YOUTH AND EARLY WRITINGS 51 



endeavoured to prevent rising from an ottoman by de- 

 taining her hand in his. " Rowland Austin," muttered 

 Henrique, setting his teeth. 



* " Unhand mc, sir," said the maiden, while a rosy flush 

 mantled her fair forehead, a glance of rising indignation 

 shot from her deep blue eyes, and her lips quivered.' 



Here occurs his first sketch of a Wiltshire miller, but 

 not a promising one. 'Who will Win?' has a cynical 

 psychological description of one who has seen a beauty 

 pass in a carriage, and has loved her at first sight. He 

 did not follow her, firstly, because the carriage went too 

 fast ; secondly, on account of the heat ; thirdly, because 

 it might return to whence it started ; fourthly, because he 

 wished to know the name of the inmate, which was not 

 pasted up on the door. In this tale there is fighting and 

 shipwreck ; the hero is suspended over a precipice in the 

 folds of a boa ; the end is marriage. * Masked '* is about 

 a doctor who puts poison in the intestines of a patient of 

 his rival (' graceful, easy, "interesting," as the ladies would 

 put it '), and an actress of unquestionable virtue, in 

 whom ' contact with the boards had not depreciated her 

 nature.' Such stories are probably the unconsciously 

 insincere utterance of a truly romantic nature. ' A 

 Strange Story 'f is nearer to the mature Jefferies. It 

 refers to * yonder camp-crowned hill,' and begins with 

 some conversation between two men (Roderick and Gerald 

 Fitzhugh) as to why the White Horse, the fosse and 

 ramparts of the ancient camp, and the time-worn barrow, 

 ' should have power to render naught the abyss of a 

 thousand years, and call up " deeds half hidden in the mist 

 of years," while yet the ear is conscious of the cooing of 

 doves, the eye of the passing rook and the hare in the fern.' 

 There is an apparition of two persons in a churchyard — 

 one being then some way off in the seer's house, the other 

 far away. The seer dies soon, after expressing a belief 

 that they would meet again ; there is, too, a vague pro- 

 phecy fulfilled. * T. T. T.' | is in yet another vein, 



* North Wilts Herald. f ^'^"^^ I ^b"^- 



4—2 



