G.P.R.James' 'Beauchamp: or. the Error' 1848

 

Smith, Elder and Co first edition - 1848

Beauchamp, the 54th work of G.P.R. James, first appeared serially in The New Monthly Magazine, during 1845-6 and was not issued in book form until over two years later. It was one of ten novels written by James which were published by Smith, Elder and Company between 1845 and 1848, when the author moved to T.C. Newby and others. I found it interesting that it immediately followed The Smuggler, which I regard as one of the author's best tales, whereas Beauchamp is not quite up to par. The filling - or 'padding' - is more obvious here than in the other novels. Apparently, at the time Smith,  Elder published the Collected Edition (eleven volumes, 1844-1847) of James' works, they contracted to publish every new novel that he should write; £600 was to be paid for the first edition of 1,250 copies. The arrangement lasted for four years and 'sank beneath its own weight'. The firm issued two novels by James in each of the years 1845, 1846, 1847 (four were issued in 1847), and no less than three in 1848. As his sole biographer, S.M. Ellis, has written, James' fertility was clearly greater than the public approved. The publisher requested him to set limits to his annual output. He indignantly declined...So, they parted company.

James was certainly 'fertile', and he believed in the efficacy of what he was doing. He left it until Chapter VIII of the final volume to share with his readers the values of romance writing.

"What is truth?" The romance-writer has a great advantage. He has the truth within himself. All the witnesses are there in his own bosom. Experience supplies the facts which observation has collected, and imagination arrays and adorns them. In fact, I believe that, philosophically speaking, a romance is much truer than history. If it be not, it will produce but little effect upon the mind of the reader. The author, however, must not sit down to write it coolly, as a mere matter of composition. He must believe it, he must feel it, he must think of nothing but telling the truth - ay, reader, the truth, of the creatures of his own imagination. It must be all truth to him, and he must give that truth to the world. As they act, think, speak, in his own mind, so must they act, think, and speak to the public; and according to his own powers of imagining the truth, regarding certain characters, so will he tell a truthful tale, or a mere cold fiction.

Perhaps this is a major reason as to why I enjoy reading his novels. His characters, in all their variety, do appear very true to life.

There are two young heroes - Edward Hayward, late Captain of the 40th regiment ; and 'Mr. Beauchamp', a very gentlemanlike - even distinguished - looking person of about thirty years of age. At the outset of the story, they rescue one of the heroines, Mary Clifford, and her mother from a kidnapping attempt. The women are escorted by Hayward to Tarningham Park, the mansion of Mrs Clifford's brother, Sir John Slingsby, a part-Rabelaisian figure who is one of the stand-out characters in the tale. Honest Jack Slingsby! Roystering Sir John! Jolly old Jack! Glorious Johnny!...that round and portly form, now extending the white waistcoat and black-silk breeches...that face, glowing with the grape in all its different hues...to the deep purple of old port in the nose...that thin white hair, flaring up into a cockatoo on the top of his head... Marvellous! His daughter, Isabella, tries her best to keep her father on a straighter path, but has more or less given up, being unable to rival good food, drink and reckless expenditure. Hayward, who, at the start of the novel, maintains I never fell in love with a beautiful woman in my life - I don't like them; they are always pert, or conceited, or vain, or haughty, or foolish, falls for the beautiful Mary Clifford; whilst Beauchamp falls for the equally beautiful Isabella. There is a rocky path ahead, particularly for Isabella (for is 'Mr Beauchamp' really who he says he is?).

Every good novel should have at least one 'baddie'. Beauchamp has five, with a sixth realising the error of his ways, literally becoming a poacher turned gamekeeper. Mr Wittingham was somewhat past the middle age, and verging towards that decline of life which is marked by protuberance of the stomach, and thinness of the legs...tolerably rosy in the gills. He had accumulated wealth as a merchant on a small scale and strove to become a country gentleman, by whatever means. His son, Henry, with a disposition naturally vehement and passionate, had been rendered irritable and reckless, and a character self-willed and perverse had become obstinate and disobedient. He was to be involved in nearly all of the skullduggery taking place throughout the novel. Real evil, however, is reserved for the other three malign characters. Captain Charles Moreton, a cousin of Beauchamp and a bad, reckless man, and a sleek knave, dedicated to the latter's downfall; and Charlotte Hay who, though once pretty, had become somewhat coarse now, however, and looked as if the process of deterioration had been assisted by a good deal of wine, or some other stimulant perhaps still more potent. She held the dangerous clue to an incident in Beauchamp's past life. As for Mr Wharton, the grasping lawyer whose aim is to eject Sir John from his home as he is mortgaged to him up to the hilt, it is enough to castigate him as a cove and a blackguard.

Other well-drawn characters include the young Billy Lamb, the pot-boy at the White Hart, Tarningham: the back was bowed and contorted...the legs were thin, and more like a bird's than a human being's...the features that appeared below the tall forehead seemed all to be squeezed together, so as to acquire a rat-like expression, not uncommon in the deformed. But Billy is to prove a good egg and important to the success of the heroes. His brother-in-law, Ste Gimlet, nicknamed the Wolf, starts out on the wrong side of the law, but is also instrumental in ensuring good triumphs over evil.

