One Maid's Mischief. By G. Manville Fenn. 3 vols. (Ward
and
Downey.)—Mr. Fenn shows in this tale the same mastery of his sub- ject, and the same capacity for telling a good story, that we have
before noticed in him. He takes us. to Indo-China, and is just as much at home in the jungle as he is among East Country fens or Sussex ironworks. His heroine is a flirt of the most audacious kind, who, having tried her 'prentice hand on such small deer as doctors' assistants and parsons, attacks the lordly master of a tropical kingdom, an actual Sultan. But such creatures are not to be pursued without danger, and Helen Perowne has a bad time of it. A more stirring narrative than that of her capture, her imprisonment, and her escape, we have seldom read in fiction. Meanwhile, another native potentate, a Saltaness this time, has a little love-affair of her own, and carries it on in the same summary fashion. Her prisoners are two English officers, and they -too have a nice little story of their own to tell. The real hero of the novel is a Scotch doctor, who works marvellous cures beyond the range of his profession. He is an excellent study. Possibly in the description of his wife, a good lady, but most amusingly jealous, Mr. Fenn steps a trifle across the border into farce; but we hint a defect in such a master of his art with doubt. The chaplain, a natural philosopher who collects specimens with a most admirable disregard of surrounding circumstances, adds much to the entertaining quality, and, we may add, to the more serious merits of the story. Mr. Fenn has not done better than in One Maid's Mischief.
Previous page
