FIRST NOVELS loi 



ironical hnmour combines with his peculiar sense of the 

 power of Time and Fate. It tells how a black rat founded 

 the city of Stirmingham by gnawing the root of a willow 

 so that it fell and dammed a stream which had once flowed 

 through a barren land. The stream spread and made a 

 marsh ; reeds and willows sprang up, and gipsies came 

 for the withies and the wild-fowl, and made a settlement, 

 from which the city grew. The story concerns the 

 ' great Baskette claim case,' various descendants of the 

 early squatters putting forward their claim to the now 

 valuable land. Only in the second volume is ' World's 

 End ' reached, a lonely place at cross-roads among the 

 Downs, where there was a fine natural race-course (like 

 the Burderop race-course under Barbury Hill) under the 

 castle of Berbury hill. To the local races comes Aymer 

 Malet, a plainly-dressed, very pale young man, like 

 Jefferies, ' whose slight frame gave him an effeminate 

 appearance.' He is a ' born genius,' who remembers 

 one golden year in London, when he had his own way in 

 a library and in the art galleries. His dead father lost 

 all by racing, and he, like Jefferies, wires ground game, and 

 sells it to carriers, and so is able to buy Bohn's trans- 

 lations of the Greek poets, philosophers, and drama- 

 tists, also ' most of the English poets, a few historians, 

 and a large number of scientific works '; for he is devoured 

 by a desire to understand ' the stars that shone so brightly 

 upon those hills.' When he has read a book he sells it 

 at half-price and buys others. ' He saw — he felt Nature. 

 . . . The wind spoke to him in mystic language. . . . 

 His books were thought through,' not merely read. He 

 speculates whether there may be creatures in front of 

 men, as there are animals behind. He longs to escape 

 from his uncle, Martin Brown. ' The sun beckoned him 

 to the distant sea.' Once he had escaped, but was 

 forced back ' amid the jeers of acquaintances,' as Jefferies 

 was. But he reached Florence, and there stood before 

 the Venus de Medici, ' rapt in thought, and then suddenly 

 burst into tears.' There he liad met Lady Lechester, 



