KEEP TROTH.*
A STORY that begins with a case of kidnapping, related some- what after the fashion of Eugene Sue in Le J`uif Errant, will probably have little attraction for the lovers of that kind of actuality with which the novels of the day abound. A felonious man and woman approach from opposite sides, and meet on a bridge over a brook near a deserted mill; the weather is mid- wintry ; the actions of the pair are hurried, their voices "argue haste and secrecy." No wonder, for they are about to effect an 'exchange by which the only son of Colonel Stanton, of-Stanton Hall, is handed over to a tramp to be transferred to a work- house, while the tramp's "urchin a child, of shame, and of a shameful mother," goes home in the carriage that has brought the woman to the spot, not, indeed, to be mistaken for the lost child, but to be adopted by the distracted Colonel and Mrs. Stanton. Of the parties to this transaction, we learn that "the two disappeared in different directions ; and the snow alone saw and heard, and fell as before." Too bad of the snow, no doubt, but more natural than the conduct of Colonel and Mrs. Stanton, who would hardly have carried out the bold design of the tramp and his accomplice. The latter can hardly have had so good a situation as that of the trusted nurse of a rich man's only child might be supposed to be, or she would not have sold the child for twenty pounds and dis- appeared from view, without at least taking away her clothes and making sure of her wages. That trifling details such as these should be overlooked by the inventor of such a " pro- logue" is not surprising, but it is with no little astonish- ment that the reader finds the novel which opens in this almost preposterous manner a clever and interesting one. Let no one yield to an impulse of rash judgment, and feeling that he "really cannot stand the lost-heir business all over again," shut the book upon the unfeeling behaviour of the snow. To do so would be to lose some admirable sketches of character, a striking revelation of life among the very poor, and a readable story, in which originality of thought is more conspicuous than skilful construction or a nice handling of catastrophes.
The life of Bernard Stanton, the stolen child, traverses that of the nameless substituted "urchin" at several points, and these incidents are well contrived. Arthur Stanton, as the name- less one is called, is a commonplace person, of the weakly selfish, cowardly, and unprincipled kind ; and the only striking trait about him is the perverse shrewdness which makes him be- come a parson, partly because he thinks it is easier for a parson - than for men in other professions to "keep straight," and partly because he knows that a parson is less readily suspected of not keeping straight. Ben Brown is a fine fellow from the first, —from the hour at which he runs away from the workhouse and takes up with the street waifs, Bill and Molly, to the end of the story. This end we shall not disclose, but merely admit that it is a happy one, earned at a very high price, which is paid in several instalments of toil, misery, and vicissitude.
The first volume is the best, and of it the earlier chapters are the most remarkable. The story is not well contrived nor is it skilfully constructed, but its interest depends less on its development than on certain episodes in which the author lets us know his own mind, and gives us glimpses, some quaint and amusing, others grim and dreary, of his ex- perience of life on the side of its oddities and on that of its hardships. The death of Bill, the street waif, after his ragged little "mate," Ben Brown (whom he saved from starvation by all but starving himself), has "fetched a parson to him," and the parson's talk has been entirely unintelligible
• Keep Troth. By Walter L. Bicknell, M.A. London : Hurst and Blaokott.