Occasionally, the 'humour' seems a little forced. James starts the story thus: It was in the reign of one of the Georges - it does not matter which, though perhaps the reader may discover in the course of this history (in fact, a later reference to 1809 excised the first two monarchs with that name). After all, what does it signify in what king's reign an event happened? Fair point - usually. But the author than repeats the point twice more in the next couple of pages. Then, he immediately pontificates on the difference between April and May and the changeable weather. We don't get to the relevance of a horseman of six or seven-and-twenty years of age - after comments on his horse's and his own behaviour - until page fourteen. I found that, although I already knew the author's predilection for purple passages and semi-philosophical asides, on this occasion they rather grated. This is the downside of the three-decker novel, and can be found in nearly all the writers forced into that straightjacket - including Sir Walter Scott. James, to his credit, knew it: Heaven and earth, what a ramble I have taken!  but I will go back again gently by a path across the fields.

There are, though, some bon mots or, rather, paragraphs. The past is a tomb. There let events, as well as men, sleep in peace. Foul befall him who disturbs them...History is but a great museum of osteology, where the skeletons of great deeds are preserved without muscles - here a tall fact and there a short one; some sadly dismembered, and all crumbling with age, and covered with dust and cobwebs.

A. Windsor-Richards' 'Vix. The Story of a Fox Cub' 1960

 

Ernest Benn first edition - 1960

Although this is a short book written for children, the tale does not shy away from 'cruel nature's law' and tackles the killing of rabbits, pheasants and other animals and birds by the young vixen with a lack of sentiment. It is a usual story of the hero - in this case the heroine - not being at the litter when the mother vixen and the other cubs are dug out and carried off (to be handed over to another area where there is hunting by dogs and humans on horseback) from their home in the Lake District.    

The exploring cub Vix first meets up with a stoat and steals a rabbit from it. So she followed hidden ways through the big wood - ways that had been trodden by foxes since the wood began. Sometimes she would walk along in the water of a little stream, which helped to wash the scent away. Sometimes she slunk through undergrowth so thick that even a dog would have found it nearly impossible to follow her.  The story allows the author to describe other woodland creatures, such as red squirrels, jays, beetles, buzzards, blue tits and partridges. Windsor-Richards was in charge of Brantwood, John Ruskin's old home on the shores of Coniston for many years. Here he did freelance journalism and was a contributor to the northern edition of the News Chronicle on natural history and country pursuits. His other books included Tiercel the Peregrine, Merry Brown Hare and Where the Rushes Grow Green. 

The young vixen's first months include being caught by the hind leg in a snare, luckily being released by a young couple; mistakenly trying to catch and eat a hedgehog; filching a salmon from an otter;  failing to catch a faster running hare and mesmerising a bewildered rabbit by running around it in ever-decreasing circles. However, Chapter 5 The Hunter Hunted  describes her being chased by a Hunt, only  just managing to escape by scrambling up the cliff leading to her earth.  The final chapter, The Coming of Spring also sees the coming of a big, handsome fox with a lovely, flowing tail. Wrestling with rabbit fur, racing each other through the wood and exchanging mating call, leads first to joint hunting and then to the birth of five squeaking, tugging, grunting little furry bodies...hidden in the green bracken, Vix watched her babies, and her eyes shone with pride and gladness. She was happier than she had ever been in her life.  For a youngster reading this story, what's not to like? 

One of the delights of the book are the atmospheric illustrations by D.J. Watkins-Pitchford ('B.B.'). There are fourteen full-page drawings - one is shown below - and many more embedded in the text or at the start of each of the six chapters.                                                                                                              

This is the last of my 'foxy' novels for awhile. I have two or three more lined up to purchase in the New Year (if they are still available), but I am now returning to two of my favourite nineteenth century authors, R.D. Blackmore and G.P.R. James. I have the former's Perlycross in the first one volume printing - the author's triple-decker firsts are hard to find or are simply too expensive for me. As for G.P.R., there are three novels lined up, all in the first three-volume state: Arabella Stuart, Russell and Beauchamp. I am starting with the latter, set in the early nineteenth century. In addition to the above, I want to read two Eustace Grenville Murray books I bought in the Autumn - Side Lights on English Society: Sketches from Life Social & Satirical (I only have the first of two volumes) and Men of the Second Empire.  I will also be returning to my early nineteenth century Scottish novels, where I have over a dozen still to read. As if all the above is not enough, I want to tackle the Northumbrian writer, R.H. Forster's books - I have all of them in first edition - and my batch of Arnold Bennett novels, all in Penguin first printing. Do I also have time for my Crime Book Society paperbacks from the 1930s? We'll see.      

