The Sun.
London, England, 1862-08-28 00:00:00

LITERA7URE.

Novel. Hurst
andßy Bthiaeukett.
author
Measureo f:Grfeoyrm.3olreea.„sur3e.
vol A
s.
We find here, under an old title, a very clever
and interesting novel, of which the plot is contrived
with great skill—the reader's curiosity being largely
excited, and true poetical justice is done in the end.
The scene is laid in a quiet country village, called
Wynthorpe, in which the chief residence, once an
episcopal palace, had been taken by a wealthy
London merchant named Clyde, whose daughter
Beatrice, the heroine of the story, is thus intro-
duced :—" She was not exactly tall, though deci-
dedly above the middle height, and her figure was
slight and elegant. Her head was remarkably
well-formed, and beautifully set on; and her abun-
dant dark hair was so arranged as to show the tips
of her delicate ears, and to mark the outline of her
face in a graceful line, harmonising exactly with
the perfect curve of her neck and shoulders. Her
complexion was fair and clear, but not brilliant;
her features small and regular, and her eyes large
and dark, slightly shadowed by her broad white
brow; the eyebrows almost straight, and forming
a clearly-defined, slender line. Her mouth was
flexible, and capable of relaxing into the most en-
chanting smile; but at present the lips were firmly
closed, and an expression of mingled restlessness
and discontent hovered over them." Of the society
in the neighbourhood she soon monopolises the
chief attention, not merely from her beauty and fas-
cinating manner, but from a certain air of mystery
about her which is difficult to unravel- By tutog,

reserved, or recklessly gay, she piques curiosity,
gains numerous admirers among the opposite sex,
and incurs the censure of the prudent among her
own. Her mental state is thus described :—" It
is in real life, as in books," thought Beatrice,
" nothing but marrying or giving in marriage ;
or, if not the realities, the shadows of them."
They sickened her heart, yet she could not fly from
them. Were they so pleasant, these realities, that
people caught at the shadows and played with
them ? How, if she, too, joined in the game ? It
had been a dangerous one to many, she had been
told, but there was excitement in it. Excitement
and life ! and Beatrice thirsted for life, and chafed
in the narrow prison in which she felt her whole
being, outer and inner, fettered—and at the fate to
which chance, or her evil genius, had bound her.
Freedom ! Life ! Joy ! for these she longed. These
she knew to be unattainable. But, oh ! to feel for
one moment the reflected light of them ! To fancy,
even for a little time, that which could never be
real. To guess what happiness was like. To taste,
but for an instant, the highest bliss that earth
could give, though conscious all the while that the
bliss was hollow, the imagination of it fleeting !
The secret of her unhappiness is that although
ostensibly free, she is really fettered ; whilst neither
of her parents have sufficient force of character to
thoroughly sympathise with or aid her. One
result of her position is, that she receives an offer
from a Captain Denbigh, whom she is forced to
refuse.

He hurried from the room, and left Beatrice sitting,
resting her arms on the table, her head bowed over them.
She was wretched and humiliated. She had misled—if not
wilfully, yet thoughtlessly—a man whose generous for-
bearance overwhelmed her with shame. lie might forgive
her; but she could not forgive herself. Her love of
amusement and excitement had led to this. Oh ! that the
last two months could be blotted out of her life! Better
the blank gloom she had endured before, than the feverish
pleasure which had ended thus, in sorrow and disappoint-
ment to another—in dissatisfaction to herself. She had
sought to catch a fleeting shadow, forgetting that what
were shadows to her might be realities to others.
Beatrice did not know how long she had been absorbed in
her own thoughts, when a footstep in the room made her
raise her head. It was her father's; and his glance, as
she mot it, was fixed upon her in agitation and displeasure.
" Beatrice I what is the matter 11"
" Nothing, papa ;" and she began, in confusion, to °Pen
her desk.

^-7‘ There is something," said Mr. Clyde, drawing a chair
to the writing table, and sitting down exactly opposite to
her, "and I can guess what it is. I met Captain Denbigh
as I came through the lodge-gates. I asked why he was not
staying luncheon, and received scarcely any answer. lie
had a look on his face which I never saw there before, but
which I have seen on other men's faces, and generally found
to mean the same thing. He has been disappointed, and
you are the cause, Beatrice."
" Papa, this is hardly fair--"
" Perhaps, and I want no confessions. But lam griev-
ously shocked and disappointed. I have given you wart,-
ings, Beatrice, but you have received them with pride; and
knowing that I have forfeited the right to speak to you as
some fathers might do, I have endeavoured to root satisfied
I with your assurances. But you have abused m 9 confidence,
and you have used the privilege
it sop I papa!" interrupted Beatrice, starting up, with
glowing chocks and glittering eyes, accuse me of anything
but that. I have been wilful and selfish/ but I have never
despised your authority ; and I cannot bear that you should
think me so ungenerous as to let any circumstances--"
Whatever your notions way have been, you have acted
child of mine would never
in a way in which I trusted a
have done. Perhaps I have no business to speak to you of
honour ; but I did hope that, as a Clyde, you had some
sense of it, You have shown you have not, by leading on
a young man to propose marriage to you—to you-
4, papa, spare 010
mot say what I think, this time. I know that there
are girlA who pride themselves upon the number of offers
they receive; but you, Beatrice, I believed superior to
vanity of that kind. You need no assurances to convince
you that you are beautiful and attractive ; and yet you have
acted as the weakest of vain girls—you, too, who ought to
have felt yourself shut out, by an imprepable barrier, from
anything of the kind.

