FICTION.
The Haunting. By C. A. Dawson Scott. (Heinemann. 7s. 6d. net.)—However ghastly may be the nature of most ghost stories, there is generally a considerable element of comedy in their composition, and the thrill which the reader feels is decidedly pleasant. That, however, is by no means true o. Mrs. Dawson Scott's story, The Haunting, and for this reason. While the everyday ghost is projected from without the spectator, the apparitions in this book come from the guilty conscience of the murderer and are purely subjective. The villain of the story is the murdered man Pascoe Corlyon, and his virtuous 'elder brother, Gale Corlyon, is the murderer. The book opens with an admirable description of Gale's life in the Cornish " water-side town," where he was general referee and adviser to all the inhabitants. His brother Pascoe, a sailor, carried on an overseas trade for his benefit, the proceeds of which are deposited in a sort of smugglers' cave below the house communi- cating through a passage with a sea-cove. Pascoe, on the eve of his departure to a new life in Jamaica, claims the whole of the money and half the house in which Gale lives, saying that he must buy an interest in the business of the father of the girl he is to marry. He quite callously abandons a girl whom he has seduced, and for these reasons Gale determines that Pascoe deseives to die. He poisons him on the eve of his departure, and the scene of the murder strikes a fitting note to the sequel of the book. It is difficult to describe the horror produced on the reader's mind by the author's quiet description of the coming
of the " haunt." There is, first, the misty appearance of the flagon which contained the poisoned wine ; then the gradual crowding of ghostly objects on the supper-table at which the brothers took their last meal, and finally, the "tragic lading" of the old settle on which Pascoe died. Gale destroys the settle, but to no purpose. It and its burden are always there. He
knows that he could find happinesi and relief by marriage with an old friend and neighbour. Indeed, Gale and Morwenna Liddicoat, elderly though they are, feel that a new life would dawn for them by union with each other ; but Gale, who tries to prevent the " haunt " from becoming visible to others by shutting himself up alone in the house where the murder is perpetually re-enacted, feels that Morwenna would know all were she to set foot across the threshold. In a last effort at freedom he goes to her house, and for a few days tastes rest and happiness. But he knows in his sub-consciousness that the figure he dreads will yet appear before him, will acquire the power of leaving the house and take on tangible form in the of all men. And truly, at his wedding, he looks outside the church, and there is Pascoe coming up the path. The bride- groom, stepping out from the church porch, turns the apparition before it reaches the group of wedding guests ; but later, at the dinner, standing in the doorway, he looks " where he must look —at the sofa. On it sat the uninvited guest." He notices that his wife does not see Pascoe at present, but undoubtedly in time he would become visible, so Gale goes out and walks down to the beach. The tide is coming in, but he goes deep into the cave, which once had an opening to his own cellar—an opening which he, himself, closed in burying his victim ; and there in the cave, glowing with the light of the setting sun, he waits to pay his debt, for Pascoe asks no less than a life for a life. The novel is written with great power, and the description of the love of a middle-aged woman is given with a tenderness which excites sympathy. Nothing so commonplace could be said of this book as that it " makes your flesh creep " ; it is terrible with the inevitability of retribution.
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