Frances Pitt's 'Scotty. The Adventures of a Highland Fox'. 1932

 

Longmans, Green and Co. - 1932

Frances Pitt's Scotty is very different from the other tales I have read so far. It starts 'normally' enough, although this time we are in the Scottish Highlands. A keeper, McAndrew, is told to deal with a fox den as foxes were not wanted on the Highland grouse moors and deer forests. He shoots the father, Great Fox, and then - with the aid of his terrier, Sue, kills the mother and all of the cubs brought out of the den. Bar one. McAndrew had been asked to save a cub for a family up from the English Midlands. Thus it is that the Corseleys speed south with an extra passenger, saved for their 15 year-old daughter, Ann. She christens the small, grey-brown, and softly furry cub, Scotty.  On passing through the Lake District, they stop at a friend's farm. Master of the local hounds, Spicer, hands over a Fell hound to see how he fares amongst the lowland packs of the Midlands. The whelp, named Cragsman, bonds with Scotty and for the next fifty pages they share an enclosure at the Corseley Manor House.   

The author (1888-1964) was a British naturalist and a pioneer of wildlife photography. She wrote many books and articles in periodicals on the lives of countless wild animals by observations in the wild and in the process of raising and nursing injured animals. Titles such as Moses, my Otter (1927), Diana, my Badger (1929) and Katie, my roving Cat (1930), were later tales which followed her first book, Tommy White-Tag, the Fox (1912). It is therefore no surprise that the description of Scotty in captivity is so realistic. Scotty does escape, however, and manages to survive in Corseley parkland, fast learning the ways of the wild as he grows into young adulthood. However, it is hunting country and the Boxing-Day Hunt sees him being pursued, not just by the local hounds but by Cragsman. Scotty had grown into a fine example of the great Highland race. As he cantered on at a steady pace he looked, and in fact was, as big as a sheep dog. He swung along lightly and effortlessly, his wolfish action carrying him easily across the fields. Not only does he elude the pursuing hounds, but he keeps going for days and days - through the Black Country - no stars shown overhead, only dank vapours swirled smokily, but weird lights burned, or flashed intermittently on either side. A dreary wind sighed and moaned through wires and overhead trolleys, around chimneys and the hundred and one erections of a colliery and manufacturing district.  The author, who lived in lovely rural Shropshire, clearly felt an affinity with Scotty's distaste of his surroundings.  

The fox eventually gets to the Lakeland Fells, even meeting one of the last of the English pine martens on the way. Here he settled - at Ravens' Crag -  where he filled out and developed, so that, always a large fox, he now became an enormous one and of more wolfish aspect than ever. Meanwhile, Cragsman, although an increasingly skilful fox-hunter, proved too individualistic for the Corseley Hunt and is returned to his Lakeland home. An inevitable showdown looms.  The two Chapters, XXIV The Hounds Again and XXV Cragsman and Scotty, contain some of the best writing in the book and betray the author's personal knowledge as a Master of Fox Hounds and as vice-president of the British Field Sports Society. The chase ends with only Cragsman in pursuit; the hound follows the fox down the crag, from rock to rock, from icicle-festooned ledge to glassy rock-face and loses his footing to plunge onto a broad grassy ledge. Scotty smelt his face, the face of an old friend and a dire foe. By now thoroughly exhausted, the fox dashed through the group of human watchers and leaps into the open back of a lorry. It is bound for Scotland, where it stops to unload its cargo, allowing a by now recovered Scotty to leap out and race away!

Chapter XXVII is entitled The Return of the Wanderer and Chapter XXVIII Ben Dubh. Scotty has not only returned to Scotland but found his way, after many nights exploring the countryside, mountains and glens, lochs and burns, to his actual birthplace. Moreover, he is spotted by the very same McAndrew who had handed him over to Ann Corseley. Well, said McAndrew,  well, who'd have thought it! As big a fox, or bigger, than the one I shot in the Black Corrie two years ago (Scotty's father), and I thought that was the last of the old breed. Scotty not only returns home, but pals up with a local vixen. The story ends: They lay there in comfort and when the vixen stirred Scotty roused himself and licked her gently - he was content at last.

Even allowing for the unlikelihood of  getting a lift from the Lakes to Scotland and Cragsman being the hound to battle with Scotty on the Westmorland fells, the author carries the reader along with some verve. None of the other animals met (and usually killed by Scotty) are named; and fox hunting is described in neutral terms. Even the 15 year-old Ann finds it 'normal' to rear a fox cub and ride to hounds. The many illustrations, by Persis Kirmse,  are finely drawn and support the text admirably.

