A SPORTING NOVEL.* CONSIDERING bow large a space sport occupies
in the life of the average Englishman, it is rather singular that its accredited representatives in fictitious literature should be so few. Many novelists, indeed, introduce more or less allusion to sport into their novels ; but for the most part, they have no thorough knowledge of the matter which they attempt to treat. Sport has a phraseology and, to some extent, a vocabulary of its own, with which the uninitiated meddle at their peril. True sporting men have established a sort of freemasonry among themselves, and are quick to detect the invasion of an outsider. The love of horses, and of horseracing, in particular, is in England a science in itself, and can be mastered only by the devotion of a lifetime. Training, touting, race-meetings, the rules of the turf —these and a score of other matters seem tolerably simple at first sight ; but as soon as the outsider begins to handle them, he finds out how easy it is to make mistakes. It may not, perhaps, seem very important that a writer like " Ouida," for example, should commit thelndicrous error of making a certain horse win the Derby three years in succession, and, no doubt, a large percentage of her readers may have accepted the statement with equanimity ; nevertheless, readers generally like to be assured that their writer knows something of the things written about, and are apt to resent his ignorance, should they discover it, and this without much reference to the question as to whether the ignor- ance is of essential significance, or not. But in the case of a a novel, the interest of which professedly depends in large mea- sure upon horses and things horsey, a conformity to possible facts and mastery of the situation may be demanded of the author as a right. Nobody cares. to sit down to the perusal of the imaginary history of a great race, unless he has reason to suppose that he will incidentally get some genuine enlighten- ment upon the technical mysteries of such affairs. Unless the amusement be here combined with instruction, it ceases to amuse, because we feel that it proceeds upon false pretences. If the writer does not understand his subject, we demand that he shall turn his attention to some other.
Mr. Byron Webber understands his subject perfectly. He writes from the fullness of knowledge, and his pages bear the impress of truth even in matters where only a professional critic would be justified to express an opinion. This by itself, how- ever, would not justify him in writing a novel, since, after all, the most rigidly sporting novel cannot concern itself exclusively with that noble animal, the horse, but is forced to depend in some degree upon the doings and sayings of mere human beings. But Mr. Webber has, fortunately, a keen eye for humanity as well as for horse-flesh; and being endowed, likewise, with a very fair sense of art and construction, he has succeeded in producing an interesting, amusing, and curious book. It is, we believe, his first extended effort in this kind, but if his future perform- ances carry out the promise of the present, he is likely to have the field of the sporting novel pretty much to himself.
The opening chapters of the book are not so good as the succeeding ones ; the author does not show what he can do until he has become warmed to his work, or, to use a phrase more after his own manner of expression, until he has "got into his stride." The scene opens on one of the Channel Islands, where two young fellows, Edwin Mercer, an artist, and Mark Winstanley, a gentleman at large, make each other's acquaint- ance, and introduce themselves to the reader. Mark, so far as his birthplace and, education are concerned, is an American, and his speech and behaviour are in keeping with his origin. It has become almost a matter of course, of late years, for at least one character in the daily novel to be an American ; but it is by no means equally common to find the inhabi- tants of that country presented in a life-like and accurate manner. The traditional Yankee dies even harder than the traditional John Ball, though perhaps the former's claim
* In Luck's Way. By Byron Webber. 3 vols. London ; Tinsley Brothers.
to actual existence is even more questionable than that of the latter. Mr. Webber, however, we are glad to observe, appears to have devoted to the study of Americans something of the same attention which he has lavished upon the other noble animal above alluded to. Mark, besides being a fine fellow on his own account, "guesses," "concludes," and "gets fixed" with unusual discretion and verisimilitude ; and his civilisation keeps pace with the progress of the story, until, at the end, you might almost suppose that his limbs had been made in England. Indeed, his parents were both English, and his interests are, for the most part, both as regards persons and property, on this side of the water. His father, it appears, quarrelled with his grandfather on the question of the former's marriage ; and de- parted with the woman of his choice to America, to seek a for- tune there. The fortune came in due course ; and then came a longing for reconciliation with the old gentleman at home. But the emigrant died before this desire could be accomplished, and he bequeathed it as a legacy to his son, Mark. Mark, accordingly, sets out for England to look up his grandfather, and, if possible, to make peace with him. The grandfather, meanwhile, has long since repented of his sternness ; and being on his death-bed, he has executed a will making Mark his heir, and leaving him, among other things, his famous stud, including the redoubtable horse, "Roger Bacon," who is destined to win or lose the great race upon which so much depends. Mark, after various adventures and hindrances, arrives at the ancestral homestead in time to receive his grandfather's dying words and blessings ; and then the story fairly begins.
