THE RUNAWAY. By M E. Francis. (Hutchinson. 7s. 6d. net.)
The novels of Mrs. Francis have so secure a place in our country fiction that it seems impertinent to blame and almost invidious to praise. Therefore it is with timidity that the reviewer takes exception to the hero of the tale. It is not that he runs away from his wife. That is excusable. It is not that he tires of being a laird and becomes a black- smith. That is laudable. It is not that he makes love (in a scrpentless Eden) to a yellow-haired young woman. That is only to be expected. It is, that twice (once might have been pardoned, but twice !) he, who has been brought up in the country, does, while lifting potatoes, throw down his fork. He damns himself. He is confessed a fool. Our sympathies turn to his shrewish wife. No wonder the grandfather of the golden-haired young woman laughs in his beard (which sounds unhygienic), for did anybody, since Adam delved and Eve span, ever hear of a gardener who threw down his fork ? Is it not the immemorial custom, when a real gardener goes to his lunch, to jab the spade or fork very scientifically into the earth in a perpendicular position, and for the handle to be immediately tenanted by a robin ?
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