NOVELS.
THE HISTORY OF AYTHAN WARING.t
MRS. JACOB began her career as a novelist with a work of such striking ability that she is in danger of realising the truth of the maxim, le mieux est l'ennemi du bien, in her own person. The Sheepstealers was not merely a novel of great promise, it was an achievement ; and her second venture, admirable in many ways, did not enhance the reputation • (I) Familiar Faces. By Harry Graham. With 16 Illustrations by George Morrow. London: Edward Arnold. f3s. 6d. net.1—(2) The Muse in Motley. By Hartley Carrick. Cambridge Bowes and Bowes. [3s. 6d. net.] t The Radon of Aythan Waring. By Violet Jacob. London: W. Heineinann. [Gs.) gained by her first effort. In her new story she returns to the same country—the Herefordshire border of England and Wales—in which the scene of The Sheepstealers was laid, and her choice is fully justified by the results. The majority of writers find the most stimulating environment for their dramatis personae in cities or towns; but human nature is best studied in the isolation of the country, and it is characteristic of Mrs. Jacob's method that she is able to dispense with all the trappings and actualities and decorative apparatus of modern society without in the least impairing the intrinsic interest of her story. For one thing, she has a singular gift for creating and diffusing atmosphere; for another, she is a close student of unsophisticated and primitive types of humanity. This interest in primitive humanity, as represented by such striking figures as Tom. Ukyn, the poacher, and his wife—a variant on the type immortalised by Beranger in "Jeanne la rousse "—is neither the vulgar curiosity which delights in crude and squalid realism nor the cold detachment of the criminologist. Mrs. Jacob has no illusions about the sons and daughters of the soil who dwell, or dwelt, at the foot of the Black Mountain, for the time of the story is some sixty years ago. But she is careful to make us realise the hard conditions in which they grew up, and without any trace of idealisation succeeds in enlisting our sympathies, and even admiration, for more than one of her rustics. The figure of "Mad Molt" has an element of tragic grandeur in her misplaced but whole-hearted devotion; and there is a delightful sketch of an old gardener in whom love of flowers and of his fellows is quaintly united with a wonderful command of Biblical phraseology.
Mrs. Jacob is hardly less successful in her gentle than in her simple portraits. The story is concerned with the fortunes of two cousins, Aythan and Eustace Waring, who were suc- cessively adopted by a distant kinsman, Matthew Bridges, and brought up like brothers, though for sentimental associations, as well as personal reasons, Aythan was always the favourite. When the two boys are already grown to manhood their benefactor marries a young wife, and dies suddenly before carrying out his second thoughts in the interest of Aythan. His will, as it stands, leaves his house and estate to the widow for life whether she remained a widow or not, and the con- sciousness that her lifetime intervenes between Aythan and the place in which her husband wished him to stand does not tend to improve the imperfect sympathy already subsisting between them. Her marriage had been one of convenience, and it is not until after her husband's death that she falls deeply in love for the first time with Eustace, the elder and handsomer of the two cousins. The discovery of this secret suddenly develops their latent mutual antagonism, and Aythan promptly resolves to leave his home and seek work elsewhere. He has already lost his heart to a charming neigh- bour, to whom his cousin, neglectful of his clandestine engage- ment to Hester Bridges, promptly begins to make advances. Barbara, a delightful young Diana of the uplands, soon routs the philanderer ; but matters go hardly with Aythan. As agent for a harsh and unpopular landlord he earns the bitter enmity of his tenants, and Hester, whose antipathy has now ripened to vindictive hatred, finds a deadly weapon ready to her hand in the poacher, who, already nursing an old grievance, is easily suborned to swear that Aythan, and none other, was the author of a murderous assault. We must leave our readers to follow the sequel in Mrs. Jacob's pages. Her method of resolving the difficulties of the situation is somewhat rough and ready, but it is in substantial accord with the demands of poetic justice, and brings a strong story to a dramatic close.
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