It is not to the story, however, that we particularly care to draw attention ; the studies of life and character with which the book abounds will better repay examination. The part of first heroine is taken by a young lady named Gwendoline Raspley, in the conception of whom there is plenty of vigour and not a little originality. She is of that perilous type of beauty which wears the guise of almost child-like innocence ; so far as the testimony of looks and external manner are concerned, it is impossible to do otherwise than put unlimited confidence in her. Her proclivities are, of course, horsey ; but, unlike most ladies of that ilk in novels, she cares less about the horse him- self than about making a pecuniary profit out of his perform- ance (or non-performance) of his engagements. Her father is a plausible and ingenious turf-swindler, respectable, and even clerical in appearance ; Gwendoline is his able assistant and decoy-duck in all his operations ; and Mark, although he soon finds reason to distrust the fair professions of "handsome Jack Raspley," cannot bring himself, even on repeated evidence, to believe that the lovely Gwendoline is consciously mixed up in her father's nefarious schemes. The author not only tells us this, but he contrives to make us see how it is possible. Gwendoline is armed at all points against detection, and yet is not so consum- mate and impenetrable a hypocrite as to disconcert our recogni- tion of her human naturalness. There is a great deal of quiet comedy in the account of her relations with Mark ; the acute and grave American is occasionally visited with doubts concern- ing her honesty, from the logical stand-point ; but as often as her beauty and artless behaviour are brought to bear upon him, he displays a perverse capacity for inventing excuses for her. And she would probably have got the better of him, after all, had not the opening of ha eyes been assisted by a certain Nelly Stewart, who possesses in reality some of the virtues to which Gwendoline makes pretension, and who is en- dowed with many charms peculiar to herself into the bargain. How the battle went between these two rival heroines we shall leave the reader to discover.
But we confess that there is a character in this book more captivating to us than either of the two young ladies, and this is Mr. Gimble. Mr. Gimble is " a short, dapper young man, under twenty years of age," a lawyer's clerk by profession, but by genius and predilection a sporting man. His knowledge of sport, like Mr. Sam Weller's of London, might be described as extensive and peculiar. Like Mr. Weller, he is uniformly in high spirits, and equal to the occasion,—he "knows his way about," is possessed of the last "straight tip," and is master of a highly picturesque and figurative turn of speech. Without being in the least an imita- tion of the immortal Samuel, he insensibly associates himself in the reader's mind with that worthy, and, in short, has the air of having strayed out of some recent version of the " Pick- wick" brotherhood. Mr. Webber may congratulate himself upon having made, in the person of the sprightly and imper- turbable Gimble, a real addition to the characters of English fiction ; he is a aenuine type—a person whom we all know and believe in, though we may never have precisely met him or called him by name. He is evidently a favourite of the author as well as ours ; and Mr. Webber has wisely allowed him a pro- minence in the narrative which is more in harmony with the stirring character of gentlemen of the Gimble sort, than it is in accord with the strict rules of artistic proportion. He stands out clearly in the memory after the book has been laid aside,—a complete little human figure, full of human weaknesses, humours, and virtues ; and we would not have missed a single episode in which he bears a part.
Mr. Abraham Emmet and his wife, the landlord and land- lady of the inn at Mallow Field, form an admirable study of the Yorkshire character and dialect. Mr. Webber has the knack of writing in dialect, and the rarer faculty of making the dialect aid in the interpretation of character. There is a permanent quarrel between Mr. Emmet and his wife on the subject of a certain " cordial " which the former has concocted of sundry local herbs, and in the sanitary virtues of which he most powerfully and potently believes ; while to Mrs. Emmet the mere mention of the liquor in question acts as a red rag to a bull. As the couple are, in spite of their disagreement on this point, cordially devoted to each other, the chronic situation as regards them is an agreeably comic one. Almost as good in point of workmanship is the portrait of the old solicitor, Mr. Timothy Bartle, who has half retired from business, and derives vast comfort from the cultivation of roses in his suburban villa. Did space allow, we should like to refer to several other people whose presence enlivens these volumes ; but we have probably said enough to recommend them to our readers ; and we shall expect the author to produce more and still better work in the future. Let him work up his plots to the level already attained by his characters, and he will not have to complain of his success.
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