Cross-Country Life
WHYTE-MELVILLE has died, and been almost forgotten :
and these are two of the best qualifications for being redis- covered as a writer of tremendous genius. Accordingly, the jackets of these reprints proclaim that :
"As a sporting novelist, Whyte-Melville is possibly unique, for he had not only the gift of telling a story and delineating character, but also as an Etonian, a Guardsman and a Master of Hounds, he had that intimate knowledge of all kinds of Sport which is indispensable to those who aspire to write about it. LI fact it may be claimed for him that he is the greatest English sporting novelist."
The italics are not ours, but they are most unkind. aon someone will be claiming that Whyte-Melville wrote liter- ature," or even, like M. Jourdain, prose. Nothing would have horrified him more. He was a country gentleman,
with a fixed objection to the literary world. He wrote novels
chiefly because he liked fox-hunting, and he used his royalties to endow reading-rooms for stable-boys. Mr. Bernard Darwin, who writes an introduction to this series, praises him much more fairly. Indeed, he is kind to the point of evasion : but he realizes that the critical do not get the best of Whyte- Melville. Whyte-Melville's books were written for pleasure,
and are to be read for pleasure. Their machinery creaks.
Their standards are pompous and conventional. Their more elegant characters talk like books, and act—which is perhaps
less surprising—like Victorians. But 'their hunting scenes
have yet-to be equalled. They go with a swing, and are not to be resisted by anyone who, like Whyte-Melville himself, loves the country, and appreciates his fellow men and women nearly as much as he appreciates a good horse.'
Katerfello, though it is less good than either Kate Coventry or Market Harborough, shows even more plainly what its author expected of a plot. The hero, John Garnet, is wanted on several charges from highway robbery upwards, and is dawdling about in North Devon near pretty Nelly Carew. But is he caught ? Do the spies, the gypsy, the wizard, the
parson, or any of the others who thirst for his blood show any common sense about obtaining it ? Indeed, no. They all wait for the stag-hunt. After a magnificent run, the parson nearly kills John on the moor, while "the noblest pack of hounds in Europe" clamours round the stag at bay : but matters cannot end here, because Whyte-Melville wants John to have another run on Iiaterfelto. Everything, in all
these books, comes tecohd 'to a good run- with the hounds. - Love-scenes, quarrels, bargainings, take place on horseback whenever possible, but, if this cannot be arranged, they must wait till the hunting is over. And very -rightly:- Who eau forget that epic day when the Pytchley met at Crick, and Mr. Sawyer, though new to the shires, distinguished himself? Who can forget Kate Coventry, " slang " and a little ashamed of it, first in the field with the Heavy-top ? Or the chapters on "Valour," "Thoroughbred Horses,.' and "Riding ro Foxhounds" in Riding Recollections ? Even when ha is remembering his dignity at a village fair, Whyte. Melville writes vividly. When he forgets it, and deseribei a meet or Mr. Sawyer transacting a shameless deal about, horse, he is- inimitable.- His attitude to women is infuriat- ingly reverent. They are angels—beautiful, ineffectual angels—and their one human virtue is that they ride to hounds. Kate Coventry is far and away the best of them: She is honest, if wayward. She is "slang," and diaregardi conventions whose stupidity Whyte-Melville seems for on to realize. Best of all, she is a fearless rider : " As White Stockings-and I rapidly approached=the-leap, my horse relapses of his own accord into a trot, points his small oars, crashes into the very middle of the fence, and just as I give myself up for lost, makes a second bound. that settles me once more in the saddle, and lands gallantly in the adjoining field. Frank looking back over his shoulder in evident anxiety and admiration, whilst John's cheery voice, with its 'Bravo, Kate ! 'rings in my delighted ears. We three are now nearest the hounds, a long strip of rushy meadow-land- before Ilk the pack streaming -along the side of a high, thick hedge that, bounds it on our left ; - the south wind fans my face and lifts my hair, as I slacken my horse's rein and urge him to his speed: I ain-alongsidnof Frank.. I could ride anywhere now, or do any-thing. I pass him with -a smile and a jest. I am the foremost with toe chase. What is ten years of common life, one's feet upon the tender, Compexed to five Such-golden minutes as these?"
That is the true Whyte-Melville, and Kate, John Garnet, and Mr. Sawyer are at their best when they speak with his voice of the things he loved. They are good things, and make exhilarating reading. Whyte-Melville is no mean chronicler, both of the past and the present, but our chief admiration must go to a quality which he shares with no one else : the ingenuity with which, on every possible occasion, he gets his characters into the saddle. MONICA REDL.CH.
Previous page
