TALES BY " Q."* " Q's " tales are all

marked by power and truthfulness, not that kind of truthfulness which insists on all the blots, and makes light of all the traces of what is inspiring in man, but the truthfulness which sees with equally keen glance what is small and what is great, and can show you the courage and mettle beneath a boor's loutish exterior as clearly as the selfishness and greediness beneath a bold and good- humoured bearing. In this volume of tales, the scene is chiefly laid in Cornwall, and " Q " almost equals Mr. Hardy's Dorsetshire studies in the skill with which he reproduces the mingled shrewdness and folly, the mingled audacity and timidity, the mingled courage and cowardice, of the Cornish peasantry,--the peasantry some of whom return Mr. Courtney to Parliament, and other of whom return Mr.

* / Saw Three Shlps; and other Winter's Tales. By "Q." London ; Cassell and Co. 1e92.

Cony beare,—a fair gauge of the strange mixture of great and small qualities which distinguish them. It would be difficult

to overpraise the study, in the first tale, of the bold, passionate, inarticulate, gallant young fellow who is called "Young Zeb," and who manages even to make his clever and rascally, though not altogether rascally, namesake, saved by him from the wreck, ashamed of his dishonourable plan for depriving him of his promised wife. The whole study, though short, is one of the most vivid and brilliant to be found in our modern tales, and ought to raise the reputation of " Q " to a very high point. The other three tales are much less remarkable, if only because they are too brief to include any careful study of character; but for eeriness and grimness of effect, "The Haunted Dragoon" has not often been equalled, while "The Disenchantment of 'Lisabeth " has that stamp of fidelity to nature upon it which always makes even a brief study fascinating. In "A Blue Pantomime" we cannot say that we have felt any deep interest. It is a riddle touching the preternatural, rather than a story of preternatural experience.

The main power of the author is spent on the first story, the story of the two wrecks, and the deadly peril which "Young Zeb," as the younger Zebedee Minards is called, incurs of losing both his bride and his own soul, after saving a man from the wreck who turns out to be, or at least declares himself to be, his namesake as regards both Christian and surname, though a perfect stranger to the village. The story is so told as to let the reader see the growth of a very strong though rude and dumb and half-formed character, under the pressure of passion and temptation. "Young Zeb begins by being a mere courageous boor, but he ends by being something like a hero. Let us take a sample of him at the opening of his struggle with the rival whom he has saved from the sea, for the girl with whom he had been just on the eve of mar- riage before the interloper's rescue. It is at the end of a rustic ball, in which the rivals have each danced a hornpipe, the stranger borrowing "Young Zeb's " shoes for the purpose, and eclipsing him easily in the performance (which is, by- the-way, described with marvellous spirit). In the mean- time, a piece of lead which the stranger has stolen from the roof, and put into the fire under pretence of representing ore taken from his host's field, has run down in a stream of molten lead, which persuades the simple-minded farmer that he has a whole mine of wealth in his possession, upon which he is thus questioned by "Old Zeb : "—

" You'll excoose my sayin' it, Farmer,' spoke up Old Zeb out of the awed silence that followed, for doubtless I may be thick o' hearin', but did I, or did I not, catch 'ee alluclin' to a windfall o' wealth ? You did.'—' You'll excoose me sayin' it, Farmer ; but was it soberly or pleasantly, honest creed or light lips, down- right or random, "out o' the heart the mouth speaketh or wan- tonly and in round figgers, as it might happen to a man filled with meat and wine ? '—"Twas the cold trewth.'—' By what slice o' fortune ?'—' By a mine, as you might put it : or, as between man an' man, by a mine o' lead.'—' Farmer, you're either a born liar or the darlin' o' luck.'—' Aye : I feel it. I feel that over. powerinly.'—‘ For my part,' put in Mrs. Jim Lewarne, I've given over follerin' the freaks o' Fortune. They be so very undis- cernin': And this eentence probably summed up the opinion of the majority. In the midst of the excitement Young Zeb strode up to the stranger, who stood a little behind the throng. 'Give me back my shoes,' he said.—The other kicked them off and looked at him oddly. 'With pleasure. You'll find them a bit worn, I'm afraid.'—' I'll chance that. Man, I'm not all sorry, either?— ' Hey, why ?'—"Cause they'll not be worn agen, arter this night. Gentleman or devil, whichever you may be. I bain't fit to dance i' the same parish with 'ee—no, nor to tread the shoeleather you've worn.'—' By the powers ! ' cried the stranger suddenly,

two minutes ago I'd have agreed with you. But, looking in your

eyes, rm not so sure of Of what ? That you won't wear the shoes again.' Then Zeb went after Ruby. I want to speak a word with 'ee,' he said quietly, stepping up to her.—' Where ? '

r the hall.'—' But I can't come, just now.'—'But you must.' She followed him out. Zeb, what's the matter with you ?

