WHITE WINGS.*
ONCE more Mr. Black takes his readers to his beloved West Highlands. The scene of this " romanee " must, indeed, be so familiar to those who have read A Princess of Thule, Madcap Violet, and others of his stories, that to most of them this latest effort will seem like a warming-up of old materials. Not all Mr.. Black's deft skill in word-painting can make the too oft-repeated descriptions of the varying aspects of sky, waters, and mountains in the far west interesting; and of these descriptions White Wings gives us more than a fair share. From first to last, with the briefest possible interludes on shore, we are kept on board a small yacht, which cruises about amongst the islands of the Inner Hebrides. At a rough estimate, half the book is taken up with the scenery and with the doings of the yacht. The following extract, taken at random from the latter part of the first volume, will serve at once the purpose of introducing the hero and heroine, and of showing how the scenery is used for eking out the tale :— " One incident of that day was the appearance of a new monster of the deep, which approached quite close to tho hull of the ' White Dove.' Leaning over the rail, we could see him clearly in the clear water—a beautiful, golden, submarine insect, with a conical body like that of a land-spider, and six or eight slender legs, by the incurr- ing of which ho slowly propelled himself through the water. As we were perfectly convinced that no one had ever been in such dead calms in the Minch before, and had lain for twenty-four hours in the neighbourhood of 45 and 46, we took it for granted that this was a new animal. In the temporary absence of our P.R.S., the Laird was bold enough to name it the Arachne Mary-Avonensis ; but did not seek to capture it. It went on its golden way. But we wore not to linger for ever in these northern seas, surrounded by perpetual sum- mer calms— however beautiful the prospect might be to a young man fallen away, for the moment, from his high ambitions. Whatever summons from the far world might be awaiting us at Portreo was soon to be served upon us. In the afternoon a slight breeze sprang up that gently carried as away past Ru Hunish, and round by Mean Trodda, and down by Altavaig. The grey-green basaltic cliffs of the Skye coast were now in shadow; but the strong sunlight boat on the grassy ledges above ; and there was a distant roar of water along the rocks. This other throbbing sound, too : surely that must be some steamer far away on the other side of Rona ? The sunset deepened. Darker and darker grew the shadows in the great mountains above us. We heard the sea along the solitary shores. Thu stars came out in the twilight : they seemed clearest just over the black mountains. In the silence there was the sound of a waterfall somewhere—in among those dark cliffs. Then our side-lights were put up ; and we sate on deck ; and Mary Avon, nestling close to her friend, was per, suaded to sing for her
Yeetreen the Queen had four Yorks
—just as if she had never heard the song before. The hours went by ; Angus Sutherland was talking in a slow, earnest, desultory fashion ; and surely he must have been conscious that one heart there at least was eagerly and silently listening to him. The dawn was near at hand, when finally we consented to go below. What time of the morn- ing was it that we heard John of Skye call out 'Six or seven fathoms '11 do ?' We knew at least that we had got into harbour ; and that the Bret golden glow of the daybreak was streaming through the sky- lights of the saloon. We had returned from the wilds to the claims and the cares of civilisation ; if there was any message to us, for good or for evil, from the distant world we had left for so long, it was now waiting for us on shore."
Three volumes of this kind of thing, especially as a continua- tion of many volumes of the same sort that have gone before, become a trifle wearisome.
But it is not alone in the setting and circumstances of the story that Mr. Black has, we think, drawn upon the forbearance
• Whits Wings: a Yachting Romance. By W. Back. Leaden,: MISIIIi1111.11 and Cc.
of his readers. The incidents of which it is composed—its bare framework, so to say—strike one as a mere rehash of old materials. White Wings, in other words, is The Strange Adven- tures of a Phaeton redone into a sea-piece. Queen Tita, the fair and keen-witted, is once more the presiding goddess ; and once more we have a love-distraught maiden and a lover all for- lorn,—nay, two lovers. In this last respect, however, the new tale diverges from, while yet in form copying. the old. In the Strange Adventures, the two lovers were young, and strove each for the maiden's hand ; but in the new, one of the lovers is old, and he loves not for himself, but for his nephew and heir, whom he summons to win the maiden for a bride.
We grant that this is rather an original stroke, but we cannot call it very happy ; and the aged lover himself, the Laird of Denny-mains, to wit, is one of the most unmitigated bores we ever met. He is for ever telling stale and pointless jokes, some of which strike us as drafts from The Bailie, a Glasgow comic print, recounting his exploits as a Commissioner of the borough of Strathgovan, enlightening his hearers about the great Semple heresy case, or in other ways making himself tiresome. Mr. Black seems to have come across some man of the Laird's stamp, and has painted him too realistically. Nevertheless, the Laird plays a very important part in the shaping of the story. At first sight he falls in love, father-wise, with Mary Avon, the heroine, who, along with himself, has come to spend a holiday on board the yacht of " Queen Titania," and her husband, the narrator of the tale. Another guest, Dr. Angus Sutherland, also joins the party. He is a young doctor and an enthusiastic man of science, and Mary and he have met before in Edinburgh.
