Bess of the Woods by Warwick Deeping

In one of the valleys of the forest of Pevensel lay the hamlet of the forest-folk, some half-dozen cottages of unhewn stone, their flagged roofs covered with moss and lichen. There were gardens about the scattered cottages, an orchard or two, and a few strips of cultivated land where trees had been grubbed up, and whin and heather routed. On the west the ground fell abruptly to the banks of a stream that flashed and glittered under the pine-boughs.

These forest-folk mingled but little with the hinds of the neighboring villages. They were all of Grimshaw stock, sprung from the loins of Isaac Grimshaw and his brother. There were Dan and David, sons to Isaac; old Ursula their aunt, and Bess, her foster-child; also Solomon, Isaac's brother, who had caused ten youngsters to be brought into the world. Isaac, a white-haired septuagenarian with a lame leg and a pair of unfathomable gray eyes, gave law and order to the clan like a patriarch of old. Dan, Black Dan, as the others called him, upheld his father's word with the brute strength of his untamed body.