The "Piping Times"

UK Publisher: Sampson Low, Marston and Co. Ltd. (London). First published 1945

When Jeffery Farnol, from the neighbourhood of Horsham in Sussex, opens this romance of rural England, motor cars were unknown; so that the later, and very deplorable ravages of natural beauty had not then begun; and Kent, Surrey and Sussex were even more sequestered, and more attractive, than they have become in our own distracted times.

From Sussex, this latest of Jeffery Farnol's rustic journeys proceeds westwards, not without incidents, and not without calls at village inns, with references to meals, which, in the words of Blackmore's John Ridd, "make my lips smack, and my ribs come inwards."

The two good companions, who are faring together, trudge along the old Pilgrim's Way, through the desolate moorland parts of Devonshire; and so into Cornwall, where we have the most moving incidents of the story, though the author is not so entirely absorbed in his accounts of English country

life, that he fails to give us an insight into the exciting adventures presented by the life of far western America, amongst the bullock wallopers, for into this peaceful Cornish scene there bursts the heroine, a wild, untamed American woman, who rides high-spirited horses, who can throw deftly a lariat, or use any kind of dagger, or firearm that we may wish to mention.

It is in and around one of those impressive and dignified ancient Elizabeth or Stuart manor houses, built entirely of stone, with its mullions, dripstones and gables, that we become acquainted with some of the principal characters in the story, not forgetting the "Foxtotum," who provides the comic element, nor old Joel, a frequenter of Three Pilchards tavern, who reminds us of "The Ancient," in "The Broad Highway."