FICTION.
THE SHEPHERD OF THE NORTH.* Exams)" readers who have not travelled in the United States are for the most part extraordinarily ignorant of their geography. For example, most people imagine New York State to be dominated and dwarfed by the great city, instead of being one of the largest and, in regard to scenery, most varied and romantic of the Eastern States. What they know . about it outside New York is probably confined to vague recollections of Washington Irving and a general impression of sumptuous seaside watering-places. The last generation knew that Madame Albani
• The Shepherd of the North. By Richard Allende Maher. London; Macmillan and Co. Ids.)
took her professional name from Albany, and, as she was of French- Canadian descent, possibly argued that Albany was in Canada. The mistake, as Mr. Maher's novel shows, is not altogether inexcusable. For, besides revealing to the home-keeping reader a State rich not only in skyscrapers, but in the glories of the forest, the mountain, and the flood, it introduces us to an extensive tract on the northern border - where French, and not Greek or Latin, is the determining factor in place nomenclature, and where the inhabitants are so largely of French.
Canadian stock that a knowledge of French is indispensable to their priests. Indeed, we can quite imagine some careless readers believing that the scene wa.; laid in Canada—for the mention of the Adirondacks would be no help to them—and being rather puzzled to understand what a New England Bishop and American railway agents wore doing in Racquette County among people who called themselves Canucks and bore such names as Gadbeau and Laclair and Lacomb. The answer to the puzzle is simply this, that New York is not only a very large but a border State, and that, while the Dutch strain has long since been absorbed, there are still French-speaking areas in the North.
The "Shepherd of the North "—the real hero of the story—is the Roman Catholic Bishop of Alden, a New Englander educated at Harvard
and Louvain, who had greatly distinguished himself by his heroism in the Civil War, the "White Horse Chaplain," as he was then known, having become almost a legendary figure. Ho is now an elderly man still-
vigorous in mind and body, and much beloved by his flock in spite of his angular French. We first make his acquaintance in a snowstorm, when, seeking shelter at a farmhouse, he recognizes in the farmer, who is dying from an accident, the man whom he had rescued under the Confederate guns twenty-five years before. Tom Lansing, for that is his name, entrusts his only daughter to the Bishop's care, and soon after her father's death she goes to a convent school, the Bishop having persuaded her young lover, Jeffrey Whiting, to defer matrimony until
they had both got 80M0 education. Ruth, who was a capable and athletic young Amazon, fretted in the seclusion of the convent and ran away ; and Jeffrey's start for the Law School at Albany was in-
definitely postponed by the intervention of a railway agent, who offered
him liberal terms if he would assist in inducing the hill farmers to sell their land to the railway. Further inquiry opens Jeffrey's eyes to the
iniquity of the scheme, and at the Bishop's instigation he remains at home to fight its promoters. For the Bishop, who is as shrewd as ho is benevolent, sees that their proposals, while apparently for the benefit of the neighbourhood, conceal a ruthless policy of clearance in order to exploit the mineral wealth of the district. Mr. Maher, an we have said above, teaches us geography. He also throws a lurid light on the methods of corrupt American speculators. Baffled in their frontal attack on the farmers, the railway agents endeavour to " remove " the ringleaders of the opposition. Jeffrey Whiting, kidnapped and wounded, is rescued by Ruth, who takes an active part in the campaign, and ho resumes his labours in a more vindictive spirit. The railway agents carry the war into the New York State Senate, only to be beaten in Committee by the evidence of the Bishop. Then they play their last
card. In a very dry summer they start forest fires with the deliberate and diabolical purpose of achieving their aim by devastation. Whiting
and his comrades catch them red-handed, and he is on the point of shooting down the chief incendiary when that villain is killed by a shot from an unseen assailant. Most unfortunately Jeffrey's rifle goes off by accident immediately afterwards, and his comrades credit him with what they regard as a legitimate act of vengeance. The fire spreads, in spite of the desperate efforts of Jeffrey's party ; the Bishop, who arrives on the scene, is only saved by Ruth's woodcraft and knowledge of the country, and while ho is sheltering on a rocky plateau he receives the dying confession of the man who shot Rogers —the villain of the plot. But he is silenced by the seal of the confessional, and Ruth, who had overheard the admission of homicide, is bound to secrecy. Hence, when Jeffrey Whiting is tried for his life, the two witnesses who were able to clear him both refrain from speaking
out. Moreover, as we have seen, Jeffrey was a homicide in intent. For the sequel we must refer our readers to the pages of Mr. Maher's
story. They will not all of them agree with its theology, but, although Ruth and Jeffrey are both converted to Roman Catholicism, the author can hardly be charged with employing romance to disguise a proselytizing aim. He deals faithfully with the responsibilities imposed on the guardians of "the terrible secret of the confessional," and in more than one passage state3 very frankly the resentment excited in some minds by the ubiquitous intervention of the Roman Church, though firmly persuaded that it works out for good and not for evil. In fine, he writes without any of the acrimony of sectarian partisanship. For the rest, the life of the French-Canadian community in the Adirondacks is described with much charm, the account of the forest fire is wonder- fully vivid, and the railway agents are wicked enough to satisfy the most exacting standards of villainy.
Previous page
