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[Illustration: The Lone Wolf

(_See page 61_)]




_Days Before History_




_UNIFORM WITH THIS BOOK_

In Nature’s School

_By_ LILIAN GASK

_With Sixteen exquisite Full-page Illustrations and a Title-page Design_

_By_ DOROTHY HARDY


THIS STORY details the experiences of a sensitive boy who, in a moment
of revolt, flees from the oppression of some cruel schoolfellows into
the woods, where he meets Nature, who takes him round the world and
shows to him her kingdom of fur and feather. The child is introduced to
all manner of beasts and birds, and learns valuable lessons of kindness
and toleration, while at the same time the facts of natural history
are not distorted to serve the purpose of a story. Everything is true
to facts, so far as they are known from observation and from the best
authorities.

The Illustrations are of quite unusual merit, and will establish the
claims of this talented artist to a place amongst the best English
interpreters of animal life.




  DAYS BEFORE
  HISTORY

  BY

  H·R·HALL

  WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
  A·M·RANDALL

  [Illustration]

  George·G·Harrap·&·Co
  15 York Street·Covent Garden
  London




  _FIRST EDITION
  November 1906, 5000; December 1907, 5000._

  _SECOND EDITION
  Revised, Enlarged, and Newly Illustrated, September 1908, 3000._


  _Letchworth; At the Arden Press_




  _Preface to the New Edition_


IN a book of this kind nothing more will be expected than an outline
sketch of some phases of the life lived by the prehistoric dwellers in
our land. The known facts are few; yet there must have been, even in
those far-away times, well-defined differences of habit and custom due
to local circumstances; so that details more or less true of one tribe
or group would possibly be quite untrue of others.

But, for all that, there are various conclusions upon which the learned
may be considered to be in agreement; and, working from these and
from the descriptions of primitive life in our own times, there is
brought within our reach the possibility of constructing a picture of
man in early Britain which, without leaving the lines of reasonable
conjecture, need be neither meagre nor misleading.

An attempt has been made here to introduce only descriptions which
can in some degree be vouched for; and as much of such authenticated
detail as possible has been included. Some licence has been taken in
bringing together events which in nature were, no doubt, separated by
long intervals of time and space; in suggesting, for instance, that a
man of the newer stone age might have heard some vague tradition of
the makers of the old stone weapons, and yet, in his lifetime, have
witnessed the incoming of the first weapons of bronze: yet, for the
sake of picturesqueness, such licence may be considered to be not only
permissible but, in a book with the purpose of this, actually desirable.

When first it was suggested to the writer that he should undertake
this task, there was only one detail of the necessary equipment which
he could feel to be his own--a childhood’s interest in the subject,
never forgotten. There was the recollection of a chapter in an old
lesson-book, much pored over, with its two or three simple woodcuts
showing the skin-clad “ancient Briton” hollowing out his log canoe,
or shooting at the deer in the forest. There was the memory of a
reputed “British village,” with its pits and mounds, situated on a
distant hill in the neighbourhood of his old home, often talked about,
but too remote to be visited. There were recollections of a village
philosopher, an amateur bird-stuffer and collector of fossils and
antiquities, who carried in his purse and would show a treasure beyond
gold, a barbed flint arrow-head. One he was who did not resent the
companionship of an inquisitive little boy, but took him fishing and
taught him something of the old country lore.

The road into fairyland lay open before that boy in his childhood. With
home-made bow and arrows he stalked the deer on the open hill-side,
or, armed with the deadly besom-stake for spear, tracked the wild boar
to his lair among the whins. A running stream bounding the distant
fields was for him a river to be forded with caution; the woodland
pool was a forest lake, deep and mysterious; the grove of oaks on the
hill-side was a woodland, and the more distant woods a forest vast and
impenetrable.

And the skin-clad hunters of the bygone time peopled those hills and
woods. The rabbits became red-deer, the hovering kestrel a flapping
eagle, a chance fox galloping over the hill a ravening wolf, and
the shy badger (only that one could never get more than the hearsay
of him) a fierce old wild-boar. Then there were huts to be built,
fires kindled, and weapons fashioned, marksmanship to be practised,
hunting expeditions to be carried out, and ruthless warfare waged with
unfriendly tribes.

Thus when the writer began the welcome task of setting down something
about the life of a time so remote that only the indestructible
fragments of its framework are now to be recovered, he had for his
guidance these memories of childish games and wonderings; games that
were never played out, and wonderings that have never been satisfied.
And it was his hope that others, whether or not situated as fortunately
as he once was, might perhaps catch a hint of the joy of playing the
old games and following the old ways of life out-of-doors, as our
forefathers followed them in the days before history. We have not all
forgotten them yet.

A glance at the Contents will show that the chapters fall into two
groups; those headed _The Story of Tig_, which are meant to be a story
and nothing more; and those headed _Dick and his Friends_, which aim at
explaining parts of the story and giving further details and comments
from the standpoint of a later time. For anyone who finds these
chapters dull, nothing is easier than to skip them.

A longish list might be made of the various books which have been
read or consulted in the preparation of these chapters. They are
all well-known standard books, such as would be readily found by
anyone who might wish to follow the subject further. This edition
includes six chapters that are new--numbers six, nine, and fifteen to
eighteen--besides various paragraphs and oddments scattered throughout
the book; the chapter-headings have been altered in most instances, and
the illustrations are nearly all new.

The author wishes to offer his sincere thanks to Professor W. Boyd
Dawkins, F.R.S., who generously consented to look over the proofs of
the original book; and to Professor J. J. Findlay and Miss Maria E.
Findlay for their invaluable help and kindly encouragement.




