RICHARD CABLE, THE LIGHTSHIPMAN.*

THE latest novel by the author of Mehalah is a very sombre book—too sombre, we think, for perfect pleasure—but it is undeniably powerful, and if not equal to one or two of its writer's best efforts, is in every way superior to its immediate predecessor, The Gaverocks, being distinguished by far greater constructive skill and a much more impressive imaginative unity. Perhaps to the majority of readers it will be a piece of good news that Richard Cable has the much-desired "happy ending," though even the breaking of the heavy clouds and the lulling of the long storm at the end of the third volume, can hardly banish the impression of gloom left by the story of the hardening and contracting of the naturally large and noble and tender heart of the simple lightship- man. The task of portraying in fiction a revolutionary change of character has often been attempted in fiction, but seldom with perfect success. Sometimes the cause is in. adequate to the effect, and sometimes, even when the cause is adequate, the effect is produced in a way which we vaguely feel to be mechanical and accidental, rather than vital and in- evitable. It is not so here. Given a man like Richard Cable and a woman like Josephine Cornellis, brought together as they are brought together, and led up to the terrible situation which comes near the beginning of the second volume, and we feel that the remainder of the story could not be other than it is. The mere details of incident— the things which are the offspring of simple invention —might, of course, have been different from what they are ; but the inner history of Richard and Josephine is not invented, it is imagined with that truest imagination which sees what is and foresees what must be ; and it is this vital grasp of necessary truth of human nature which gives to the book its weight and impressiveness.

The author's handling, both in his best work and in that which is not so good, is always characterised by a boldness, a "dash "—we want an exact English synonym for the French Ran—which is in itself attractive as a relief from the hesitating. tentative manner in which most contemporary novelists are wont to lead up to their story, instead of beginning

• Richard Cable, the Lightehipman. By the Author of "Mehalah." S rob. London: Smith, Elder, and Co.

at once to tell it. In the earliest chapters, the hero and heroine are brought together in the solitude of Cable's lightship, and while our imagination is still unconfused by the presence of a number of unfamiliar characters, we have an opportunity of observing them and studying them, and of guessing—not without some trustworthy materials for the guess—what is likely to be their influence on each other; or perhaps we ought to say, Cable's influence upon Josephine, for her in- fluence upon him does not manifest itself as a factor in their story until some time afterwards. When we catch our first sight of Richard Cable, he is alone ; and as we see the "fine, strongly build, well-proportioned man, about half-way between thirty and forty, with brown curly hair and eyes of clear blue," sitting upon the deck of his lightship and bending his tanned face over the little sock which he is knitting for the smallest of his motherless children, we feel that we know him as we know few people at first sight ; we recognise his sim- plicity, his kindliness, his rich humanity, and withal his native dignity and reserve of latent strength. Josephine is at first much more of a sealed book, an object of speculation rather than knowledge ; but the reader of quick sensibility may feel that a hint has been afforded him by the—perhaps unconscious —imaginative touch given in the fact that she is borne to Cable on the waves raised by the storm which tears away his boat from her moorings.

As we grow in our knowledge of the pair, we see more and more distinctly how strong is the contrast between them, and see at the same time what there is in both which must inevitably draw them together. Cable's nature has an integrity of simplicity which has been preserved and nurtured by his surroundings, and he has with it the strength which is almost always the accompaniment of moral and intellectual homogeneity. Josephine's nature, originally less simple than his, has been warped by sur- roundings of deceit, which she is quick-witted enough to detect and truthful enough to hate, but which she has never- theless accepted as facts of existence against which she cannot fight, and to which she must come at last to accommodate herself. The only two men of whom she has any intimate knowledge are humbugs to the core,—her scheming father a clever, strong humbug, who succeeds in deceiving other people; Gabriel Gotham a foolish, weak humbug, who tries to deceive others, but succeeds only in deceiving himself : Cornellis the wire-puller, Gotham the puppet, but of one kidney, arcades antho. The direct simpleness, the clear trans- parency of Richard Cable, come to her as a revelation, not merely of something without, but of possibilities within ; what he is she might be, if she could so far draw him into her life as to replenish the weak impulses of her better nature with his superfluity of strength. We cannot tell the story of how Josephine becomes Richard's wife ; it is a story not devoid of improbabilities, but they are skilfully minimised, and we accept the situation uncomplainingly for the sake of the structure of which it is the foundation. It is here that the tragedy begins, and it is a tragedy born of the complexity of Josephine's motives in taking the irrevocable step. She had been drawn to it partly by what was best in her—her instinctive recogni- tion of and reverence for the combination in Richard Cable of strength and nobleness—but partly by something in her which was far from being best, which was not even good. As the author writes, "perversity had had its part in bringing her to marry Richard. She knew that by doing so she would anger her father and offend her aunt, and having lost all respect for both, she went headlong in a course which, because dis- approved by them, she argued must be right." One of the factors in Josephine's choice was, therefore, an ignoble factor, which was all the more likely to operate disastrously because her own nature was at the centre a noble one, though ill-poised and liable to be thrown out of equilibrium by unworthy impulses. The marriage of a well-educated girl, accustomed to all the refinements of life, to a man like Cable, whose fine nature, though susceptible of taking a rich polish, had never known the touch of the polisher, was necessarily an experi- ment not without hazard to the happiness—at any rate, to the comfort—of both; but it might have been a successful experi- ment if both Cable and Josephine had been single-minded. This was not so, however, and the element of perversity in the woman's action—an element which had no staying and sus- taining power—was "the little rift within the lute." All

