ELSIE.*
THE writer of this story, who would seem, as the initials upon the title-page stand alone, without reference to any previous work, to be one who has not published before, if a novice in authorship, does not suffer that fact to be betrayed by want of skill in compo- sition. Her simple tale, which is, as she justly says, only a sketch, is told in good language and with feeling ; and although it is just the old story of woman's trustfulness and man's baseness, and contains, therefore, in its plot, nothing that is particularly new or striking, the local colouring with which it is invested gives it a certain charm. The author assumes that no human life thrown open to our gaze would be uninteresting, could the thoughts and motives which are the mainsprings of that life be also made plain to us ; and acting upon this presumption, she weaves the short history of Elsie Elliot, the miller's daughter. This life, recounted in a simple, poetical sort of way, with the characteristics of the k, peasantry among whom it was led strongly brought out, and forming, as it does, a series of pleasingly-drawn rural pictures, is agreeable enough as a study, but we utterly demur to the proposition that a clear insight into the souls of our neighbours
• Elsie: a Lowland Sketch. By A. C. M. London : Macmillan and Co.
would be either profitable or pleasing. Profitable it certainly could not be, since such insight is not given to us ; and it would, we feel certain, puzzle the most ardent psychologist to feel "interested" in the revelations of folly, selfishness, wicked- ness, and vanity which would meet his view, if he had the gift— which happily has been reserved to Himself by the only One who knowsliow to make use of it—of reading the hearts of our fellow- men. Elsie's heart is the innocent heart of a pious young girl,— pious, that is to say, after the fashion that obtains amongst per- sons brought up in the belief of Calvinistic dogmas, and this heart is entirely given to her mother, until the time when a would- be lover obtains unlawful possession of it, only, of course, to tire of it and throw it away. Elsie is just such a girl as one would expect to find in one who has a dour Scotchman for a father and a kindly, gentle Devonshire woman for her mother,—a woman who, misunderstood and depreciated by all her neighbours, and even by her husband, comes to bestow the chief wealth of her affections upon her daughter, and to stand continually between her and the somewhat stern, if loving, father. Elsie, of course, adores her mother, but looks upon her other parent with quite as ranch fear as love. And no wonder, for "an elder of the kirk, Bair respectit in a' the country-side"—a man who condemned sinners as sternly as sin, and who believed firmly that certain human beings were foreordained to destruction—a proud, reserved, self-contained man, who needed help and sympathy from none, and who, moreover, had appeared an old man to Elsie even from her childhood, being twenty years older than her mother, was not likely to take strong hold upon the affections of any girl, but more especially of a thoughtful one such as Elsie, who had contrived to build up for herself a faith almost as stern and uncompromising as that of her father. The portrait of Elsie as a child learning the "Shorter Carridge," and gathering from it a theology which taught her that everything which was pleasant was wrong, and that she might very probably be a being doomed "for the glory of her Creator" to eternal misery, peace of mind being only attainable as the result of having undergone some "mysterious convulsion called conversion," which would shake and change her whole existence, is not unnatural ; on the contrary, with children un- fortunate enough to be brought up under similar training, such cases are by no means rare. The child grows up morbidly sensi- tive, as is to be expected in one of her disposition, a disposition tender and affectionate by nature, and given over to the unhealthy practice of perpetual introspection. The reader will be tempted to smile when he finds Elsie at thirteen speculating as to whether or not the friend she has accidentally made, and whom already in a childish way she unconsciously loves, is of the number of the elect ; yet it is only in keeping with her character that she should do so, and with her unselfishness, that she should pray for his salvation at the price of her own ! The friend disappears for some years from her neighbourhood, but while he retains but a slight recollection of Elsie, she has held Herbert Yates in faithful remembrance, and all her sympathies are ready to respond at once to his slight and careless efforts to win her regard, when he returns as a casual visitor to her neighbourhood, and finds the child who once tended him so lovingly grown up into a beautiful young woman. It is, no doubt, equally natural that Elsie, in spite of her training, should permit herself those lingering interviews by the brook-side while her lover either angled for fish or did a more dangerous kind of angling, by singing to Miss Elsie sentimental German and English songs ; though Elsie, with all her innocence, must have been perfectly well aware that they were not quite right, even if it was not until they had been made known by Mrs. Afileck to her father, and he had forbidden Elsie ever to see Herbert more, that there was any actual guilt in them. At any rate, the miller's sternness making his daughter miserable, induces her to listen but too willingly to the entreaty of her lover that she should go off with him, be privately married, and made happy in an English home, and the very day of her mother's return, for Mrs. Elliot has been absent, attending upon his sister's death-bed, Elsie dis- appears. Now, Herbert Yates is not a villain, he is only a plea- , sant, affable, good-natured young man, who before all things prizes his own comfort and enjoyment, and who, Its is very often the case under such circumstances, is a general favourite. Having without much thought won Elsie's regard, and found that during the quiet hours by the stream he has himself unwittingly drifted into what he calls love, he has no thought of dishonouring the beautiful peasant girl, who possesses a refinement and grace above others of her station, but really does intend to marry her. So he carries her off to an inn at no great distance, and calling the land- lord and his servant to be witnesses of his own and Elsie's signature to a paper in which they declared themselves to be, man and wife, contracts, as he supposes, a Scotch marriage. Only afterwards, when he discovers a flaw in the contract, and finds that Auchenreoch is on the English side of the Border, the temptation to rejoice in his freedom is too strong for him, and he fails to return, as be first intended, and make matters right by going through again what passes for a marriage ceremony. Having taken one downward step, the rest is easy, and the suppression of Elsie's letter to her mother, which is the cause of so much after- misery, is a thing only to be expected. Of course, Elsie's fate is the usual one,—petted and caressed at first, ill-treated and neglected
afterwards, finally cast off. Elsie's return to the home of her childhood, her rapturous reception by the mother, and the way in which she contrives to remain with her now blind father by passing herself off as a servant, is very well told, as also is the gradual softening of the stern old miller and his repentance for his hardness towards his disobedient child. This man's character is very natural,—the struggles induced by the discordance of his religious belief, with a very real tenderness of heart underlying it,— his endeavour to act up to what he believes to be his spiritual status amongst his neighbours, and his secret fear of their opinion, which he outwardly pretends to despise,—the love for his young wife, which, amounting in reality to a passion, he had vainly en- deavoured to subdue, and which he to a great extent conceals, despising himself for its existence. It is a touching moment when, after forgiving Elsie, and showing her the feeling which he had so sternly crushed down, he asks her about her dead child:—
" 'Elsie,' he said, dreamily, as she seated herself at his side, 'how did ye ca' yer baby ?'—This sudden question was like a blow to Elsie, but she managed to answer, 'I called her Mary Helen, after mither, and '—but she broke off there, and asked, 'Why, father ?'—'11 I win into heaven,' he said simply, 'I'll be wantin' to find her, ye ken. I'll hae my eyesight there again ;' and he sighed heavily. 'I often think o' how I prayed my e'en might never see thee again ! The Lord has been Terra guid to me!"
Mrs. Affleck and her two idols, "my John" and "oor John," are clever little sketches ; and for a mild, simple little story, without a particle of excitement in it, and certainly more to be recom- mended as an anodyne than as a restorative, Elsie is prettily written and fairly good.
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