Precious Bane

The story is narrated by the central character, Prue Sarn, whose life is blighted by having a harelip. Only the weaver, Kester Woodseaves, perceives the beauty of her character, but Prue cannot believe herself worthy of him. Her brother Gideon is overridingly ambitious to attain wealth and power, regardless of who suffers while he does so. Gideon is set to wed his sweetheart Jancis, but he incurs the wrath of her father, the cruel and scheming self-proclaimed wizard Beguildy. An act of vengeance by Beguildy makes Gideon reject Jancis and tragedy engulfs them both. Prue is wrongly accused of murder and set upon by a mob, but Kester defies them and carries Prue away to the happiness she believed she could never possess because of her harelip.


Webb uses the rural Shropshire setting to isolate Prue Sarn and her fellow characters from the larger world; at one point Prue tells us, "four years went by, and though a deal happened out in the world, naught happened to us.


The title of the story has a double meaning. It is taken from John Milton's Paradise Lost:


    Let none admire

    That riches grow in Hell; that Soyle may best

    Deserve the precious bane.


It refers to the love of money, which, as Prue records, blights love and destroys life. But the title also refers to Prue's deformity, which she comes to recognize as the source of her spiritual strength.