SHORT STORIES BY "Q." *
THE chief characteristic of the Japanese nitsuke, those little figures that are fashioned out of ivory or jade with such infinite pains and care, apart from the extraordinary delicacy and daintiness of their workmanship, is their grotesqueness. And the same may be said of this collection of short stories and sketches, written by an author who is already very favourably known under the pseudonym of "Q." As studies of human life, they bear the same relation to the novel as crayon sketches do to the large picture; but as sketches, they are wonderfully finished, and it would be difficult to work upon a smaller scale than their author does, or to compress so much meaning into so little space. They contain plenty of wit, of humour, and of real pathos; but through all and above all there predominates a certain element of grotesqueness. In no way are they unpleasantly grotesque; indeed, they owe to that element a good deal of their edge and interest. But they are sometimes rather needlessly grotesque, and lose much of their truth and reality in consequence, suffering, as caricatures often do, from a too heavy insistanee upon their comic side. Of the twenty-six tales packed into this little volume, nearly all have appeared before in the pages of the Speaker, and we think' that most readers will be agreed that nearly all were worth col- lecting into a more readable form. In one or two of them the author seems to have rather missed the mark,—in " Fortunio," for instance, a.nd "Beside the Bee-Hives," or in the dreary little sketch of the Brontë family which is entitled "A Dark Mirror," and which is certainly out of place in the present volume. But the others witness not only to a considerable literary power, but also to the rarer quality of imagination which the author possesses.
• Noughts and Crosses. By " Q." London : Cassell and Co.
Perhaps the best and the most pleasant of this series of tales are three which deal with children. "The Omnibus" is a clever description of the company that find themselves journeying together day after day in the same vehicle and at the same hour. The entrance among them of a little lad bound for the Docks, with his tear-stained face and the cottage flowers tied in the knot of his bundle, suddenly breaks.
through the incurious reserve and weary tolerance which they have hitherto borne towards each other. The way of life has been crooked and hard enough to them, and they have travelled so far upon it that they have ceased from bemoaning their own lot and pitying themselves, and, as a general rule, turn a face of callous indifference upon the sufferings of others ; but the sight of that childish unhappi- ness just starting upon the journey of misfortune reawakens the feeling of pity once more, and they cannot but show it, each after his own fashion. "The Boy by the Beach" is almost too sorrowful a little tale, but it is told with a quiet force and pathos which is quite free from any appearance of straining for effect. And "The Carol" is one of the most charming Christmas stories that we have come across. Of the other tales, by far the best are those that are told in dialect. We are not acquainted with the dialect which the author chiefly uses, so we cannot judge of its accuracy, but at least we must recognise that it is a very picturesque. "The Countess of Bellarmine," a tale of a "lovers' leap," as narrated on the spot by a native, might compare favourably with some of Thomas Hardy's rustic stories. The description of the old Earl of Bellarmine is quite after the latter's manner :—
" " Ould Wounds" he was nick-named—a cribbage-faced, what- the-blazes kind o' varmint, wi' a gossan wig and a tongue like oil o' vitriol. He'd 'a led the fore-half of his life, I blieve, in London church-town, by reason that he an' his father couldn' be left in a room together wrout comin' to fisticuffs : an' by all accounts was fashion's favourite in the naughty city, doin his duty in that state o' life an' playing Hamlet's ghost among the ten command- ments. The upshot was that he killed a young gentleman over a game o' whist, an' that was too much even for the Londoners. So he packed up and sailed for furrin parts, an' didn' show his face in England till th' ould man, his father, was took wi' a seizure an' went dead, bein' palsied down half his face, but workin' away to the end at the most lift-your-hair wickedness wi' the sound side of his mouth.'"
This amiable gentleman buys a wife with a bottle of gin, and then sets himself to the pleasing task of taming her, and breaking her spirit by means of a horsewhip. The woman, however, proves a match for him, until the old man falls in love with her, and then she makes up her mind to run away. She hires a post-chaise, and slipping out at night, joins her carriage at the edge of the park, bidding the post-boy not to spare whipcord:—
"The road they took, sir, is the same that runs down the valley afore our very eyes. An' pon the brow o't, just where it comes in sight, the off-horse turned restive. In a minute 'twas as much as the post-boy could ha' done to hold 'en. But he didn' try. Instead, he fell to floggin' harder, workin' his arm up and down like a steam-engin'. "What the jimimy are 'so doin' " calls out her ladyship—or words to that effec'—clutchin' at the side o' the shay, an' tryin' to stiddy herser.—" I thought I wasn't to spare whipcord," calls back the post boy. And with that he turned r the saddle ; an' twas the face o' her own wedded husband, as ghastly white as if 't burned a'ready the underground fires. Seein' it, her joints were loosed, an' she sat back white as he; an' down over the hill they swung at a break-neck gallop, shay lurchin' and stones flyin'. About thirty yards from where we're satin', sir, Ould Wounds caught the near rein twice round his wrist an' leant back, slowly pullin' it, till his face was dewed round over his left shoulder an' grinnin' in my lady's face. An' that was the last look that passed atween 'em. For now feeling the wheels on grass, and the end near, he loosed the rein and fetched the horse he rode a cut atween the ears—an' that's how 'twas,' concluded Seth, lamely."
The anticlimax of the rustic narrator, who suddenly doubts his power to do full justice to the tragic end of the ill-assorted couple in the dark pool below him, is very true and convincing. Equally true to rustic speech is the plain-spoken introduction of her husband by the good lady who entertains a stranger in her little cottage :—
" Few they be that troubles us, my dear. Too few by land, an' too many be sea, rest their dear souls ! Step inside by the fire. There's only my old man here, an' you needn't stand 'pen cere- mony wi' he : for he's stone-deaf an' totelin'. Isaac, you poor deaf haddock, here's a strange body for 'ee to look at; tho' you 'm past all pomp but buryin', I reckon."
Or, again, the rather brutal sympathy expressed by his neigh- bours with "These-an'-That" in his matrimonial troubles. They are crossing in the ferry :—
" • Ho ?' said the drover : that woman agen ?'—The passengers,
one and all, bent their eyes on the man in black, who smeared his face with his cuff, and began weeping afresh, silently.—' Beat en blue last night, and turned en to doors—the dirty trollope:— ' Eli, don't 'se—' put in the poor man, in a low deprecating voice. =las, an' no need to tell what for,' exclaimed a red-faced woman, who stood by the drover with two baskets of poultry at her feet. ' She's a low lot; a low trapesin' baggage. If These-an'-That, there, wasn' but a poor, hal-baked shammick, he'd 'a killed that wife o' his afore this. Naybonrs, I'd as lief you didn't mention it,' appealed These-an'-That, huskily.—'I'm afear'd you'm o' account, These-an'-That : but sam-sodden, if I may say so,' the drover observed.—' Put in wi' the bread, an' took out wi' the cakes,' suggested Eli."
But the story of "These-an'-That's Wife" is suggestive in more ways than in its language ; and so is another tale of "Troy Town"—as the author calls his favourite locality—called "Doubles and Quits." Excellently told, too, are the stories of Bleakirk, especially that of the mad parson. As a pleasant book to while away an idle half-hour, one can certainly recom- mend " Q.'s " little volume, though probably both in style and matter its contents will be found rather too strange and queer for the popular taste.
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