"Papa, you need not remind me of this," said Beatrice,
clasping her hands passionately, 4, My chain is for ever
only too real and present, God knows!"
So much of the interest of the story is dependent
on the mystery connected with Beatrice's positions

with the denouement, and that out of simple mate-
rials the author ha 3 contrived to produce most
artistic effects.

_
YOUNG WOITAN AN-1-) HER BROTHER.
-----4.--______
MURDER OF A
placed in
ATTEMPTED
thirty, a. labourer, of
Manor-lane,
nVdoEwr
-alrAadnAeclD:ltaAmoTtphiiTeoErri:Pai
was;Ea
the Seek
at the Greenwich Police-court, yesterday, before
Mr. Traill, charged with wilfully stabbing Bridget
Mary Hartnett and Alexander Hartnett.
The parties wounded are now lying in a
dangerous state, the former in a room adjoining
the police,court, being unable to be removed, and
the latter in Guy's Hospital, both suffering from
severe wounds ;afflicted with a large clasp knife in
the left side, the wound on the female being imme-
diately under the breast, she also suffering from a
similar inury on the right arm.
Mr. Traill having been informed by Mr. Fisher,
surgeon, who was in •attendance upeu the female,
that she was in such a dangerous state as to render
it necessary at once to take her deposition, his
worship, accompanied by Mr. Boustred, the chief
clerk, proceeded to the bedside of the unfortunate
female when the examination took place in the
hearing of the prisoner.
The female, a young woman of pleasing features,
about 25 years of age, stated that she first knew the
prisoner six years ago, at which time he was a mar-
ried man. She bad seen nothing of him from that
time until the second Sunday in July of the present
year, when he sent for her to her sister's house,
having inquired after her among his fellow-work-
men and found out where she was. He then repre-
sented himself as a widower and proposed marriage
to her, the answer given by her being that she
thought it a hasty thing to do, and that she would,
rather have time to consider over it ; but in con-
sequence of some persons saying if she married the
prisoner she would never have cause to regret it,
she was induced to have the banns published at the
Roman Catholic church at Greenwich, the prisoner
'l44he-aatime _expressing a desire to tkoilrit't ..0
be received as a member of that atififi him-
self. The banns having been twice pub-
lished, a communication was made to her
that the prisoner had greatly ill-treated his
wife, and that if she were married to
him she could only expect to receive similar ill-
treatment. She and her brother told the prisoner
what they had heard, which the prisoner said was
not true, and expressed a desire to see his accusers
face to face. The engagement between them was
then broken off, but she afterwards visited at the
prisoner's sister's at Rotherhithe, and was there on
Tuesday evening when the prisoner returned from
his work, and on her leaving to reach her home at
Deptford by nine o'clock, the prisoner expressed
his intention of accompanying her, which she ob-
jected to, reminding him of what she and her
brother had before told him. He, however, per-
sisted in his intention, and having proceeded some
distance on the road he induced her to go into a
p , where the prisoner met several of his
fellow-workmen, and remained some time, when she
public-house,
duhseer intention of proceeding home, at the
expressed
same time desiring the prisoner not to go further
with her, as she was afraid of meeting her brother.
The prisoner still refused to leave her, and they
subsequently met her brother's wife's sister, who
1 remonstrated with her at being out at so late an
hour (then after 10 o'clock), when she told her she
had been endeavouring to get home during the pre-
vious two hours, but that the prisoner would not
leave her. She afterwards endeavoured to get from
the prisoner, who ran after her, when she remarked
to him that his conduct towards her that night
proved the truth of what she had heard of his pre-
vious history. The prisoner said he wished to have
one word with her, and declared he would follow
her until the morning. She and her brother's wife's
sister then ran in the direction of the latter's home,
to a spot where her brother was engaged on the
Metropolitan Main Drainage Works. Here the
prisoner was again remonstrated with, and was
told by her and her brother that he would hear on
the morrow what was intended, and on subse-
quently attempting to leave the prisoner he said he
would have her life, followed her some distance and
struck her in the breast three or four times, and
also on the right arm; and finding herself stabbed
she screamed "Murder," and " Police," and was
afterward removed to where she was then lying.
The prisoner declined putting any questions.
Mr. Matson, omnibus proprietor, Deptford, de-
posed to hearing a female voice telling the prisoner
that he might go his way and she would go her
own, and the prisoner replied, " That cuts me to
the heart." Witness then heard the sound of a blow,
and saw the female fall, and afterwards saw pri-
soner and the wounded man scuffling together, and
theyfeLli.d_he had The doneprisonerw,
hwaile intended.htifhadtheknife in his
hand,
John Potter, watchman at the sewage *arks,
' gave confirmatory evidence of the occurrence. Po-
lice-constable 187 R afterwards came up, and with
the assistance of three or four other constables the
knife was taken from the prisoner.
Inspector Saunders said he saw the prisoner and
the wounded man together a few minutes previ-
ously to her running to him and saying she was
stabbed.
This being the whole of the evidence of the wit-
nesses in attendance, the prisoner was conveyed last
evening to the bedside of the wounded man at Guy's
Hospital, whose deposition was then taken, being
the same in substance as that of his sister, given
above.
Mr. Traill remanded the prisoner, who appeared
quite callous, and remained unmoved at the sight of
his injured victims, to Maidstone gaol,