Lucas Malet is the pseudonym of Mary St. Leger Kingsley, a Victorian writer and the daughter of Charles Kingsley (author of The Water Babies, ) Deadham Hard: A Romance, originally published in 1919, is the story of the occupants of Tandy’s Castle, the Verity Family, and specifically young Tom Verity and his enchanting cousin, Damaris. A peculiar magic resides in running water, as every student of earth-lore knows. There is high magic, too, in the marriage of rivers, so that the spot where two mingle their streams is sacred, endowed with strange properties of evocation and of purification. The Veritys live in just such a place, a perfect setting for a classic romance.