THE MARKED MAN.* WE don't know who Mr. Frank Trollope
may be, but we make no doubt he is fired by a laudable ambition to rival his great name- sakes as an author of fiction. We cannot conscientiously say that he has succeeded in reminding us of any of the three Trollopes, but then he ha a taken an entirely different line. His aim has apparently been to Bit at the feet of those beloved writers of our childhood who mixed with such inimitable impartiality the ex- tremely improbable in incident with the highly moral in tone, and who passed with such astonishing abruptness from the uninten- tionally ludicrous pictures of scowling malevolence to the edifying example of saintly patience and forgiveness. And as a copyist of this school of ancient masters Mr. Frank Trollope has achieved, we think, very eminent success. To suit the subject to the style, he has chosen the early part of this century for his time, and has
introduced, with as light touches as were possible to his somewhat ponderous hand, some of the celebrities of that period. Welling- ton, Sugden, Hook, Mathews, Liston, Cellini, Brummell, associate, with affable condescension, with the somewhat less- known personages evolved by Mr. Trollope's brain. Thus the Marked Man is the very particular friend of the embryo Lord Chancellor, and the trusted and loved subordinate of the great General. It is not these distinctions, great as they are, how- ever, nor any other distinctions, social or intellectual, that make our hero a marked man ; it is a well-defined oak tree over his left breast. So that the title is a humorous play upon words, and deceives us, as titles usually do now-a-days. The Marked Man is the elder of twin brothers born at the death of their father —a baronet, who owned the next most princely place in this king- dom to Windsor Castle. It is apparently perched up somewhere on the Cumberland mountains, on the side of Skiddaw or Saddleback, at any rate within a walk of Keswick. As the late baronet was killed by the fall of an oak tree, it is, of course, clear that the bereaved mother is bound to conceive a dislike or, "not to put too fine a point upon it," a deadly hatred to the son and heir, who carries about a picture of the fatal tree, and having at considerable future inconvenience to herself bought the silence of Singleton, the nurse who attended upon her, and procured the honest young apothecary an appointment in India, the heir is forthwith banished from his mother's sight and heart, and Master—now Sir —Alfred reigns in his stead. At fourteen years of age Herbert comes home from his humble seminary of learning, and determines to take his mother's heart by storm ; he all but succeeds, when an accident happens to him which has so often proved fatal to the plans and the peace of the male half of the human race. Oh 1 what have not rotten thread, brittle buttons, and overmuch starch to answer for !—who does not know the sensation of hot confusion when the omnibus to the train is waiting, 'when the ladies are shiver- ing in the hall in their ball dresses, when the chair has to be taken and the hour for the meeting has arrived ; or, in the case of a clergyman, when the five minutes' bell has begun ? What agony when, at such moments, that awful snap is heard, and the collar and shirt reject the proffered union ! Yes! as the ardent and ingenuous Herbert trembled at the signs of a relenting love, that fate-defying button gave way, and his shirt, flying back a con- siderable distance in the rebound, revealed his own and closed his mother's bosom against him for ever. This was the more unfortunate, as he was so much better fitted for the manager of large estates. He had been trained in the highest principles of rectitude and self-denial by the excellent and worthy couple at whose school he had been placed, while young Alfred, spoiled by his mother to the utmost, "had grown from bad to worse and hardened as a stone." Herbert's affections, checked in their manifestations towards his mother, find satisfaction in the good lioasekeeper, and on his leaving college they fall into each other's arms at the town mansion in Portman Square, where he kisses her "for the thirtieth time," and where, we are sorry to say, nature would have her way, and urged these good creatures to call Singleton names in consequence of her influence over the Lady mother. " Only to think,' pursued the kind old woman emphatically, that such a low hussy as that should domineer over one so ! I couldn't allow it, Master Herbert, and your poor father, if he'd been alive, he wouldn't have allowed it either. He loved me,' she continued, wiping her eyes, and he respected me too.'" " ' I have not the slightest doubt of that,' said I, pressing her hand, 'and I—I love and respect you too, and always shall ; I should be the most ungrateful fellow that was ever born if I did not, after all the love and kindness you have evinced towards me. Yes, Wilson, as long as I live you shall never want a friend. But as to that wretch Singleton, I am * The Marked Mien. By Frank Trollop°. London: T. Oautloy Newby. 