C.D. Adams 'Red Vagabond. The Story of a Fox' 1951

 

The Batchworth Press first edition - 1951

This time we are on the Anglo-Welsh border, where a cub Tag and his brother Fang  are the only survivors from a litter of four. There is an invaluable map - 'Tag's Country' - on the rear flyleaf and pastedown, and I found myself regularly referring to it as I read the novel. I quickly got to know the routes Tag took on both the English and Welsh sides of Offa's Dyke.  West End with its nursery of larches; the farms of Pump House and Clutterwell in the Midlands and the Bwlch and the Cwn in Wales; There are the settlements of Castleton, Mainford and Churchtown; the hills of Caradoc and Heston; the woods of Riddings, Brockton and Dingle; the Dingle of Sheep, Herons' Gutter and the nearby reservoir. It brought home to me the many miles that Tag travelled for food, for love and to escape the various Hunts, often nine miles at a time. Love meant Stardust and Greylight; flight meant exhaustion as he ran to escape the hounds. However, the author has an interesting paragraph on the lack of fear in the fox's mind. Happily for him, his mind was unable to grasp the might-have-beens in his carefree life. He went through life oblivious of all fear of death, and was the happier for it. To him, life was eternal, leaving nothing to be desired. His highways were the rabbit-runs and the hedgerows, and he revelled in them all, with their mysterious and appetizing smells....fear of death was alien to his mode of life and the only craving he knew was that of hunger for a mate...the voices of the birds; the sound of running water; and the sigh of the wind in the trees - these symbolized his simple but vivid existence. He wished for nothing more.

There are the usual supporting cast, all named - Pipeete the bat, Crark the crow, Mulo the buzzard, Peeka the magpie, Nog the heron, Chako the stoat, Dandy the weasel, Boro the tawny owl and Iggiwick the hedgehog, most of whom Tag killed or maimed. One could argue that this naming is anthropomorphic, but just to write 'a weasel' or 'the stoat' does not draw you into the story. Two tales which stood out were that of Tuee the willow warbler, whose journey from Mt Kilimanjaro in far-away Tanganyika, through Cairo and the Nile, then Crete, Italy and Corsica, the Camargue, Avignon and the Seine, to Dover, the hopfields of Kent to the Welsh Border, is well described; and Scarl the feral tom-cat, who lived in a rabbit bury not far from Tag's earth. he met Scarl again before morning [and] remembering his humiliation at the behaviour of the lowly creature, drove in without hesitation. But, before he had time to snap his jaws together, he was met by a frenzy of slashing claws. Scarl had dropped the rabbit and was lying on his back, with razor-sharp claws unsheated and needle-like teeth open for the throat-hold...again Tag rushed. This time his teeth met through a shoulder, and Scarl yowled in pain and limped away into a rabbit hole. Scarl limped for the rest of his life, which ended in a gin-trap in the summer.

We have the usual local humans. Gethin the Bwlch - a flourishing farmer and keen sportsman (who prides himself on his partridge shoot);  Evans the Cwm  -a short, clean-shaven farmer; George Sharpe the forester who lived in the bungalow at the bottom of Black Hole Dingle, whose daughter Janis has a soft spot for foxes, especially Tag; Jasper the roadman, often sighting Tag as he runs across roads being pursued by the Hunt; and Patty the Poacher from Tinker's Cott, who catches Tag in one of his traps and imprisons him in an old rabbit hutch. Tag escapes due to Patty's drunkenly leaving the bolt unsecured. We also meet the foxhounds, especially Trooper, stalwart hound of six seasons. A very different dog is the one Patty brings home: "I' been doin' some snaring for Jones the Pump House, and the foxes have been takin' the rabbits o' nights...this feller's come along to warn the devils off"... it had the head of a mastiff, the quarters of a bull-terrier, and the long legs of a greyhound. Lion was left free at nights. He did kill a fox - Stardust; nearly caught Tag himself; killed Patty's bridled lurcher; and ensured the postman never came near Patty's house with any letters. Lion was also responsible for Fang's death, as he was shot by mistake for the dog by Gethin. Finally, George Sharpe the forester, shoots him. Only Patty mourned the beast.                                                      

The novel is enhanced by the splendid drawings of 'B B' (Denys Watkins-Pitchford). Each chapter heading has a small illustration, whilst there are twenty-one full page drawings in his inimitable style. If I had one small criticism of the author's book, it would be that I thought occasionally it was a little like a 'scissors and paste' job - time to add his knowledge of a particular animal or bird, or a slightly too detailed description of the season or environment. However, it is a minor quibble; when he is in full flow, describing Tag's wanderings and escapes from the Hunts, Adams' narrative sparkles.

David Stephen's 'String Lug the Fox' - 1950

 

Lutterworth Press first edition - 1950

The author, David Stephen (d. January 1989, aged 78) was a photographer and journalist and considered to be one of Scotland's finest naturalists. Born in Airdrie, he escaped to the countryside as often as he could and discovered in himself an affinity for the natural world. He turned to full-time journalism after the Second World War, writing for the Daily Record and then The Scotsman. His writings were often blunt and sometimes angry. He was realistic enough about mankind to be pessimistic about the future of the animal kingdom. He was the first director of Palacerigg Country Park at Cumbernauld, where he gave animals space to live and breed. He hated gin traps, factory farming and the 'sportsmen' of the hunting fraternity. One journalist friend said of Stephen's books, that they were valuable not just for his wonderful empathy with animals but also for their superb descriptions of the Scottish landscape...[he] evoked the physical splendour of the Scottish country, in all seasons and weathers, better than any writer since John Buchan.