They are, in fact, already lovers, though the love is un- acknowledged, and for a little time all goes very smoothly with their wooing,—as smoothly as the yacht in the summer seas, where hardly a breeze is to be got. But by-and-by clouds come. Sutherland goes away to the north to visit his father; the Laird's love for Mary grows ever warmer, and he unfolds his marriage-by- proxy project to the mistress of the yacht, or " admiral," as the narrator often calls her. Agreeably with this project, the nephew comes on board, a new guest, in Angus's place, and under pro- test makes himself agreeable to Mary. He, however, never falls in love with her, and no harm would have been done at all, but for a tremendous villain of an uncle that Mary had, who bolts with all her little fortune. The girl takes her loss bravely, and, much to the Laird's amusement—he thinking his project certain of success—announces her intention of living by her brush, for she paints beautifully. But Angus Suther- land is coming back, and she appears to dread a meeting with him, would go away in fact if the imperious " admiral-in-chief " would let her. Unable to escape, she treats Angus coldly when he does come. Grief seizes his heart. Can it be that this high-minded maiden has made up her mind to jilt him for money ? He pro- poses—is rejected, though at a terrible cost—for the maiden loves him, and wishes to be no clog on him. Not knowing this, he flees as soon as he can get to land. Queen Tita is indignant with Mary, and the misunderstandings threaten to grow serious.
We did, indeed, begin to fear at one time that Mr. Black was going to wring our hearts needlessly with another tragic end- ing, but, happily, he this time forbears to add that to his other sins ; and, as in The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton, all ends properly,—we need not quite say how, although the story is so slight that no harm could be done by telling it all out.
With this reservation, indeed, we have given the reader what is positively the whole story ; and Mr. Black has made it fill three volumes. Greater praise to his word-painting—and shall we say padding ?—capacity we could not give than that fact implies. Beyond the Laird's senile yarns and dis- sertations, the yacht and her doings, the sea, the winds, the islands, and mountains, there is nothing in the book 'which could not be told with fullness and grace within the compass of fifty pages. We have given a fair sample from the first volume. Here is one illustration of the Laird's style, taken also at random from the earlier pages of the third volume :- "' Ay,' said the Laird, hastily. ' I would like to see a Glasgow newspaper ! I'm thinking they must have got the steam fire-engine by now ; and fine games the bairns will have when they begin to practise with it, skelping about in the water. It would be a grand thing to try it in the public garden when we get it; it would keep the shrubs and the borders fine and wet—eh P'—' And it would be quite as interesting as any plaster fountain,' says his hostess, en- couragingly.= As handsome every bit,' says the Laird, laughing heartily at his play of imagination, as any bit laddie done up in stucco, standing on one leg, and holding up a pipe ! It's a utilitarian age, ma'am—a utilitarian age ; we will have, instead of a fountain, a steam fire-engine—very good ! very good !—and they bodies who are always crying out against expenditure on decoration will be disappointed for once.' The Laird had at last discovered the whereabouts of the mysterious village on the Admiralty chart. But what newspaper will we get in a place bidden away like that ? —out of the reach of all communication wi' the world. They'll be a century behind, mark my words. It is when ye live within a reason- able distance of a great centre of ceevilisation, like Glasgow, that ye feel the life of it stirring your own place too ; and ye must keep up with the times ; ye must be moving. Conservative as I am, there is no supersteetious obstinacy about me; moving—moving—that's the word. The more important the matter in the interest of the public, the more necessary is it that we should have an impartial mind. If yo show me a new sort of asphalte, do ye think I would not examine it, jist because I recommended Jamieson and MacGregor's patent ?' Ho appealed boldly to his hostess.—' Oh,. certainly ; certainly you would !' she says, with an earnestness that might have made Jamie- son and MacGregor quail.— For three weeks,' says the Laird, solemnly, I was on that committee, until it seemed that my break- fast, and my dinner, and my supper every day was nothing but tar- smoke. What wi' the experiments without and within, I was just filled with tar-smoke. And would ye believe it, ma'am, one o' they Radical newspapers went as far as to say there were secret influences at work when Jamieson and MacGregor was decided on. My friends said, "Prosecute the man for libel ;" but I said, " No ; let the poor crayture alone ; he has got to earn his living !" ' "
This is, on the whole, a favourable sample of what goes on all through the book, and after wading through chapter after chapter filled out thus, and mingled with descriptions full of "splashes of purple," "leaden-hued ocean," and many similar phrases, no longer fresh, can any one wonder that we heaved a sigh of relief when we reached the end ? It is with very great pain that we are driven to pronounce this book unworthy of Mr. Black's reputation, but there can be no doubt of the fact. It displays alike poverty of invention and spiritlessness in execution. To use a vulgarism, there is no " go " in the story, and the most charitable supposition one can make is that Mr. Black wrote it during an illness. The impression it leaves on the mind is precisely that it is the work of a weary man, lashing himself up to the performance of a hard task. We trust it may be long ere we again meet the author in circumstances so depressing.
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