Cable's roughnesses, ignorances, and unconventionalities of speech and action became more obvious to Josephine after her marriage than ever they were before it, and because her love, though in the main genuine, was not perfect, they irritated

her into anger at herself and shame for her husband. We have seen the author blamed for want of art in making Cable's post-nuptial gaucheries more obvious than

they had been, and perhaps there may be here a touch of needless exaggeration ; but the treatment is right on the whole, because in order that we may understand the situation, it is necessary that we should see Cable through his wife's eyes. The crisis is not long in coming. Some aristocratic but kindly acquaintance of Josephine invite her and her husband to pay them a visit. She accepts the invita- tion for herself, but will not allow Richard to accompany her ; and, she being gone, the loneliness of his new uncongenial house becomes unbearable. He wanders back to his old sea- faring companions, spends with them the homeliest evening he has spent for many a day, and is unwittingly drawn into a viola- tion of the law of temperance which, in healthy natures like

his, is less a law than an instinct. From the humble inn he walks somewhat unsteadily to the still more humble cottage which is the home of his mother and his seven little ones ; and before he has been here a few minutes, he has taken in

his arms his little Bessie, the youngest and best-beloved, and has stumbled over the small cradle, the child falling on the stone floor, never to be anything again but a hopeless cripple. The shock of terror sobers him in an instant, and he rushes out into the night, first to the doctor's, and then on, covering with rapid steps the miles which inter- vene between him and the houge where his wife is a guest.

She is sitting, outwardly cheerful and even gay, if inwardly ill at ease, in Lady Brentwood's drawing-room, entertaining and being entertained, when she is informed that a wild-looking man, hatless and in his shirt-sleeves, Who says that his name is Cable, is below, demanding to see her. She descends and confronts him; but the moment is an unpropitious one, for

anger and mortification fill her heart. She is the first to speak, but only to demand the meaning of the "new outrage," to ask,—" Are you bent on driving me to curse the day I ever took your hand to raise you out of the gutter ?"— "He did not answer ; he could not ; his breath was spent ; the blood boiled and sang in his ears. Perhaps he did not hear her. Why had he come ? He did not ask himself this question. It did not occur to him to ask it. He had come, impelled by a natural instinct, not by any articulate reason. She was his wife, the one who stood nearest to him in the whole world. Ho had committed a crime; he was conscious of an agony of remorse and terror which filled him. To whom should he fly in such an hour of supreme pain but to his wife, to pour into her ear the story of his trouble, to ask her sympathy, her assistance ? Now his wife stood before him, with bare bust and arms, in white silk and lace and flowers, wearing pearls about her neck and sparkling bracelets on her arms, with long white gloves, neatly buttoned, and a fan in one hand. Richard Cable looked at her ; and now, for the first time since he had started on his run, did the thought emerge out of the confusion and pain in him, that this beautiful, dazzling, stately creature was not one to solace, advise, and help him. What is it ? ' she asked, in a hard tone; and as she spoke there sprang up in her mind the recollection of her father's words, 'Cut

your Cable,' and she saw that the desired opportunity had arrived. She waited a moment, and then said again 'I have asked you twice what is the meaning of this insult ?' Then, with concentrated bitterness, 'Are you too drunk to speak P'—He raised his hands and clasped his head : I have killed—or hurt '= Whom ?'—` Little Bessie ! I let her fall—on the stone floor—little Bessie !"Then he broke down, covered his face with his hands, and sobbed. She stood unmoved before him. She waited a moment for him to recover himself ; then, in the same hard tone, she asked : 'What have you come here for ?'—` For you.'—` For me ? Why ? Bessie is no child of mine. Go back !'—' Will you not conic with me ?'—

' I—I go with you ?' She laughed contemptuously. ` Ici je m'amuse parfaitement bien. You do not understand French. It does not matter—you can gather the sensie.' She turned her back on him and left the room."

Reading this passage alone, the reader will say, " The woman is a demon ;" but she is not so ; she is only possessed by one : and now, when the fiend tears her sorely, the hour of

exorcism and deliverance is at hand. When Richard staggers —not now with the staggering of intoxication—from Lady Brentwood's door, his world has gone from him : his heart is

broken. He muet away from the scene of the terrible cataclysm, away from all familiar things, most of all away from her,—for ever. A. few days later, Josephine stands upon the floor of the deserted homestead, and as she stands there a great and terrible flood of remorse overwhelms her being,

bearing on its surface the love which had been buried in the mud of pride and perversity. It is here that the story which gives the book its reason of being really begins, and we will not attempt to tell it. It is the story of how a man lived doggedly a life of despair. and of how a woman—freed now from the possessing fiend—lives devotedly a life of atonement, an atone- ment which for long, weary years seems as if it must be fruitless, save, indeed, in the peaceable fruits of righteousness, but which after many days has its earthly palpable fruition in reconciliation and rest. Richard Cable, the Lightshipman, is a wonderfully powerful novel. It is perhaps less satisfying than some of the author's works, because it is almost entirely lacking in beauty dissociated from pain ; but in vigour, insight, and impressiveness it is second to none.