to the dying child, is as sternly pathetic a scene as has ever been drawn, and convincingly, dreadfully true. The poverty- stricken, yet happy life of the three forlorn children, who have only their three hungry and ragged little selves in the big world, and for all mental food and recreation a book of fairy tales,—for with incredible patience and labour the two boys have taught themselves to read,—forms the best portion of a work in which there is much to admire. Here is a sample of this touching story, as told by Ben Brown :—
" We were penned in by heat, and a stifling atmosphere. Poor Bill gasped and panted, and so did both of us. For 'us' included Molly. (The little girl is not related to the boys.) The poor reckon us a big family, and only exclude the grand folk from the family connection. They treat charity as usual, universal, a part of life; the rich speak of it as something laudable and worthy of comment. There were some terrible hot days, and a breath of air seemed the height of luxury. Molly left us one morning about one o'clock, and when she came back she brought a fuchsia in an old, brown, half. cracked flower-pot.= Where's that from, Moll ?' said Bill, before he expressed any pleasure.—' Given me in the garden.'—' Who gave it you P'—' One of them gardener fellows.' There was a pause. ' And it's for you, Bill. Look at them pretty bells hanging down on the flower. Ain't it choice ? Just like my curls, Bill.' Bill shuffled uncomfortably.—' Look here, Molly,' he said, you prigged it. Didn't you ?'—Molly began to cry.—' You bagged it while the chap wasn't looking.'—More tears. I sat watching and critical.= And it's wrong to prig. Look here, Moll, I don't know why it's wrong—hang me if I do. But I've thought of these bits of things, wrongs and rights, you know—and prigging ain't all square. I believe I'm going to die; I feel awful bad. But don't prig. Take it back.'— We, too, we burst out crying. I'm not given to tears, and dislike sentiment—I mean that kind of bursting-out style ; but for Bill to talk of dying was quite too much.—' Bill, old chap,' I cried, going to him and holding his hands in mine, 'don't talk like that ; it makes one low. It's old people as go out of the world like that.' So my
philosophy indicated.—' Bill,' exclaimed Molly, didn't mean no harm. I did prig ; but I only prigged for you, and he warn% looking, and it was so beautiful, all shaky and bell-like, and I wouldn't prig for nobody else—no, I wouldn't, not if I swung for it. There !'—So Molly's philosophy consoled her. But Bill was inexorable.= All sorts of folks die, Ben. And, after all, chaps like you and me, the sooner we clear out the better. They don't want us kicking about here. Prig for me! No, you don't. Take it back. Let's have one smell. Why, it don't smell. Take it off. You go with her, Ben. I say, but it's just handsome.'"
How the two children go back to "the garden" and make restitution, and how the "gardener fellow" gives them flowers (that do smell) for poor Bill thenceforth, until he dies, with roses beside his wretched pillow, is simply and forcibly told ; also the later history of how Molly continued to "prig," how Ben Brown is accused of her misdeeds, sent to a reformatory for seven years, runs away, is sent to prison for two years, and again to the reformatory for two more, and with that terrible training begins life again, an atheist and a misanthrope. We care less for the career of the usurper of Ben's place. Arthur
Stanton is also a runaway,—from a pretentious school where the master is a snob and a time-server,—and he, too, is a
thief; but one for whom there is to be no sending to a reformatory, only a general making of everything com- fortable for the adopted son of a rich man who is "highly connected." The school and the master, the show-boys and the toadying wife of Dr. Fluffy, are all cleverly de- scribed ; but satire of this kind, however just, is too cheap and easy to be worthy of a writer of Mr. Bicknell's force. The obsolete evangelical parson, with the tract-writing sisters, and their tremendous anticipations of hell-fire for everybody except their own following, are also foemeu of straw unworthy of his strongly-shot arrows. The Rev. Josiah Thirkettle and the strong-minded female philanthropist, Miss Magendie Brown, are caricatures ; now, a writer so earnestly bent on forcing the wrongs, sufferings, and disadvantages of the poor upon public attention, and on denouncing the monstrous inequality of our social system with the odious selfishness that perpetuates that inequality, ought to avoid caricature. His sketch of Colonel Stanton is, however, no caricature at all ; everybody knows the type. It is that of the fine old crusted Tory who thinks that the invention of an insulting anagram on the name of Mr. Gladstone, is the happiest effort of wit and a noble aim of talent, and who
regards "the lower orders" as beasts, whose most objectionable characteristic is that they are not dumb :— " Colonel Stanton took strong and decided lines in everything. His Conservative principles rendered him blind to the possible claims of a struggling humanity; every Dissenter was an odious snob in his
eyes He was Squire Hardcastle, with a strong military bent."
The Rector of Arden, " Father" Ambrose, and Dora Betterton, the ultimate heroine of the story in which Molly has for some time the leading place, are very charming persons. The rector is not a caricature on the opposite side to the Rev. Josiah Thirkettle. There are, happily, many parsons of whom it might be said, "This was a man to love, a man to be feared by vice; a man strictest to himself, gentle to the sins of the feeble and erring from ignorance." Of the gathering together of the threads of the story, it is enough to say that the discovery of his parentage by Arthur Stanton, and the fulfilment of the prophetic curse with which his father placed him in the arms of the felonious nurse, are brought about very cleverly, and that the incident is treated in a dramatic style.
There are many passages in this novel which lead the reader to more serious reflection than works of fiction, even of the higher class, are wont to awaken. Among these is one (too long for quotation) to be found in Vol. I., p. 187, upon the life of boys in reformatories. The author is not one to make such statements, and such an appeal as he makes in this passage, without conviction and intention. His statement at least demands scrutiny, and his appeal ought not to pass unheeded. If Mr. Bicknell's Ben Brown tells truth, our reformatories urgently need reform.
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