1871. astonished that my mother should permit her to take such liberties?" Virtue is its own reward, and Herbert, like Wilson, was soon never to want a friend ; for he made himself so useful to Lord Wellington in the Peninsula, that that great General never lost sight of him, and actually dined with him and his wife one Sunday at Fulham in the days of their poverty ; on which occa- sion, some gardeners nearly took the Duke to a neighbouring lunatic asylum, so condescending and humorously familiar were his manners. On the death of his mother, Herbert returns to England, and lights on a friend, "Stevens," who takes him in cautiously to his rooms in Berkeley Street—sending to Charing Cross for his servant's luggage—and where Herbert, not without Stevens's polite acquiescence, we must admit, bores him with one hundred and nine pages of history of his life, including verbatim accounts of all his little gossips with Wilson—in which he does not forget the order and wording of the remarks made from five to fifteen years ago— and ingenuous confidences of the little demonstrations of affection which had on these several occasions passed between himself and her. It is scarcely of moment to note that this unbroken revelation in Berkeley Street immediately after his return to Eng- land on his mother's death includes many events that happened after this return ; or that somehow it ends in Hounslow; or that Stevens, though the strange history was revealed to him apparently for some practical purpose, never opens his mouth at its conclusion, nor appears again on the scene. But before we dismiss him we must do Herbert the justice of showing that Stevens brought it on himself, and we shall at the same time record Stevens's mention of his friend, honourable alike to both. At the same time, we shall be giving our readers an opportunity of judging of Mr. Frank
Trollope's style :—
" You know something of my history,' began the Major; 'but perhaps, if it will not boro you, I had better enter into a full, true, and particular
account.'—'Do so,' said the Colonel. I am anxious to hear all the details, for I have always considered your position somewhat peculiar.' —'You are right. There is something very peculiar in my position ; so much so, indeed, that its parallel is only to be found in the pages of some novel or romance.'—' Well, let me hear all the particulars of this
romance. At any rate, I presume you are now a rich man am no bettor off than I was before my mother's death. She has not loft ma a farthing.'—' Her antipathy towards you has gone with her to the grave,
—horrible No; from what my faithful old friend and servant of our family has told me, I think she relented, at the eleventh hour,—at least I hope so.'—'You have often named to me this strange feeling of a mother towards her son, but never oven hinted at the cause.'—' No; and my reason for not enlightening you, or any of my friends, was solely from delicacy towards those I was bound to respect, and may reluctance to communicate what would only inflict pain, without in the slightest degree ameliorating the evil.'—' Deno with your accustomed kindness of heart, my dear Fitzgerald. But what on earth could cause
such unrelenting antipathy from a mother to such a son ? You shall bear all I can tell you on this point, but you must promise to lot it be a strictly confidential communication.'—' Certainly,' replied Colonel Stevens.—' From what I have beard--for I was not born till after the death of Sir William Fitzgerald, my father—the late Baronet was some- what eccentric, or rather, I should say, peculiar in his opinions. He did not consider either high rank or a princely fortune entitled him, or any man similarly circumstanced, to load a life of ease and uselessness. On the contrary, ho deemed it his duty to exert himself to do something for his country, in which he hold BO largo a stake. He was more than once solicited to represent the county in which his extensive property was situated, but he refused. Like myself, he had a strong bias for a. military life, which, no doubt, I inherit from him. I have heard the Duke, who knew my father well, say "that the English nation, in los- ing Fitzgerald, lost a great general." An assertion of no small import- ance,' interrupted his friend.—' Yes, and one I have always valued.'— 'It may, moreover, prove of some value to Sir William's son, one of these days,' said the Colonel, with a significant nod of the head.— Perhaps so.'—'I beg pardon, Fitzgerald, for interrupting the stor,y of your life. Pray proceed.'"
When Herbert returns to England, he determines on the "arduous and by no means easy task" of reforming his profligate brother, who, with some inconsistency, is made to blush when recounting his expenses and troubles with horses, jewels, and perfumes. This, however, is not a success, and Herbert loses what little influence he might have had by falling in love with the lady it suited Sir Alfred to marry. And though, with very ancient and very un- reasonable ideas of honour, Herbert sacrifices both himself and Lady Susan for his brother's sake, it is of no avail, for a letter gets into the wrong envelope, and Sir Alfred smiles a satanic smile, and decides at once that his brother is guilty of treachery. "The baronet stood for some minutes in a sort of stupefaction by the
intelligence. When he recovered his energies, his first impulse was to re-read the sentence. Yes : there it was, as clear as the sun at noon-day. A most peculiar smile gradually stole over his features until it reached his eyes, which flashed like forked lightning. So fearful was the expression his countenance assumed, that he abso- lutely shuddered as he caught the reflection of himself in the glass near which he was standing. At length he muttered—" but we abstain from saying what he muttered.
Meantime, we have some sweetly pastoral scenes—in which Herbert and Lady Susan linger on the banks of the Thames near her mother's abode—ushered in by a more exciting one, in which the former saves a little boy from drowning at the risk of his own life, and is restored to animation by Lady Susan. It is instructive to observe how set upon wisdom their minds must have been, when Herbert at such a time in refusing brandy from the farmer says smiling, " No ' is a word I've learnt to say, and I've found the lesson invaluable. Brandy would only heat me.' 'It would,' said the young lady approvingly, you are better without it.'
