FICTION.
LANDMARKS.*
Mn. LIICA8'S new excursion into the realms of fiction, though
it retains some of the characteristic features of his previous "easygoing chronicles," shows a somewhat closer conformity to the rules and regulations of the game as played by the orthodox novelist. There are fewer digressions and quotations, and a certain continuity is imposed on the narrative by the adoption of the biographical method. But while the story is substantially the life history of Rudd Sergison from childhood to his marriage, the title indicates clearly the selective method
followed by the author. Mr. Lucas is a master of the art of omission as well as that of judicious irrelevance. The
rigour with which he practises the former is sometimes tantalizing, as, for example, in his exceedingly brief account of Rudd's school days ; but at least he achieves one great result : he is never dull, and unsatisfied curiosity is vastly preferable to boredom. When we spoke of his irrelevance we used the term in the conventional or relative sense.
l'or, as a matter of fact, it is often the seemingly irrelevant which counts most in the long run, and leaves the most indelible impression on the memory. So in the narrative before us incidents which are intrinsically negligible assume a real importance from the way in which they reveal the lead- ing traits in the hero's character—his inexhaustible interest in eccentric humanity, his hatred of cruelty and party politics, and his passion for cricket, to mention no others.
Rudd Sergison, when we first encounter him, is living with his parents at a great seaside resort on the South Coast, thinly disguised under the alias of Casten. He is on good terms with his father, a selfish, agreeable, somewhat snobbish
person, and devoted to his kindly mother, who essays, not always unsuccessfully, to repress his insatiable curiosity and obstinate questionings. But while his mother was his walk- ing-stick, Sarah Juniper, his nurse, was his crutch. A delightful person is Sarah, with her "crusted scraps of nursery wisdom" and her occasional lapses into levity. With her he took his walks abroad and studied the performers on the sea front, notably the one-legged Spaniard Don Paths and the terrifying negro. But while Sarah had her limitations, there were none in the case of Rudd's engaging Bohemian uncle, who understood him from the very first, and more than any one else was responsible for directing his tastes in their true course. The picture of Uncle Ben is so attractive that we cannot forbear to quote it for the benefit of parents and guardians :—
" Uncle Ben was his especial idol, not only because he was keen and sympathetic and full of fun, which Mr. Sergison had never been, but because he alone talked to Rudd as if Rudd was not a child. Rudd was so tired of the grown-ups who descended to him : who called him Little Man, and wished to be taken to the drawing-room door to see by the record kept on the edge of it how much he had grown since they were there last : who asked what he collected, and submitted problems about a herring and a half. They were kind, he knew, and they brought chocolates and six- pences; but they carried things no further. Also they had no memories. They said the same thing every time, as if the year had done as little for him as for themselves.. . . Uncle Ben always brought Rudd a present; but it was not like those others. It was something that he would appreciate a little now, and grow to appreciate much more, instead of growing out of it. It was Uncle Ben who gave him Pickwick when he was six, and David Copperfield when he was seven, and Thomas Edwards, the Scotch Naturalist, when he was eight, and The Ingoldsby Legends when he
• Landmarks. By B. V. Lucas. London: Methuen and Co. [68.]
was nine, and The Three Musketeers when he was ten. Uncle Ben also gave him his star map, which by some movable contrivance told him what stars were to be seen every night in the year, and his map measure, and his great box of pastels. Uncle Ben gave him also little pictures for his room—not the coloured soap pictures, or puppies and kittens from Christmas numbers, but beautiful faces after drawings by Leonardo and Raphael, and Dilrer's 'White Horse' and 'St. Jerome' and even the 'Melancolia,' and Uncle Ben's own favourite Charles Keenes cut from old Punches to be pasted on a screen by Rudd himself. Uncle Ben brought more life into the house on his infrequent and very brief visits than crept in during the whole year. For he could play on the piano anything that he had heard, and the only fault that Rudd had to find with him was that after sitting down to tell them what the latest comic song in London was like, he would succumb to the opportunity of making melody of his own, and pass off into melancholy improvisations, and so for far too long be lost to any outside influence. Uncle Ben's improvisations not only had no interest for Rudd, but were simply robbing them all of the precious time in which he might be relating, with infinite spirit and monstrous exaggeration, some of his new adventures ; for Uncle Ben had adventures as other persons have disappoint- ments. Rudd's greatest joy of all was to walk out alone with this magical uncle. They always went first to an ancient part of the town known as the Alleys, where the old curiosity dealers congre- gated, and here they would first examine the windows, and Uncle Ben would explain what everything was and where it probably came from, and then they would go in, and although he almost never bought anything, in a few moments he and the dealer became as brothers. And all the time they were walking, Uncle Ben would be unfolding his busy impressionistic mind to Rudd exactly as to a friend of long standing : drawing his attention to a girl's prettiness, or the rich colours of a fruiterer's window, or the still pearl-grey of the sea, or a man-of-war on the horizon, or an especially good horse. He seemed to see everything, and always to find something which communicated a pleasure which he in his turn must communicate to another. That, perhaps, was Uncle Ben's most remarkable quality : the desire to share what- ever he enjoyed."
The ericketing chapter, with its portraits of the heroes of the "nineties," and the story of the wager with A. N. Hornby, will appeal irresistibly to all lovers of the game, especially those who are middle-aged, and Rudd's eye-opening experiences of politics during his father's candidature were almost enough to justify his subsequent detachment from all party labels. From Caston Rudd gravitated inevitably to London, where we see him make a false start in medicine before transferring his allegiance to letters. While we gain from these genial chapters a fairly clear notion of the sensitive, impressionable humanist Rudd, it must be confessed that Mr. Lucas has not invested him with any heroic qualities, and that the most engaging or arresting traits are to be found in the minor characters, such as the angular but veracious Keast, his schoolmate; Luard, the brilliant, wayward editor; Levis, the Colonial medical student; and, above all, the magical Uncle Ben.
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