* * * * *
_Edmund Layton_, thick in the arm and at times, be it confessed,
thick in the head, was so thoroughly in love with _The Bright Eyes of
Danger_ (CHAMBERS), and the brighter eyes of _Charlotte Macdonell_,
Jacobitess, that in the rousing days of the YOUNG PRETENDER he not
only lightly risked his life when his lady was in need, but more than
once went out of his way to make things quite unnecessarily hazardous
for himself, when I or any other of his more canny Hanoverian friends
was longing to give him warning. For instance, when that taking
villain, _Philip Macdonell_, after beating him in the race for the
French treasure buried in the sands of Spey beside the sunken ship
(_vide_ the frontispiece mystery chart), soon after fell comfortably
into his hands, he had no more discretion than to take him out
to fight a duel; whereon, as we others foresaw, the wily villain
incontinently disappeared and the fun was all to begin again. Maybe
we might forgive him that, for of such staple are good yarns spun,
but why in heaven's name should bold _Edmund Layton_ of Liddesdale
go about to make himself and us miserable with feckless scruples that
ruined the happy ending we had fairly earned? Either he was right to
let CHARLES STUART escape that day in the mist, in return for former
generosity, or he was wrong; and one would have expected him to make
up his mind and there an end, and not fret himself into a pother and
Mr. JOHN FOSTER'S story into a most inartistic anti-climax over such
a subtlety. All the same a rattling good tale, full of hard knocks as
well as bright eyes, and with more than a smack of STEVENSON.
* * * * *
I fancy that I ought perhaps already to know _The Wood-Carver of
'Lympus_ (MELROSE), which, hailing originally from America, seems to
have made many friends over here before reaching me in its present
form. I am glad, more especially at the present season, to extend
a grateful welcome to so kindly and charming a story. Miss MARY E.
WALLER has written a singularly refreshing and happy book, full of
passages that reveal a great sympathy for country life and the hearts
of simple people. _Hugh Armstrong_, the central figure, is a youth in
a New England mountain farm, condemned to perpetual inactivity through
an accident. At the beginning of the story we see him, in the depths
of misery, visited by a casual passenger from the stage coach, whose
attention has been caught by his story as related by the driver.
Thenceforward things mend for _Armstrong_. The stranger interests him
in wood-carving; orders pour in, which help to bring comfort to the
farm; books and letters arrive from unknown city dwellers. Thus the
tale is a record of increasing happiness, but kept (an important
thing) from cloying by the tragedy upon which it is built. If you
will not be put off by American dialect or by the rather startling
discovery that one of the kindliest characters is named _Franz_, you
will, I believe, find a brief stay upon '_Lympus_ most beneficial to
your spirits.
* * * * *