Fontana paperback edition - 1957

I have treasured David Stephen's first full-length book for sixty-seven years, reading it at my Prep School in what was then the wilds of Berkshire (later the coming of the M4 put paid to any quietude). It was one of the first books I had purchased with my own money - if not the first. Although similar to the other foxy books that I have read in the last few weeks, String Lug does retain a certain individuality. The author knows his foxes: fox cubs are bold and enquiring. As cubs they have the will and capacity to learn; as adults they possess the gift of memory and the ability to make up their minds. Lessons taught in cubhood serve them as guides to actions in later life. The fox can put two and two together, is a supreme individualist, and is not the victim of blind habit or instinct. Rather is he a creature who weighs chances, ever ready to forsake outmoded ways to meet new conditions.

We first meet his parents - the father Greyface, a big-boned, big-framed fox, hard and lean, almost gaunt, and totally unlike the fat-ribbed, small foxes of England, who effects a daring escape for his son when the latter has been caught as a cub (his four siblings had been killed in their earth) and imprisoned in a rearing-shed; and his mother, the Summerfield vixen, of similar blood, about to give birth to her third litter. She was redder in the coat than Greyface, more finely drawn, and with more flesh on her bones. And if she was more rash, she was no less brave. His equal in stamina, she had less patience, and probably less real brain power - apart from sheer cunning. Both are killed by the local farmers.

String Lug is one of five cubs and the author creates a compelling and realistic story around their first few weeks.                                          

The three local farms of Gallacher at Mossrigg, Cameron at Summerfield and the brothers McLeod of Hackamore, all suffer greatly from the vixen's depredations. The McLeods keep seven fox-hating collies and one Sealyham terrier. However, the main threat came from Corrie - the shaggy blue cairn; Corrie the Terrible, who had killed more fox cubs than he had teeth in his jaws - owned by Jock Simpson, the fencer. Another enemy was Pate Tamson, the rabbit-catcher, unkempt, unshaven, beer-soaked and tireless. Greyface had the measure of his snares, though.

We encounter (as does String Lug on a regular basis) Brushtail, the red squirrel, Keewick, the tawny owl, Kree the kestrel, Whittret the weasel,  Smoky Joe an old crow, and the Mossrigg tom-cat - Satan. Satan was a great, hulking, moon-faced killer, with a heart of stone and a soul steeped in sin. He was the greatest poacher in the parish. He had enormous curved claws, like the talons of an Arctic owl, pointed sharper than the canine teeth of a weasel, and a forearm stroke like a wild cat. It is Satan who cuts String Lug's right ear almost to ribbons and gives the cub his name. Justice was meted out when Satan is found caught in a snare and String Lug is able to kill him by biting into his spine. String Lug meets the same dangers as in the other novels - escaping from a hay field being harvested; carefully prising rabbits from gin-traps; and having to cope with the 'Black-Out' (placing the story firmly in 1939-40), an institution which made obsolete all his previous ideas about lights and bedtime.  As with at least two other fox stories there is a fire, this time on the moor, started in four separate kindlings by youths with an urge to arson, and finding ready fuel in heather dry as tinder from three weeks of drought.      

The author has a twist at the end of the tale. String Lug cleverly distracts a fox-shoot so that his cubs can escape, but is hit. Lying on the pine needle clump...he knew the terrier had found him; and he knew Jock Simpson could see him. But there was no way out. To jump meant breaking his neck, and at the bottom of the sloping tree was Corrie, with two men and a gun. So he sat still, quivering, thinking, hoping, while blood drip-dripped from his injured paw. But they let him go! The men halted within view of the tree and saw String Lug pick his way down as gracefully as a cat. And he hirpled away, looking over his shoulder till he was hidden among the trees.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

'String Lug' at Greenmantle!

Two days ago, we were in the lovely city of Chester, enjoying the Christmas lights and practising retail therapy relatively wisely in the shops. Having enjoyed some liquid refreshment, we wandered past the temporary 'wooden cabin-like' Christmas stalls and came across one selling animal sculptures, mainly busts. A large wolf stared at us from the centre of the back wall. I asked whether the vendor had a fox - and there it was, in the right-hand corner. I could have it for £12, instead of the usual £18, as it had a chip on the tip of his ear. 'String Lug', I exclaimed! I had to have it - so it enjoyed the car journey back to Greenmantle and will reside on the wall by the back door in the New Year. Serendipity, or what!

"B B"'s 'Wild Lone. The Story of a Pychley Fox' 1938

Eyre and Spottiswoode first edition - 1938

Another book, with a fox - Rufus - as its hero; but this really is a splendidly crafted piece of work. To say it vies with Charles Roberts' novel is to pay it the highest compliment. The author appears be intimately acquainted with every living thing that inhabits the woods, fields, ponds, farmyards and skies around and above Northamptonshire and the edges of Leicestershire and Warwickshire. He is not sentimental and describes with an unerring eye and detail the lives and deaths under, the often cruel, nature's law. 

