AMONG THE BOOKS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2520, 2 July 1902, Page 80

AMONG THE BOOKS.

A LORD OF THE SOIL.

By Hamilton' Drttmjiond. Melbourne : Ward, Lock, and Co,

True to the promise of his earlier work, the author has here given us that "still better thing' for which we confidently looked after reading "The Seven Houses." The Lord of the Soil, whose fortunes tie reader follows, is one Charles de Ramel, seigneur of Quercy, and the period is the reign of " Charles VI. The seigneur, Laving spent some blissful years in Paris, where his wealth, his personal charm, and distinguished appearance, no less than his noble birth, easily placed him in the most favoured circle of courtiess. has but newly returned to Quercy when the story opens. His fortune is squandered to the last centime, but the strong passion of love for his ancestral acres which burns with the only pure flame of his gay debonair life has kept Charles de Ramel from encumbering so much as an acre of Quercy. He has lived — he is content now to exist — having counted the cost. "Content, ' said we? Nay, there is naught of content ; only a bitter and careless cynicism which enables the erstwhile courtier to become the country seigneur. A chance guest who passes an idle day with him, and the host's natural desire to find good sport, merging under disappointment to a reckless exhibition of his absolute rights over his peasantry, leads Charles de^ Ramel into the folly which henceforth fashions his fate. It is human game — a wretched charcoalburner from Anjou — that the hounds, mud with repeated disappointments, chf^e through the green glade", as the horses thunder behind them.

It is a good fight — aye, a ptrong and a good fight, that Michel Quon makes for liis life, and the foremost hounds lie on the bracken with their skulls crashed in eie Michel falls. - Then — ah, well, what would you? The seigneur, indeed, does all that tLe noblest could do. The charcoal burner leaves but two mourners — a girl and a boy. Joan is taken to Quercy, and given to the housekeeper with a stern word of warning to men and maids alike that she is a part cf Quercy's honour, sacred to Quercy's vassals: the boy is sent to the adjacent monastery of St.* Francis, with an all-sufficient recommendation to love and care from the seigneur. Then Fate begins to weave her web, while Charles de Ramel forgets the very existence of the two orphans as easily as he bad forgotten the death of their father.

It is well worth reading how Joan, sworn to avenge her father's death, and leagued with all the wretched peasants who for six long years have groaned under the cruelties and oppressions of the seigneur's fosterbrother, "Pierre le Gros, yet herself becomes the Countess Quercy ; of how the tragedy that may not be averted either by the woman who has learned to love, or the priest who must lie dumb and patient under that tremendous pronouncement of "Vengeance is mine, I will repay," is yet shorn of its worst horrors. Indeed, so ■nell worth reading is "A Lord of the Soil " that « c shall look forward to this authoi's future work. DICK DASHWOOD, THE BOY SQUATTER. By Amyot S.vgon-. Melbourne : Ward, Lock, and Co. This story will be, if we mistake not, an immense favourite with boys, who will thoroughly appreciate the steady flow of frontier incident which renders its pages so interesting. Without undue exaggeration, and relying only on quite legitimate incidents of a squatter's life, the author manages to maintain the reader's interest unflagging to the end. Dick Da^hwod is a very nice boy, with "an old head on yc.ung shoulders," certainly ; and he has the advantage of having a thoroughly sensible and capable mother, as well as a capital foreman.

The real plot of the story lies, in the unravelling of the mystery which has made Dick " the boy squatter. ' Two years, before the opening of the story, Dick's father had suddenly and mysteriously disappeared, and from that time all efforts to trace him had proved utterly fruitless. The home life at the station offers the opportunity for some pleasant little pictures of family life and character, in which a cheerful sense of humour is apparent, notably in the little escapades of "the twins." The first step towards the ultimate diocovery of Mr Dashwood i& taken a.s unwittingly as such things often are. and lies in the warm-hearted help given by young Dick to a "bushed"' stranger, whose Jifo he saves. From then on through many and \ dried incidents, in which a notable '"bud egg' known as "Black >S;im " plays with cntne fcucce<-s the villain's pail, the little plot thickens, numbering among its pleasant feature" the discovery of a iich alluvial claim on "the boy squatteiV uin, and concluding with— but that is obviously unfair — every boy, and some boys of larger trrowth. \\\\\ like to read the conclusion tor them < -el\e«*. THi: GRANDMOTHERS ADVICE TO ELIZABETH. I'.y the Author of "The Lcitci.s cf Her MotLer to Elizabeth."' London: T Fisher Uivnin. A new petition might with great ejrnost ne^s be added to the Litany— 'Fioni furthei j-c\elat!on« of Elizabeth and her family, good Loid deliver v«. " The visits of tliis young person, v. lth their exaggerated assumption of innocence ; the letteis ' of hei i.iothrr, v. lnch <-o successfully dispelled the illusion-; <>f even the country rouMii, <>nd now the '"Advice of Her Giandj mother," have, let us hope, torn the subject to tatters and freed us from Elizabeth Theie is no doubt much sound, worldly wisdom imprisoned in thr«-e letteis. but it :s, thank heaven, the v, l^-doni of <•■ world . which concerns us very little with wi.uaI Ufifeß jn. ■vvhicji uaili.tr \w^ QUC mVifei. fcoi'

our daughters are likely to find ourselves. There is neither wit nor epigram, nor even a happy turning of phrases, to smarten ip the record of stale sins which the garrulous grandmother constantly recalls as object lessons to the Marchioness of Valmond, whom she desires, despite modern degeneracy, to be a real "grande dame." She has been, and is, a true aristocrat herself, this grandmother, living all her life in the very spirit of Caesar's wife : but she has many a tele to tell of his Grace, her husband, who would appear to have been a cross between that estimable nobleman, the Marquis of Steyne, and "the gay Lord Quex."