` Look here '—and he faced round sharply= I loved you passing well.'—' Well F' she asked, like a faint echo.—' I saw your eyes,

just now. Don't I won't.'—' That's right. And now listen; if you marry me, I'll treat 'ee like a span'el dog. Fetch you shall, an' carry, for my pleasure. You shall be slave, an' I your task- master ; an' the sweetness o' your love shall come by crushin',

like trodden thyme. Shall I suit you ? I don't think you will.' =Then good-night to you.'—' Good-night, Zeb. I don't fancy you'll suit me ; but I'm not so sure as before you began to speak.' There was no answer to this but the slamming of the front door. At half-past seven that morning, Parson Babbage, who had risen early, after his wont, was standing on the Vicarage doorstep to respire the first breath of the pale day, when he heard the garden gate unlatched and saw Young Zeb coming up the path. The young man still wore his festival dress ; but his best stockings and buckled shoes were stained and splashed, as from much walking in miry ways. Also he came unsteadily, and his face was white as ashes. The parson stared and asked= Young Zeb, have you been drinking ?'—' No.'—' Then 'tis trouble, my son, an' I ask your pardon.'—' A man might call it so. I'm come to forbid my banns.'—The elder man cocked his head on one side, much as a thrush contemplates a worm. I smell a wise wit, somewhere.

Young man, who taught you so capital a notion Ruby did.' = Pack o' stuff! Ruby hadn't the—stop a minute ! 'twas that clever fellow you fetched ashore, on Monday. Of course—of course ! How came it to slip my mind ?' Young Zeb turned away ; but the old man was after him, quick as thought, and had laid a hand on his shoulder. 'Is it bitter, my son ?'—' It is bitter as death, Pa'son.'—' My poor lad. Step in an' break your fast with me—poor lad, poor lad ! Nay, but you shall. There's a bitch pup i' the stables that I want your judgment on. Bitter, eh ? I dessay, I dessay. I'm thinking of walking her—lemon spot on the left ear—Rattler strain, of course. Dear me, this makes six generations I can count back that spot—an' game every one. Step in, poor lad, step in : she's a picture.'" All the talk of the people about Farmer Tresidder's imaginary good fortune, the short dialogue between "Young Zeb" and his betrothed, and the attempt of the worthy clergyman to

comfort him with the vision of a pup of the true "Rattler strain," is all given with a skill and force fully worthy of Mr.

Hardy's genius; and there is, besides, a nobler touch about some of " Q's " Cornishmen which renders them more attractive to the reader than most of the Dorsetshire peasants of Mr. Hardy's stories. The fall of "Young Zeb," for instance, into deadly sin when he is tempted of the devil to set the press-gang on his rival that be may be torn away from his promised wife on his wedding-day, and his sudden repentance of his sin, and risk of his own life to save him from the press-gang, is told with a spirit and reality that makes us realise the full depth of his feeling, and the full horror with which he recoils from the baseness of which he had been guilty, yet not so much horror of his vindictiveness, for that he cherishes still, only horror of the cruelty to a girl whom he really loved, but whom he had for a moment been willing to make miserable that he might taste the

bitter sweetness of revenge. He feels no scorn for his vindic- tiveness,—his character had not reached, and could not in a moment have reached, such a height as that,—but scorn for the falsehood of his heart in being willing to pierce hers rather than bear to see her carried off by his rival. Then there is

something in the delineation of that rival's mixture of deliberate villainy with such complete recognition of the force and manliness in Young Zeb's character as to make him thoroughly ashamed of the part be was playing, that some- how convinces us of the true insight of the author. In most of our novels, evil is apt to be too evil. The boldness and carelessness and deliberate dash of selfish passion is seldom found without something like frank admiration of the same daring and reckless qualities in others, and in this case that frank admiration is sketched with a vivacity that makes it as vivid to the reader's imagination as the rascality itself. We have altogether a picture of both the worse and the, better qualities of the two rivals, of the meannesses and of the generosities of their natures, which is in the truest sense impressive ; and the triumph of generosity not only over the more innocent, but over the more guilty and more guileful of the two, makes a picture as brilliant as it is unique. " Q " is evidently a writer of great power. But be should not attempt to adapt to literary purposes half-mastered riddles in the psychology of hypnotism which are as yet quite beyond the reach of artistic delineation.