Denys James Watkins-Pitchford (1905-1990) was a British naturalist and illustrator who wrote under the pseudonym "B.B." Delicate as a child, he was educated at home, spending much of his time outdoors, wandering the local woods and fields. He enjoyed drawing, fishing and shooting, which were all to influence his later writing. Aged 15, he left home to study at the Northampton School of Art, winning several prizes whilst there. 

Denys Watkins-Pitchford

The author's deep love for, and knowledge of, Nature and the changing seasons shines through on nearly every page. The story is populated not just by Rufus and his various mates, but by Old Zank the heron; Old Brocky, the snuffling boar badger; the stoats and weasels, the bullfinches and rabbits, the owls and crows, and the other denizens of the woods and fields; as well as the humans, such as wily Bellamy Bill, the Woodhall poacher; and those from the local farms -  Jackman's (especially Miss Pamela, clad in tweeds and with the quiet eyes), Hawking Tower and Ledhills; and the Hunts' hounds, often led by wily Orator.

We follow Rufus as he makes his way through Hieaway Wood, Coldhanger, Bluecovert, Berrydale, Scotland Wood, old Poors Gorse, Scaldwell Wood, Blueberry Bushes, Walgrave Gorse and Badby Wood - sleeping on beds of rushes by the sides of ponds, or under the starlit skies in the woods and hedges. Such is the literary skill and deep knowledge of what he is writing about, reinforced by his atmospheric illustrations, that the author carries us along with his hero, Rufus. One could quote from nearly any page to convey that skill and knowledge.

Here he is on one of the months: March was here, shouting March, the Merry Monarch of the Months. He set the fir trees tossing with boisterous glee, and made the ash poles rock until they shrieked for mercy under his rude and merry jests. He brushed and garnished the woodlands and the fields, and made them ready for the new fresh harvest as he had done for a million years. And from out of the blue oceans of sky where cloud got short shrift, the first chiff-chaff came into the welcome shelter of the budding thorns, to rest after his passage over the sea. Hesitatingly at first, he sang, as though he were apologetic, and to this halting music Rufus' first children were born.

And here, the end of a kingfisher: The kingfishers that built in the sandy bank by the crossing ash spinney were on the verge of starvation, and one night the vixen found one, a flame of shot blue, lying stiff and stark on the shingle below the high sandy bank. Up above was his favourite perch, a dead willow branch. Here he used to sit in the summer heats, when the gnats were weaving over the cattle-scented water, and catch the silver minnows. The vixen ate him, but found him very fishy. Still, it was meat, and she ate him, bones and all, Only his long bill she left on the shingle, the weapon whereby he had caught many a good fish for his wife and family. A wandering crow spied it and carried it three fields away where he lit on a fence and pecked it. Then he dropped it and it fell into the bottom of the hedge, sticking down between the stout horizontal branches that had been laid by the woodcutter's bill-hook. A mouse found it there, but could do nothing with it. and that was the end of that.

On Hunting: Rufus only killed for food. Even when he burst out into an orgy of chicken killing, he was killing for food, though he might not be able to eat all he slaughtered. As a general rule he only killed in districts that were away from his earth, and in this way he was a true hunter, whereas the men who came after Rufus with hounds were not true hunters at all, for they did not kill for food, like the fisherman or the gunner. And it was no use saying they hunted the fox because he was such a pest, for the next moment they were making specially built dens for foxes in the woods, wherein they might breed undisturbed.

On a family of camping gypsies - as the dusk deepened into the velvet pall of night the fire became more vivid, showing the autumn glory of the trees and bushes, and lighting the interesting faces of these wild people. They differed from the usual country clods one sees in the rural villages, whose faces are as expressionless as cows. Hmm - would one get away with that these days?!

On modern youth: Large black slugs were abroad on the tennis lawn, and the hedgehogs went bustling across the white lines that glimmered in the dark...How few people knew or cared about wild life! This world of little people she now saw going about their business in the scented gloaming of the June night...Those skylarking youngsters never gave them a thought, so taken up were they with their own artificial world where pleasure-seeking became a drug...Heated rooms, cock-tail bars, the empty silly flirtations...the shallowness of it all. Writing in 1938, looking back on those hedonistic, soulless two decades, the author, surely, had a point.

'B.B.' brings poetry to all he writes and the reader can contentedly bathe himself/herself in its glow. Here the author writes in his Preface: ...there come back memories of childhood walks along the leaf-strewn autumn lanes, where the soft ridges of mud told of passing wheels and feet, and the crushed blue stars of stones rolled out by the passing wagon, and the jewels of pebbles, washed clean and brilliant by the winter rains, at the side of a roadside hill. And the smells of growing things; cruel smell of nettles and the exciting rare smell of marsh vegetation where the great kingcups glowed, goblets of gold, among the wild forget-me-not. The reader can count himself/herself lucky that they can share such memories, so vibrantly told and, admittedly unwillingly, leave Rufus with the last two lines: May the good earth keep you, now and for always! Good hunting, little red fox, and ...good-bye!

