DAVID LLOYD'S LAST WILL*
THE critical mood is not the one in which the last touching chapters of this pleasant novel leave us ; two short volumes make the perfection of length, and there is not a word that gives the impression of having been written to spin it out. We do not mean that the novel is perfect ; there are plenty of points which we could, sad perhaps shall, criticize ; but it has, nevertheless, taken us captive. There are two central characters full of reality, and a subordinate one which is a most life-like and original sketch. We find, however, that we have hardly begun to praise before we moat find fault, for Miss Hesba Stretton has actually been and gone and given the Christian name of "Barry" (to glorify her heroine's Welsh ancestors) to as pleasant and loveable a heroine as we have met with for a long time ; and she has matched it with the execrable one of " Mark " for her hero, just because, we suppose, he is a Sunday- school teacher. Why can we never get rid of the name of Mark, either in real life or in fiction, in connection with that estimable calling? Is Matthew too vulgar, Luke too ugly, or John too common, that the name of the author of the second gospel is always selected to mark the Sunday-school teacher? But, seriously, it is a misfortune to have to think even of a heroine of fiction that one likes as " Barry ;" " Cadwaladwr " could scarcely be worse, and would have distinguished Miss Stretton for courage ; other things being equal, it requires a great many more chapters to teach us to love a girl called " Barry" than one called " Ellen" or "Kate," and we would respectfully remind intending authors that this is so. Barry, then—though we feel as if we were calling the roll in a strong-minded girls' school—is our chief attraction ; beautiful, but only with the beauty of health and youth animated by a warm heart and a bright intellect ; clear-headed, but too honest easily to detect the duplicity and hypocrisy of others ; loving and devoted, but capable of sharp and bitter indignation, and not altogether blessed with the Christian power of gentle and ready forgiveness. She has just virtues and failings enough to make her both loveable and natural ; she makes the cheerfulness of her weak- minded father's dismantled home in Manchester, and nearly chases David Lloyd's Last Will. By Hestia Stretton. 2 vole. London : Sampson Low. away the spirits of penuriousness and decay from her uncle's ruinous and poverty-stricken mansion ; and the gloom that hangs. about an assize-court almost loses its heaviness while she is flitting about inspiring each person concerned with zeal or patience. David Lloyd, her uncle, is the other central character we spoke of, and him we feel as if we had seen and listened to, while he enforced' his legal rights with the miser's dogged indifference to the opinion of men, or laid his cowardly plans for averting the anger of God ;. or while he stooped with a Judas' kiss over his wife and inquired after her health and spiritual communion ; or sat at night with his two gaunt witnesses pondering his iniquitous will ; or groped in the snow for the lost half-sovereign, loved more than all those that went not astray ; or stumped about the black and stricken South• Lancashire town in search of a debtor, chuckling, even at such time, over his keenness in using his brother's umbrella and saving his own, but troubled with it, lest people, seeing how handsome it was, should think him rich and solicit contributions for the Incidentally, in this search, the arrangements of the committees and the aspect and endurance of the poor are graphically described. But the Manchester weaver—with his= blunderingintelligence, his selfishness begotten of poverty, and his unselfishness begotten of dog-like devotion and faithfulness—seen• first, poring over his old dictionary, and latterly pining under his burden of remorse for the trouble he has brought on his benefactor, is the character that excites our warmest sympathy. This picture assures us of its author's ability to observe and describe, with power- and feeling, the workings of a rude and ignorant, but sensitive and. affectionate nature. The novel first introduces us to Barry and her family, and to Mark, her cousin-in-law-that-would-have-been had not Mark's intended wife (Barry's cousin) disappeared from the- scene ten years before the story commences. We are next taken to- the miser's dilapidated country seat, near Clunbury, where Barry —a favourite with her uncle—goes to plead the cause of her father, who is thrown out of employment by the cotton famine ; and here- we meet the well-known faithful family servant—in this case the only one, and called Nanny,—the miser himself, and the pretty,. refined little old lady, his wife ; her simplicity and gentle patience, and her daily experiences of mystical spiritual intercourse are- nicely told ; though when Barry—fired with a holy desire to. emulate her—essays to obtain the same results, and fancies that she is arriving at the preliminary stage of peaceful calm while she is really falling fast asleep, we could almost believe that the author• is laughing in her sleeve at the whole sect of mystics. Mean- while, in Manchester, we meet the poor weaver, at the bedside- of whose starving, dying wife, Mark is ministering. And here,. having made the acquaintance of all the principal characters, we- will decline to follow the story further, in deference to the feelings- of those who " can't bear to be told," and in justice to the author,. who deserves that the reviewers should not take the words out of her mouth, and tell, in their garbled way, what she relates, in a style so pleasant to read, and in such simple and unaffected English. Good English, however, is not the only English in which Miss Stretton can write ; she is equally at home in the Lancashire dialect ; indeed, we notice one north-country expression,— " whatever" used for "what,"—in the mouths of her educated cha- racters ; but she does not succeed quite as well with the provincial Shropshire,—for the name of Clunbury and the description of the- county town betray the picturesque locality chosen for the story.. There are only two defects in the book which we feel bound to call up for judgment, though we must also take exception to the- working-out of the plot by means of coincidences, when a little ingenuity would have rendered such cheap and unskilful machinery- unnecessary. With regard