Ashmead & Co. Printers_. INTRODUCTION. "Escúchame, y no me creas Despues de haberme escuchado"-- "Hear me, but don't believe me, after you have heard"--says Calderon, the Spanish dramatic poet, with a droll spirit of honesty, only equalled by the English Burton, who concludes the tale of the Prebend, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, by exclaiming, "You have heard my tale; but, alas! it is but a tale,--a mere fiction: 'twas never so, never like to be,--and so let it rest." We might imitate the frankness of these ancient worthies, in regard to the degree of credit which should be accorded to our tradition; but it would be at an expense of greater space and tediousness than we care to bestow upon the reader. We could not declare, in the same wholesale way, that the following narrative is a mere fabrication, for such it is not; while to let the reader into the secret, and point out the different facts (for facts there are) that are interwoven with the long gossamer web of fiction, would be a work of both time and labour.