Scott Mariani's 'The Templar Secret' 2024

 

HarperNorth first paperback edition - 2024

As I finished the last page of this Ben Hope thriller, the trite phrase all good things must come to an end, flashed across my mind. It wasn't a shock or even a surprise that the author had called time after thirty outings for his ex-SAS hero. I was forewarned in the June 2024 issue of the Ricardian Bulletin of the Richard III Society, where Scott Mariani was interviewed by its editor. He had recently published The Tudor Deception about one of the many mysteries surrounding the Last Plantagenet and said the writing of it inspired him to become a historical author. He enters a crowded, - and often not very inspired or quality - field, so I wish him well. As for Ben? He is going to be left in a place where I might revisit him - or I might not. There were several clues anyway in this 'final' book - one of Ben's two best friends based at the training centre at Le Val, Tuesday Fletcher, who had appeared in so many of the previous novels, is killed, whilst the other, Jeff Dekker decides to call it a day and return to England; Ben's beloved Blue Alpine car is destroyed; and the old green canvas bag/haversack that accompanied him on most of his exploits is lost in another explosion. Both eruptions, of course, were caused by Ben.

I have all thirty paperbacks hogging an entire shelf in my study. From the very first - The Alchemist's Secret - to this one, The Templar's Secret. I can think of only one that failed to live up to my expectations and I won't name it; and perhaps one or two where the detailed (often political or historical) backstory dragged on rather. Of course, one can hardly go wrong with a novel involving the Templars, thanks to Dan Brown and others, even Sir Walter Scott! Ben's last exploit is as thrilling as any. He finds himself caught up in the attempts by the modern day inheritors (or they think they are) of a massive Templar Secret to use any means to thwart any attempt to uncover it. Equally, a sinister group in the Vatican will also use murder to keep the secret hidden. Roberta Ryder's expertise and Ben's derring do are enough to foil both parties. The cliffs and rocky scrubland, the barren plains and olive groves, the forests and coast of southern France provide an ideal background for this tale of skullduggery. I'd never heard of an alternative Johannite Church before (apparently, it enacts the Johannite Tradition through an esoteric, Gnostic and Christian path of spiritual understanding and self-discovery, and has churches in the USA, Canada and Australia), and I assume they are nothing like Grand Master De Sorbiac and his evil henchmen in practice. The pace is either hectic or more so and great fun. 

There have been many girl friends on the way, some romantic and some mere passing fancies.  In the very first novel,  Roberta Ryder, an American biologist working out of Paris and in her early 30s, gets entangled with Ben, who is five or six years older (which places him in his 50s by the end of the series!). In the second book, The Mozart Conspiracy (2008), Ben actually gets married to Leigh Llewellyn but she is killed. Inevitably, it takes time for any healing to occur, so Alex Fiorante loses out in The Doomsday Project (2009). However, Dr. Brooke Marcel, the half French medic, who appears in The Heretic Treasure (2009), The Shadow Project (2010), The Lost Relic (2011), The Sacred Sword (2012), and The Armada Legacy (2013), becomes his fiancé, only to call it off in The Nemesis Program (2014), unable to cope with his dangerous exploits. Moreover, Roberta Ryder has reappeared, even if she has had to flee to Canada and change her name to Dr. Roberta Kaminski and her hair colour to blonde for self-preservation. Meanwhile, Darcey Kane, Erin Hayes, Sylvie Valois, Madison Cahill and Jessie Hogan pass through, whilst Sandrine Lacombe, another French doctor, appears to have more of a chance! Grace Kirk, the Scottish policewoman, who figures in The Pretender's Gold (2020) and The Demon Club (2020), bows out at the start of The Pandemic Plot (2021), realising like Brooke Marcel, that Ben's lifestyle is too traumatic for her. There are still two more 'flames' - the Australian pilot Abbi Logan in The Silver Serpent (2022) and Graveyard of Empires (2022); and Detective Shi Yun Lin in The Golden Library (2024) - and a brief return of Madison Cahill in Graveyard of Empires; but they are not for Ben. It is Roberta Ryder who eventually gets her man. Ben could do worse - she was effortlessly attractive and beguiling, brilliantly intelligent, frequently cantankerous, the most opinionated and headstrong woman he'd ever known.

Scott adds a further couple of pages after an Epilogue. How do you bring an extended series like this to a conclusion...? I would never have considered letting him die a hero's death, which I don't think my readers would ever have forgiven me for doing. Equally out of the question was the thought of consigning him to a life of domestic bliss (does Roberta Ryder know this?), so the author decided to leave him in a good place...that perhaps offers the chance of happiness that has eluded him for so long.

This means leaving Ben and Roberta strolling barefoot on the sands of Jamaica's north coast; however, Roberta, who knows Ben nearly as well as we do, has to ask: 'What's happening with us, Ben? Where do things go from here? Will it work out between us?' She clearly lives in Hope - so does the reader.