  _The Contents of Chapters_


         Preface                                      _page_ v

       I How Dick and his Friends heard a
          Story                                              1

      II _The Story of Tig_: Tig’s Birthday & his
          Home                                              11

     III _The Story of Tig_: Tig’s Mother and the
          Lessons that she taught him                       18

      IV _Dick & his Friends_: The Hut that the
          Boys built                                        26

       V _The Story of Tig_: How Garff provided
          Food for his Family                               34

      VI _The Story of Tig_: How Gofa sold some
          Meal to a Hungry Man                              42

     VII _The Story of Tig_: The Harvest of the
          Fields and of the Woods                           48

    VIII _The Story of Tig_: How Crubach became
          a Sower of Corn                                   54

      IX _The Story of Tig_: The Story of the
          Wolf that hunted alone                            57

       X _Dick & his Friends_: A Talk about
          Food Supplies                                     64

      XI _The Story of Tig_: How Tig got his
          first Bow and Arrows                              72

     XII _The Story of Tig_: How Tig visited
          Goba the Spearmaker                               76

    XIII _The Story of Tig_: Arsan’s Story about
          Grim the Hunter                                   86

     XIV _Dick & his Friends_: A Talk about
          Stone Weapons                                     93

      XV _The Story of Tig_: How the Pond of
          the Village went dry                              99

     XVI _The Story of Tig_: What Arsan said
          about the Old Pond                               103

    XVII _The Story of Tig_: How they made
          the Pond anew                                    108

   XVIII _Dick & his Friends_: A Talk about
          Dew-Ponds                                        114

     XIX _The Story of Tig_: How Gofa made
          Pottery                                          122

      XX _The Story of Tig_: How Tig went
          hunting the Deer                                 129

     XXI _The Story of Tig_: How Tig became
          a Man                                            137

    XXII _Dick & his Friends_: Dick’s Pottery
          and how he made it                               140

   XXIII _The Story of Tig_: How Tig made
          Friends with the Lake People                     146

    XXIV _The Story of Tig_: How Tig saw the
          Lake People’s Village                            153

     XXV _Dick & his Friends_: A Talk about
          ancient Lake Dwellings                           162

    XXVI _The Story of Tig_: How the Old Chief
          died and was buried                              168

   XXVII _The Story of Tig_: How Tig chose a
          Wife from the Lake People                        174

  XXVIII _Dick & his Friends_: The Boys’ Bows
          and Arrows                                       180

    XXIX _The Story of Tig_: How the Lake
          People brought Tidings of War                    185

     XXX _The Story of Tig_: How they fought
          the Battle in the Wood                           192

    XXXI _Dick & his Friends_: How they dug
          out the Barrow                                   201

[Illustration]




  _List of Illustrations_


  Tig Shoots a Stag                _Cover_

  The Lone Wolf             _Frontispiece_

  Dressing a Skin page           _page_ 18

  The Stags                             34

  Gofa Alarmed                          42

  Going to the Fields                   48

  The Wild Boar                         52

  The Wolf at the Beaver’s Hut          60

  The Spear-maker                       80

  The Bear                              88

  Making Pottery                       124

  The Wild Ducks                       130

  Making a Canoe                       154

  Weaving at the Loom                  160

  The Beacon                           190

  The Warrior Chief                    196




DAYS BEFORE HISTORY




  _Chapter the First_

  _How Dick and his Friends heard a Story_


I KNOW a boy called Dick. He is nine, and he lives near London. Last
spring Dick’s father and mother moved house. All their furniture and
things were taken in the vans, and Dick and his father and mother went
in a cab.

When they got to the house, Dick ran in at once to explore. It was
not really a new house, because people had lived in it before; but
Dick was disappointed to find it very much the same as the house they
had just left. There was the drawing-room on one side of the hall and
the dining-room on the other, and all the rooms upstairs, and the
bath-room, and the box-room, just the same as in their other house;
and there was a garden with walls round the three sides, very like
their last one. And Dick was sorry that there was nothing new to see.
So he said to his father that he did not like the new house because it
was just like the old one. But his father said: “You must not grumble
at that. Lots of houses are very much alike, of course. There are so
many people in these days who want the same sort of house built for
them.”

That summer Dick went to pay a visit to his uncle, a long way off in
the country. Dick’s uncle lived in a very old house; part of it was
more than four hundred years old, and Dick had never been in such an
old house in his life. His uncle took him all round it, and showed him
many strange things. The oldest part of the house was a square tower
with very thick walls and long, very narrow windows. Dick’s uncle
told him that the windows were made like slits so that the men inside
the tower could shoot their arrows out at their enemies; while the
enemies would find it very hard to shoot their arrows in and hit the
men inside. And he said, also, that in the old days before people could
make glass for windows, it was better to have little windows than big
ones in very cold weather.

And Dick’s uncle took him to the top of the tower and showed him the
remains of an open fireplace, in which the men of the tower used to
light a beacon fire to give the alarm to people in the villages and
towns when enemies were coming.

And outside the tower he showed him part of a deep ditch, and told him
that once this ditch went right round the house and was called a moat,
only that now it was nearly all filled up with earth and stones. But at
one time it was always full of water, so that no one could get at the
tower without crossing the moat. And the people in the tower used to
let down a bridge, called the drawbridge, because it was drawn up and
down by means of chains. So that when they or their friends wanted to
go out or come in, the drawbridge used to be let down for them, and
pulled up afterwards.

And Dick’s uncle told him that all these things used to be done to
make houses safe to live in, because once upon a time long ago there
were a great many thieves and robbers in the land, and there were no
policemen to keep them in order; also that the people used to fight
among themselves a great deal; and his uncle showed him some old pieces
of armour, and a helmet and a