NOVELS.
THE WATCHER BY THE THRESIIOLD.* THESE "tales of the seen and the unseen," most, if not all, of which have appeared in the pages of Blackwood's Ilfagezine, where they attracted the attention due to their intrinsic merits, derive an added interest from the fact that their author has recently taken up an important post in South Africa, and sacrificed the allurements of literature for the more strenuous labours of Colonial administration. It is no doubt a greater thing to help to make history than to write fiction, and we have the best of reasons for believing in the wisdom of Mr. Buchan's choice. Si. fortuna volct, fes de rhetore consul : novel-writers have ere now developed into statesmen, and the qualities of imagination and sympathy &inapt-led in the one province may well prove a valuable complement to the driving power, the patience, firm- ness, and self-sacrifice required in the other. In any case, and dismissing all precedents, a special interest must attach to the career of one who in the early prime of manhood is given an opportunity of translating into action the principles of civic responsibility so firmly and boldly illustrated in the character of the hero of " Fountainblue," the last, and in some ways the best, story of the collection. Maitland, "the iron dreamer," beguiled for a moment by the prospect of domes- • The Watcher by the Threshold, and other Tales. By John Buchan. Edin- burgh and London : William Blackwood and Sons. pal
ticity, and then, when a sudden crisis brought ihe "indoor civilisation" and his own manifest gestiny into abrupt con-
trast, leaping, like Curtius, into the ggU, is a figure iobly unlike the masterful materialist adventurer of many recent works of fiction. The crucial episode which determines the course of
his life is conceived and carried out in a spirit of grave irony, the strong man in the hour of his strength realising that he stands no chance as a suitor against the amiable Adonis whose life he has saved. But we like even better the scene from Maitland's childhood, in which the conflicting elements in his character are already foreshadowed. On the way to a children's party, dressed up in his best clothes, he quarrels with his cousins, and runs off to the hills:-
"Half-crying with regret for the delights he hadJorsworn, he ran over the moor to the craggy hills which had always been for- bidden him. When he had climbed among the rocks awe fell upon the desolate little adventurer, and he bewailed his choice. But soon he found a blue hawk's nest, and the possession of a coveted egg inspired him to advance. By-and-by he had climbed so high that he could not return, but must needs scale Stob Ghabhar itself. With a quaking heart he achieved it, and then, in the pride of his heroism, he must venture down the Grey Correi where the wild goats lived. He saw a bearded ruffian, and pur- sued him with stones, stalking him cunningly till he was out of breath. Then he found odd little spleenwort ferns' which he pocketed, and high up in the rocks a friendly raven croaked his encouragement. And then, when the shadows lengthened, he set off cheerily homewards, hungry, triumphant, and very weary. All the way home he flattered his soul. In one afternoon he had been hunter and trapper, and what to him were girls' games and pleasant things to eat ? He pictured himself the hardy outlaw, feeding on oatmeal and goat's-flesh, the terror and pride of his neighbourhood. Could the little mistress of Fountainblue but see' him now, how she would despise his prosaic cousins ! And then, as he descended on the highway, he fell in with his forsaken party. For a wonder they were in good spirits—so geed that they forgot to remind him, in their usual way, of the domestic terrors awaiting him. A man had been there who had told them stories and shown them tricks, and there had been cocoa-nut cake, and Sylvia had a new pony on which they had ridden races. The children were breathless with excitement, very much in love with each other as common sharers in past joys. And as they talked all the colour went out of his afternoon. The blue hawk's egg was cracked, and it looked a stupid, dingy object as it lay in his cap. His rare ferns were crumpled and withered, and who was to believe his stories of Stub Ghabhar and the Grey Correi ? He had been a fool to barter ponies and tea and a man who knew tricks for the barren glories of following his own fancy. But at anyrate he would show no sign. If he was to be an outlaw, he would carry his outlawry well; so with a catch in his voice and tears in his eyes he jeered at his inattentive companions, upbraiding himself all the while for his folly."
But undoubtedly the stories which will attract most readers are those which deal with supernatural or abnormal phenomena, notably the extremely eerie tale, "No-Man's-Land," which stands first of all. Here we have set forth the sinister experi- ences of a luckless Oxford archaeologist who, having made a special study of Northern and Pictish antiquities, was kidnapped on a holiday tour in Scotland by the survivors of the aboriginal tribe still hidden away in a remote corner of the hills. After some sufficiently grisly experiences among the cave- men, the Professor escapes from his captors at imminent peril to his life and returns to his work. But in the end his curiosity
overpowers his horror; he returns to the spot, is captured once more, and after further blood-curdling adventures, culminating in the rescue of a fellow-captive from being offered up as a human sacrifice, an opportune landslip gives him freedom, and the Professor, the wreck of his former self, is restored to his friends. Of course no one believes his story,
and after a series of further and futile efforts to penetrate the mystery, he dies a discredited and deserted man. This is really a most scalp-raising fantasy, the effect of which is enhanced by the author's abstinence from the employment of • any directly supernatural apparatus. In the story which gives its name to the collection, a story of demoniac posses- sion, in which the strange experience attributed to Justinian is re-enacted in the person of a Scots laird of to-day, the horror of the narrative is impaired by the introduction of a • grotesquely commonplace figure,—a pragmatic minister with
no end of self-complacency and no self-possession to speak of. The cljnonc»zent, again, is inadequate to the motive. We may note .in conclusion that while in certain respects these stories relate nem selves to the "Celtic Renaissance" of which we hear so much just now, Mr. Buchan's attitude is beat defined
in the phrase he applies to one of his characters : he is no bloodlesi mystic." His characters make excursions into the crepuscular regions, but they never wholly lose touch of the broad daylight, of the actualities of ordinary life. We hope that we have said enough to show that, with all deductions, there is solid achievement as well as promise in this interesting volume. If Mr. Buchan ever finds time to re-enter the domain of fiction, it will not be as a novice, but as one who has already won his spurs.
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