I am glad you think I am acting prudently,' replied Fitzgerald, bowing. 'Permit me to return you my best thanks for the sea- sonable assistance you have rendered me.' 'I was glad to have it
in my power,' she replied gravely. always make it a rule to be useful whenever I can, be the occasion what it may.' 'Do you,' said Fitzgerald, regarding her with increasing admiration. 'Yes, it's my code,' rejoined she, smiling." After this we are not surprised to find that she rather worries her mother by ill-timed visits to sick children when guests are waiting for dinner, to whom, with simple naiveté, she relates the charitable cause of her detention. Herbert is delighted with all this, and shares her walks and attentions to the sick cottagers, taking the opportunity of saying how he looks forward to a " shooting-jacket sort of life, surrounded by little ones and pets about me [Hr. Trollope's English halts a little], and a few select friends, refined but not fussy." She, too, soliloquizes what a paradise this would be with a congenial spirit!" Lady Susan's mamma is of a different stamp, delighting in balls and assemblies, to which we are dragged about with her and introduced to Lady Overdone—the vulgar wife of a rich banking lord—and to Lord Always-ailing, a grumbling valetudivarian. And here it is that we meet those historical characters, Hook, Brummell, &c., and that the story becomes very heavy with Lady Overdone's outrageous mal- apropisms an I the puns most unfairly fathered by Mr. Trol- lope on Theodore Hook. But how is the dullness compensated by the quivering interest of what follows l—culminating in a tragedy that reuis the clouds and is completed in the lonely depths of Wastwater. But we must not forestall. Sir Alfred is ruined at the gambling-table, so Lady Susan's relations do not so much mind her refusing him.; and Herbert, assisted by Mr. Sugden—the good ubiquitous angel of the piece—marries her, and is himself ruined by an absconding agent. The Great Duke then gets him a post in Canada and they are on the point of sailing, when—while waiting at Portsmouth for their vessel—they stroll down to see an American vessel arrive, at which juncture, and in contradiction of the adage that "truth is stranger than fiction," an old friend of Herbert lands, bearing in his arms a dying woman who has come to confess a fraud to Herbar b. It is Singleton, the nurse. Mr. Sudgen, who has just been made a jus- tice of the peace—it could not have happened more fortunately— takes her deposition about the eldest son having the oak tree over the left breast, before death kindly clears her away as being of no further use. Then comes Booth—Sir Alfred's footman—who saw his master quarrel with the honest doctor, on the latter's return from India, and prepare to shoot him, only a heart-disease got the first turn just as Sir Alfred's pistol was cocked, and knocked over the doctor, saving Sir Alfred any trouble excepting that, of abstracting the important memoranduin from the medical pocket-book, tearing it to fragments and scattering them to the winds. But the frag- ments are collected by the thoughtful Booth, and having been carefully pieced together are shown by him to Sir Alfred, who gives him five minutes in which to choose whether he will deliver up the memorandum or his life. Booth, however, prefers a third course of jumping out of the window and making his market with Herbert. Then comes the de'nonement. Herbert determines on a Quixotic pilgrimage to reason with his brother, and insists on the miserable Booth accompanying him. They learn that Sir Alfred—now a half- mad misanthrope, and an uncombed, unwashed miser—is away on the top of a mountain, and notwithstanding the approach of night and of a storm they follow him. Blackness and peril take away their breath and ours, and Sir Alfred and Herbert are again face to face. We are not surprised that Sir Alfred, who is dang- ling his legs over a precipice fifteen hundred feet sheer down into the lake, is not much impressed with his brother's very excellent but very matter-of-fact and very moral way of putting things, and we are prepared to see him hurl his brother into the lake; but he misses his footing somehow, and falling against Booth—who is also now of no further use—over they go together. As the only depositaries of the wicked secret who cannot be trusted are now no more and Sir Alfred, sleeps with his fathers, Sir Her- bert ascends the throne without any of that lolaircissement which
would have been so painful to the family feelings. But we must say it is provokingly annoying to find that all this powerful machinery has been constructed for nothing, as, under these cir- cumstances, Sir Herbert would have succeeded to the title and property without any startling discoveries ; and we lose, besides, the edifying spectacle we had anticipated of the lofty and generous charity with which we are sure Sir Herbert would have treated his brother, in his deposed and crest-fallen estate.
A. word as to an innovation which we have never observed before. In the centre of the fly-leaf facing the title-page is an attractive-looking paragraph in small type, the perusal of which we commenced with much interest and attention, sure that it con- tained the nucleus of the story, or a touching dedication, as the wont of such-looking paragraphs is. It was with a sense of some- thing very like humiliation for both publisher and author that we discovered we were reading an appeal to ladies in favour of a drapery establishment, in the management of which we are informed the principle is that of small profits and quick returns. Can this be a sly hit of Mr. 'I'. Cautley Newby's, having a covert reference to the small profit of reading the Marked Man, and to its quick return to Mr. Mudio's shelves ?
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