H. Mortimer Batten's 'Red Ruff. The Life Story of a Fox' 1937

 

Chambers first edition - 1937

Henry Mortimer Batten (1888-1958), a native of Otley, Yorkshire, after an education at  Oakham School in Rutland, (due his excellence at rugby, he later played for Bradford and Northampton clubs), trained as an engineer. More exciting times lay ahead, as he travelled to the North West Territories of Canada, thriving as a prospector, forest ranger and surveyor, whilst still in his twenties. In the Great War, he served as a motor cyclist, saw service with the French army and, in 1915, was given the Croix de Guerre. He later served in the Royal Air Force and, in the Second World War, served again as a dispatch rider. 

From 1912 onwards, he was a contributor to several boys' magazines, such as Chums, The Scout, Captain and the Boy's Own Paper, also providing articles for The Illustrated London News, The Field, and Blackwood's and Chambers' magazines. By the 1920s, he was involved in the early B.B.C's broadcasts, becoming well-known and respected for his articles and stories about birds and wild animals. By the time of Red Ruff, he had already published Starlight (about a North American wolf), Tameless and Swift (relating stories about a variety of wild animals) and Habits and Characters of British Wild Animals. For many years, he lived in Argyll; but, ever the wanderlust, he moved to British Columbia in 1954, dying in Vancouver in January 1958.

Red Ruff is not in the same class as Charles Roberts' Red Fox, but it is a well-crafted tale from an author clearly versed in the ways of foxes. Once again, there is a Foreword which explains the author's credo. There can be no doubt that the habits of wild animals are largely governed by their environment. By making his foxy hero leave his birthplace surrounding of the sea-cliffs and move through not only the inland hills but the lowland hunting country even further way, the author showed how Red Ruff can cope in each environment. Like most dog foxes he was a traveller. Again, Red Ruff is an amalgam of several real-life foxes but I have written nothing here which I do not believe, and indeed do not know to be a fact. Batten suggests that the fox is probably the most discussed animal in the British Isles... individuals vary. There are lazy foxes, and there are eager foxes. But the the author also states that he was becoming rather tired of the Nature Story which is supposed to be all true. There are times when I long for one which is not supposed to be true. He ends his Introduction by writing, this is just a simple, straightforward story of what I would take as the average life of an average fox of Red Ruff's environment, based on incidents which I have observed or known.

Puffin Story Book PS32 - 1947

We follow Red Ruff from a little fluffy-headed, blue-coated fox cub, born on a sea cliff with nine siblings. Early heartache occurs when the only vixen of the litter, Jess, and Red Ruff's favourite, dies still a cub of an unnamed disease. One learns the names of three others - Bright Eyes, Toby and Trowsers (the most badly-dressed and least compact cub I ever saw. He was also the silliest, most good-natured little glutton...). Red Ruff's mother is killed by a terrier, but only after she has removed her cubs to safety and fought the dog to their mutual deaths. So, Red Ruff has to go hunting but, for the initial period with his brother Trowsers.  The escapades, disappointments and successes are inevitably rather similar to those in the other books I have already read. Rabbits and mice galore are hunted down; on two occasions a cat and a stoat prove more than a match for them. Red Ruff watches a poultry farm and its owner's (and dogs') clockwork timings, before he goes in to nab a hen. He discovers an old drain, arched over with stone slabs in a clay foundation, which leads to a hollow trunk in an old ash tree in the middle of a field. This becomes his hideaway. He meets up with Trowsers again, but is responsible for the latter's death at the hands of the local Hunt. He catches more rabbits, a hedgehog and wild duck, and shares fish with a couple of otters.

He at last meets up with a mate (rather boringly named Vic) and together they raid another poultry farm. The author recounts, amusingly, the attempts by at least five other foxes to wean Vic away from Red Ruff - they all proceeded to parade round the bush, their brushes grotesquely rigid in the air, each warbling in low tones of love and defiance and self-praises - each being a poet. No chance! The two travel into the hills; Vic's first litter of two feeble little cubs do not survive; she is then trapped, bagged up and sent to the Master of Fox Hounds fifty miles away for sport. Red Ruff, alone once more, decides to explore the wide valley below his usual stamping ground in the hills. He purloins a new-born lamb off a lumbering badger;  he escapes after being cornered/surrounded by a group of fallow deer in parkland; he emerges, eventually, triumphant against an old sheepdog, Wag; he injures his shoulder, falling twenty feet down a vertical cliff; and returns to his old homing ground, but not after being nearly caught by the Hunt who had killed Trowsers. He was saved by another fox, not encumbered by a disabled shoulder, leading the hounds away from Red Ruff.  It was none other than Vic, who had clearly been successful in keeping out of the clutches of previous Hunts!                                                          

Yes, they had met and triumphed. Hounds and men and mighty distances, over these they had scored, and were still alive...'Come away, Red Ruff! Come away to the cairn and the hill, where you and I were meant to hunt together...this day we have triumphed - their wits and skill to ours, and we have won! Are we not fit to lead them many a lively chase, and yet live on to breed our kind? Come away, Red Ruff!' And Red Ruff followed her.