From the Preface to the Boissevain Books Edition by Desmond Shane Oakley:
This is an exciting story set in Ireland in which an
orphan, Rory, is adopted by a couple because he resembles their dead
son. He runs away to escape from this uncomfortable situation, and
meets and then lives with a group of gypsies. This book was close to
the heart of the author, my late grandmother, Hilda van Stockum, as she
always sympathized with the outsiders in life. She was also close to
nature and had a distrust of machinery, traits shared by the Romanies
she wrote about. I remember the time she took to research the facts
relating to the gypsy way of life. This book has become ever more
relevant as time passes. This is because in showing the challenges
facing a downtrodden minority, it also reveals to the rest of us how
much we have lost our relationship with nature.
