(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
In the good old days when that royal pipsqueak, our FIRST JAMES, came to
the throne, if you were a physician of a little more than common skill
and furnished with theological opinions of a modernist complexion, or a
lonely woman with (or without) some cunning in the matter of herbs, who
cherished a peculiar (or normal) pussy-cat, you were quite likely to be
burnt out of hand. And, in her competent way, MARY JOHNSTON, in _The
Witch_ (CONSTABLE), deals with this dark blot on the escutcheon of
Christianity. Through what suffering and what joys _Dr. Aderhold_, the
kindly free-thinking mystic, and _Joan Heron_, the simple village maid,
found their ultimate and, for the times, merciful release by halter in
place of fire, readers who have nerves to spare for horror will read
with eagerness. It is indeed a dreadful story. Miss JOHNSTON is not one
of your novelists who lets herself off the contemporary document, and on
her reputation you may take it she is not far out. The grim tale serves
to show to what lengths the force of suggestion will, in times of
excitement, carry folk otherwise sober and truthful. Manifestly
preposterous evidence, freely given, was freely admitted by trained
legal minds--evidence on which innocent lives were sacrificed at the
average rate of over a thousand a month in England and Scotland in the
two centuries of the chief witch-baiting period. But, after all, have we
not, most of us, near relations who saw a quarter-of-a-million of
astrakanned Russians steal through England in the dead of an August
night? And have we not---- But I grow tedious. _The Witch_ is an
eminently readable story of adventure of the coincidental kind.
* * *
What I like best in the stories of Mr. W. W. JACOBS, apart from their
mere hilarity, is their triumphant vindication of the right to jest.
They spread themselves before me like a pageant representing the
graceful submission of the easy dupe. They tempt me to filch away chairs
from beneath stout and elderly gentlemen who are about to sit down. Take
the case of _Sergeant-Major Farrer_ in _Night Watches_ (HODDER AND
STOUGHTON). He was afraid of nothing on earth, or off it, but ghosts,
and he despised the weedy young man who was in love with his daughter.
So the weedy young man dared him to come to a haunted cottage at
midnight, and, dressed up as a spectre, terrified the soldier into
something more than a strategic retreat, with the result that he
surrendered his daughter. In real life of course it is different. I know
a colour-sergeant, and somehow I rather think that if I--but never mind.
In Mr. JACOBS' beautiful world, as it is with _Mr. Farrer_ so is it with
_Peter Russet_, with _Ginger Dick_ and with _Sam Small_. They know when
the laugh is against them, and, waiving the appeal to force or to law,
they grumble but retire. There is one exercise in the gruesome in _Night
Watches_, but it hardly shows Mr. JACOBS at his best in this particular
vein. There are also several charming illustrations by Mr. STANLEY
DAVIS, executed with a buff tint, which help to sustain the gossamer
illusion.
* * *
If I were a woman I should always be a little irritated with any story
which shows two women in love with the same man. Miss MAY SINCLAIR in
her new novel does not mind how much she annoys her own sex. She shows
us no fewer than three women engaged in this competition, and they are
sisters. True, there was not much choice for them in their lonely
moorland village, which contained a young doctor and no other eligible
man. Of this fellow _Rowcliffe_ we are told that "his eyes were liable
in repose to become charged with a curious and engaging pathos," an
attraction which had broken many hearts before the story opened, and
gave to their owner a great sense of confidence in himself. This set me
against him at the start, but the three sisters, as I said, were not in
a position to be fastidious. _Mary's_ love for him was of the
social-domestic kind; _Gwenda's_ was spiritual; _Alice's_ frankly
physical. Though alleged to be "as good as gold," _Alice_, the youngest
of _The Three Sisters_ (HUTCHINSON), was one of those hysterical women
who threaten to die or go mad unless they get married--a very unpleasant
fact for a young doctor to have to discuss with her sister, and for us
to read about. Indeed, if I were to tell in all its incredible crudity
the story of the relations of this gently-bred girl with the drunken
farmer who, to her knowledge, had previously betrayed her own
servant-girl, I think even Miss SINCLAIR would be revolted. Her exposure
of certain secret things which common decency agrees to leave in silence
is a treachery to her sex, not excusable on grounds of physiological
interest; and I, for one, who was loud in my praise of the fine
qualities of her great romance, _The Divine Fire_, confess to a sense of
almost personal sorrow that such high gifts as hers, which still show no
trace of decline in craftsmanship, should have suffered so much taint. I
sincerely hope that the noble work she is now doing with the Red Cross
at the front--where the best wishes of her many friends follow her--may
make more clear the claim that is laid upon her to devote her
exceptional powers as a writer to the higher issues of life and death;
or, at the least, to something cleaner and sweeter than the morbid
atmosphere of her present theme.
