BOOKS.

THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE.*

Ma. STEVENSON has given conspicuous proof of the versatility of his genius by the character of the last two works that have proceeded from his pen. The Wrong Box was an excursion into the realm of unbridled farce ; The Master of Ballantrae is a specimen of pure and unmitigated tragedy. The former is full of extravagant animal spirits ; over the latter there broods a sombre cloud of unintermittent gloom. That the two works should have proceeded from the same brain, and have alter- nately occupied the thoughts of the same writer, is little short of a marvel.

Viewing this " Winter's Tale " as a work of art pure and simple, it is difficult to err on the side of over-praise. Mr. Stevenson's gifts of style were never displayed to greater advantage. The diction throughout is admirably picturesque, without any touch of " high-falutin'." Every second page lends itself to quotation. In the most exacting situations there is no overstrain or falsetto in the senti- ment. Then, again, such is the keen and painful vividness with which the scenes depicted take shape before the reader's eyes, that it is hard to avoid the illusion that they were actually witnessed by the narrator. It was once said of a famous musician, that with him composition was a species of clairvoyance ; and the same figure may be applied without any exaggeration to Mr. Stevenson's creations. He has felt and seen it all, and like a wizard leads us at will, whether we like it or no, through scenes that are at once familiar and strange. The book holds one with the spell of a nightmare. One does not read, one looks on in suspense and wonderment, and often in horror.

James Ballantrae, the central figure of the tragedy, is

• The Master of Ballantrae: a Winter's Tale. By Robert Lou., Stevenson. London: Cassell and Co.

nothing more or less than Mephistopheles shorn of his stage- trappings. No supernatural powers are wielded by him ; but in spite of this, he invariably brings with him an atmosphere of eeriness. He had, writes the narrator, the gravity and some- thing of the splendour of Satan in Paradise Lost. The talk about him in the early chapters prepares us for an uncommon personage, and we are not disappointed when he arrives on the scene :-

"Standing alone upon the point of rock, a tall, slender figure habited in black, with a sword by his side and a walking- cane upon his wrist. As he so stood, he waved the cane to Captain Crail by way of salutation, with something both of grace and mockery that wrote the gesture deeply on my mind. No sooner was the boat away with my sworn enemies, than I took a sort of half-courage, came forth to the margin of the thicket, and then halted again, my mind being greatly pulled about between natural diffidence and a dark foreboding of the truth. Indeed, I might have stood there swithering all night, had not the stranger turned, spied me through the mists which were beginning to fall, and waved and cried on me to draw near. I did so with a heart like lead. Here, my good man,' said he in the English accent; here are some things for Durrisdeer.' I was now near enough to see him, a very handsome figure and countenance, swarthy, lean, long, with a quick, alert, black look, as of one who was a fighter, and accustomed to command ; upon one cheek he had a mole, not unbecoming ; a large diamond sparkled on his hand ; his clothes, although of the one hue, were of a French and foppish design; his ruffles, which he wore longer than common, of exquisite lace ; and I wondered the more to see him in such a guise when he was but newly landed from a dirty smuggling lugger."

Such is the Master's entry. As for his exit, it is narrated in the truly horrific chapter with which the book concludes, and forms a fitting climax to a story which has not one weak moment.

The root of the present romance is a sentiment very unlike that which lies at the bottom of most works of fiction. It is not love, but hate, on which the plot hinges ; and to emphasise the anomaly, it is the fierce and irreconcilable hatred of two brothers, growing out of the caprice of the elder, but never relaxing for one moment till the day of their double death. But whereas Henry Dmie—until his mind gives way—will only fight with honourable weapons, and, apart from this one matter, is a man of worth and integrity, James, the Master of Ballantrae, has no hesitation in using any means, however base, to compass his ends. To torture his brother, he sticks at nothing —lying, treachery, or intrigue—and yet, in spite of every- thing, he retains throughout a certain nameless fascination, from the influence of which even his brother's most devoted allies cannot claim an entire immunity. As Mr. Mackellar, the narrator, puts it, he could not have been so bad a man, had he not had all the machinery to be a good one. One can take a sort of aesthetic pleasure in the contemplation of such superb malignity, such royal resentment as he displays. " I tell you," once he cried out in the course of a discussion with Mackellar,— " Had I been the least petty chieftain in the Highlands, had I been the least king of naked negroes in the African desert, my people would have adored me. A bad man, am I ? Ah ! but I

was born for a good tyrant I Cast in your lot with me to-morrow, become my slave, my chattel, a thing I can command as I command the powers of my own limbs and spirit,—yon will see no more that dark side that I turn upon the world in anger. I must have all or none. But where all is given, I give it back with usury. I have a kingly nature."

