The Icknield Way

When I sat down at the “Dolau Cothi Arms” this evening I remembered my dedication to you. You said I could dedicate this book to you if I would make a real dedication, not one of my shadowy salutes befitting shadows rather than men and women. It seems odd you should ask thus for a sovereign’s worth of—shall I say—English prose from a writer by trade. But though I turn out a large, if insufficient, number of sovereigns’ worths, and am become a writing animal, and could write something or other about a broomstick, I do not write with ease: so let that difficulty give the dedication its value.