* * *
It has been my private conviction that the most depressing and
shuddersome of all natural prospects is the wide expanse of mud and
slime to be found at low water in the estuary of a tidal river. Such
scenes have always been singularly abhorrent to me. Mr. "ADRIAN ROSS"
appears to share this feeling, for out of one of them he has made the
novel and very effective setting for his bogie-tale, _The Hole of the
Pit_ (ARNOLD). It is a story of the Civil Wars, though these have less
to do with the action than the uncivil and very gruesome war waged
between the Lord of Deeping Castle and the Unseen Thing that lived in
the Pit. The Pit itself is real joy. It was covered always by the tide,
but could be distinguished by a darker shadow on the surface of the
sluggish stream, a shadow streaked at times by wavering bands of greyish
slime, strangely agitated.... There were smells, too, dank, sodden,
drowned smells that came in upon the sea mist. Moreover, Deeping Castle
I can only describe as an eligible residence for the immortal _Fat Boy_.
It was built right upon the water, within convenient distance, as the
auctioneers say, of the Pit; and between the two of them your flesh is
made to creep more than you would believe possible. As for the great
scene where the Thing finally gets out of the Pit, and comes slobbering
and sucking round the castle walls--I cannot hope to convey to you the
horror of it. Perhaps you may feel with me that Mr. Ross has been at
times a little too confident that the undoubted thrill of his bogie
would save it from being unintentionally funny. I confess I did laugh
once in the wrong place. But everywhere else I shivered with the fearful
joy that only the best in this kind can produce.
* * *
I remember that I have before this admired the mixture of cheerful
cynicism and dry humour that is the speciality of Mr. MAX RITTENBERG. He
has shown it again in _Every Man His Price_ (METHUEN), but hardly, I
think, to quite the same effect as formerly. My feeling about the book
was that it started with a first-class idea for a plot of comedy and
intrigue, but that the author, instead of being contented with this,
wanted to give us a novel of character-development on the grand scale,
and somewhat spoilt his work in the attempt. The earlier chapters could
hardly have been better. There was a real snap in the struggle between
the English hero, _Hilary Warde_, who had nearly perfected a system of
wireless telephony, and the Berlin magnates who wished to bluff him out
of the results. As I say, I liked these early scenes and some others
subsequently that dealt with rather sensational finance (it always
cheers me up when the hero makes half-a-million pounds in a single
chapter!) better than those that had to do with _Warde's_ domestic
entanglements and the deterioration of his character. And the climax
seemed inadequate to the point of bathos. But there is much in the tale
to enjoy; and you might read it if only for a vivid word-picture of what
Berlin used to be like before the beginning of the great _débâcle_. This
has now an interest almost historical.
* * * * *
Illustration: _Hedger._ "THERE'S AWFUL ACCOUNTS IN THIS 'ERE PAPER OF THEY
GERMANS--SEEMS THERE'S SOME PEOPLE AS DON'T 'OLD _NOTHING_ SACRED."
Huntsman. "AH! YOU MAY SAY SO! AND IT AIN'T ONLY GERMANS. ONLY LAST
NIGHT I FOUND AS FINE A DOG-FOX AS EVER I SEE _WITH A BULLET-WOUND
THROUGH 'IS 'EART!_"
* * * * *
"TURKISH AMBASSADOR LEAVES BORDEAUX.
The Turkish Ambassador left Paris yesterday on a visit to Biarritz.
He announced before leaving that he would return. This was the first
visit paid by the Turkish Ambassador for over a fortnight. He did
not see Sir Edward Grey, but had a long conference with Sir Arthur
Nicolson, Permanent Under-Secretary."
_Edinburgh Evening News._
The only possible answer to this extraordinary conduct was a declaration
of war.