He would even abate his fell purpose of ruining his brother, if only that brother would beg for pardon on his betided knees. The most elaborately drawn portrait in the book is that of the narrator, the steward of the house of Durrisdeer, a hard taskmaster, but a devoted servant. There is one remarkable passage, in which the character of the man is so fully revealed that we may quote it at length :- • "In the midst of our evil season sprang up a hurricane of wind; so that all supposed she must go down. I was shut in the cabin from noon of one day till sundown of the next ; the Master was somewhere lashed on deck. Secundra had eaten of some drug and lay insensible ; so you may say I passed these hours in an unbroken solitude. At first I was terrified beyond motion, and almost beyond thought, my mind appearing to be frozen. Presently there stole in on me a ray of comfort. If the None- such ' foundered, she would carry down with her into the deeps of that =sounded sea the creature whom we all so feared and hated ; there would be no more Master of Ballantrae, the fish would sport among his ribs ; his schemes all brought to nothing, his harmless enemies at peace. At first, I have said, it was but a ray of comfort, but it had soon grown to be broad sunshine. The thought of the man's death, of his deletion from the world, which he embittered for so many, took possession of my mind. I hugged it, I found it sweet in my belly. I conceived the ship's last plunge, the sea bursting upon all sides into the cabin, the brief mortal conflict there, all by myself, in that closed place ; I numbered the

horrors, I had almost said with satisfaction; I felt I could

bear all and more, if the Nonesuch' carried down with her, overtook by the same ruin, the enemy of my poor master's house. Towards noon of the second day, the screaming of the wind abated ; the ship lay not so perilously over, and it began to be clear to me that we were past the height of the tempest. As I hope for mercy, I was singly disappointed. In the selfishness of that vile, absorbing passion of hatred, I forgot the case of our innocent shipmates, and thought but of myself and my enemy. For myself, I was already old ; I had never been young, I was not formed for the world's pleasures, I had few affections : it mattered not the loss of a silver tester whether I was drowned there and then in the Atlantic, or dribbled out a few more years, to die, perhaps no less terribly, on a deserted sick-bed. Down I went upon my knees—holding on by the locker, or else I had been instantly dashed across the tossing cabin— and, lifting up my voice in the midst of that clamour of the abating hurricane, impiously prayed for my own death. 0 God !' I cried, I would be like a man if I rose and struck this creature down ; but Thou madest me a coward from my mother's womb. 0 Lord, Thou madest me so, Thou knowest my weakness, Thou knowest that any face of death will set me shaking in my shoes. But, lo ! here is Thy servant ready, hia mortal weakness laid aside. Let me give my life for this creature's ; take the two of them, Lord ! take the two, and have mercy on the innocent !' In some such words as these, only yet more irreverent and with more sacred adjurations, I continued to pour forth my spirit. God heard me not, I must suppose in mercy ;. and I was still absorbed in my agony of supplication, when some• one, removing the tarpaulin cover, let the light of the sunset pour into the cabin. I stumbled to my feet ashamed, and was seized with surprise to find myself totter and ache like one that had been stretched upon the rack. Secundra Dass, who had slept off the effects of his drug, stood in a corner not far off, gazing at me with wild eyes ; and from the open skylight the captain thanked me for my supplications. 'It's you that saved the ship, Mr. Mackellar,' says he. 'There is no craft of sea- manship that could have kept her floating : well may we say, " Except the Lord the city keep, the watchmen watch in vain ! " ' I was abashed by the captain's error; abashed, also, by the surprise and fear with which the Indian regarded me at first, and the obsequious civilities with which he soon began to cumber-

me. I know now that he must have overheard and comprehended the peculiar nature of my prayers. It is certain, of course, that he at once disclosed the matter to his patron ; and looking back with greater knowledge, I can now understand what so much puzzled me at the moment, those singular and (so to speak)

approving smiles with which the Master honoured me. Similarly, I can understand a word that I remember to have fallen from him in conversation that same night ; when, holding up his hand and smiling, Ah ! Mackellar,' said he, 'not every man is so great a coward as he thinks he is—nor yet so good a Christian."

Against the chorus of eulogy that has been raised to greet Mr. Stevenson's new book, we have little to say, so far as its. literary and artistic qualities are concerned. Nor have we any fault to find with it on the score of morality. Mr. Stevenson's books are non-moral. In the story before us, virtue and villainy cry quits : it is a drawn battle, so to speak though one cannot help feeling an aesthetic preference for the bad brother, which goes far to neutralise the moral approba- tion with which one is fain to regard his rival. Still, the fact remains that the theme—though as old as the days of Cain and Abel—is a painful and repellent one, and Mr. Stevenson's handling of it, though supremely artistic, only enhances its painfulness. One feels the want of a congenial character amongst the dramatis persona on whom one's sympathies can be legitimately bestowed. And for this reason, we doubt if The Master of Ballantrae will ever achieve abiding popularity,. It is full of interest and surprise, but it fatigues rather than refreshes one. One awakes from its perusal as from a painful dream, rather glad than sorry to exchange these vivid but perturbing visions for the sober realities of life.