to the first, we confess ourselves doubtful of our own position, but we think that the love of hoard- ing gold is so unusual a failing, and the subject so hackneyed in fiction, that we would not have made it the ground-work of a novel ; though it is possible that, from some actual case within- her own experience, Miss Stretton has felt it a duty to describe- the working of the passion and its sad results ; but then it is- altogether unnatural to represent a healthy-minded, generous, impulsive girl like Barry,—enjoying the first delights of owner- ship and the power to serve her father and her favourite poor, and with the remembrance of her saint-like Aunt, hurried to the grave by want in the midst of riches,—as falling so very quickly under the sinister influence of the associations of a miser's house ; true, she takes speedyand effectual means to destroy the germs of this degrad- ing pasions, but it is a sin against common-sense to suppose such a girl so tempted at all ; it would have been enough that the poor weaver alone should catch the miser-contagion. Even in his case, nature, we think, is a little violated, but the confused workings of his mind bring about this state with considerable likelihood, and:
it is, besides, essential to the story that he should be so affected. Our other complaint is, that in order that the finding of the second will should be delayed till the first had been acted upon, the fact is forgotten that the old servant knew—and in justice to her brother-in-law, the weaver, would certainly have stated—that her master had constantly told them both of the provision made in his will for this brother ; this is a remarkable oversight, which will worry many a fastidious reader. We will extract the last part of an interview between Barry and the judge who is to try her cousin ; the meeting has been arranged by a mutual friend, but Barry is in ignorance as to whom she is speaking to, and pleads Mark's cause with eager eloquence; the passage illustrates the heroine's warm heart and clear head :—
" ' Could you have crushed down your own dearest ones into hopeless poverty to carry out the provisions of a secret trust?' am sure you would not,' she continued in an unsteady voice ; 'if you have a daughter like me or Mab, and boys like my brothers, you could not turn them back to grinding cares, and troubles that were eating away their strength, because an old miser, grown foolish and weak-headed in his old age, wished to buy heaven by cheating them of their inheritance. Could you not defend Mark to-morrow, and get as light a sentence as possible for him? I know he must bear some penalty ; but they say the judge is dreadfully severe, and unless the circumstances are placed well before him, he may sentence my poor Mark to penal servitude. Oh, sir ! could you not do something for him?'—' Who tells you the judge is very severe?' inquired Mr. Sargent.—' Everybody says so,' murmured Barry, wiping away some tears which she could not restrain. I don't think Mark ought to be punished at all, but I suppose ho will be.'—' He will meet with compensation sooner or later,' answered the gentleman.- ' I don't know how he can,' replied Barry ; if he should only have a short imprisonment we might try to make it up to him in some way when it is over. He should be our dearest, closest friend. But if tho judge is severe we could not compensate him in any way.'—'I think you must undertake to do the best you can for him,' said Mrs. Crichton to Mr. Sargent.—• What I want you to do,' interposed Barry, eagerly, is first to get the judge to counsel Mark to plead not guilty. If the judge himself did so, Mark has promised me to give in. He says no one could believe that he spoke the truth about the will and the secret trust if he stood there with a lie on his lips ; and you know we have nothing but his word that the will was made in his favour only. If we could only make the judge believe that! That would be an extenuating circum- stance, I suppose.'—' Do you believe it?' asked Mr. Sargent.—'Believe it,' echoed Barry, in a strong, sweet tone of confidence ; know that what Mark says is true. I am as sure of it as I am that you are Mr. Sargent. You will plead well for Mark to-morrow before the judge. Have I not done him good by coming to you myself, and telling you all I know?'—' You have done him good, my dear,' he answered, with an unmistakable smile now, but you must not expect him to escape alto- gether. He has put himself within reach of the law, and the law will have satisfaction. But wo will do our best to cut the claws of the savage old judge, and get him off with a year, or nine months or so, of simple imprisonment.'—' I will not hinder you any longer,' said Barry, trem- bling nervously again.—' You do not want to know who our mutual friend is?' said Mr. Sargent.—'I should like to know,' she answered softly, but I did not like to ask you.'—' Mrs. Crichton will let you know by and by,' he said; but go home now, and to sleep, like a good girl ; and don't fret about this felon of a Mark Fletcher.' "
Miss Stretton is surely amongst the novelists who have taken the hint, given by a late reviewer, that a lawyer should be con- sulted when a tale turns upon legal questions ; and we almost wish she were not, for we are sure that she would have let off her hero without the inexorable term of imprisonment, so unnecessary, in this case, for the satisfaction of poetical justice. Amongst the subordinate characters, Mrs. Crichton is an admirable sketch of the rich, patronizing, warm-hearted Manchester lady, full of common- sense and not ashamed of her humble descent ; her first call on Barry and her sister, after her son becomes engaged to the latter, is admirably told, and we should like to extract it, if, without mutilating it, we had room to do so. As it is, we will conclude our notice here, for it is scarcely our place to enter on the large moral question raised in the book as to the right or wrong of destroying David Lloyd's last will. It would make an admirable subject for a debating society, but to discuss it fairly in these columns would be first to reprint the novel ; moreover, the authoress seems scarcely to have determined the question in her own mind, and we have therefore no position to attack. Of the illegality of the act there is, of course, no doubt ; but infraction of law is not necessarily a breach of morals.
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