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regshoeWe're back in classic Hornung territory with The Shadow of a Man/The Belle of Toorak (1900, published under different titles in the UK and US editions). A plucky young heroine, the Riverina bush, romance, adventure and a dark criminal backstory—I enjoyed this book very much.
The plot is fairly straightforward: Moya Bethune, a young woman from suburban Melbourne, is on a visit to her fiance, who runs a sheep station in the bush, when they're approached by a desperate-looking traveller who, it soon becomes clear, is on the run from the police. Rigden, the fiance, shelters the fugitive and lies to the police—and refuses to explain to Moya why he's doing this. From here the drama heats up (literally, in a few memorable bush scenes), as Moya discovers the truth of the mystery and Rigden gets himself into trouble when the police realise he's protecting their quarry.
It's all great fun. But, oh, I do feel for Hornung for some of the things he writes about Australia. He spent two years there as a young man and, as far as I know, never went back, and well over a decade later he was writing things like this:
(That dialogue from Ives, a cheerfully self-deprecating young station hand fresh from an English public school, who loyally ships the main couple and who I suspect may have been something of a self-insert).
I've never been to Australia, but that kind of love for a place is universal, I think.
A few other things: the criminal theme is not as interesting as either the Raffles stories or those in some of the other earlier books, and the ending felt quite rushed, but it didn't detract too much from the enjoyment of the story. It was also interesting to see a 'why won't you tell me this thing' lack of trust between the central characters, with Moya's decision to forgive Rigden once she knows and understands all, seeing as how that's such a prominent element of the Raffles stories, although in rather a different context.
The plot is fairly straightforward: Moya Bethune, a young woman from suburban Melbourne, is on a visit to her fiance, who runs a sheep station in the bush, when they're approached by a desperate-looking traveller who, it soon becomes clear, is on the run from the police. Rigden, the fiance, shelters the fugitive and lies to the police—and refuses to explain to Moya why he's doing this. From here the drama heats up (literally, in a few memorable bush scenes), as Moya discovers the truth of the mystery and Rigden gets himself into trouble when the police realise he's protecting their quarry.
It's all great fun. But, oh, I do feel for Hornung for some of the things he writes about Australia. He spent two years there as a young man and, as far as I know, never went back, and well over a decade later he was writing things like this:
'Should you really like to spend all your days here?'
'No; but I shouldn't be surprised if I were to spend half my nights here for the term of my natural life! I shall come back to these paddocks in my dreams. I can't tell why, but I feel it in my bones; it's the light, the smell, the extraordinary sense of space, and all the little things as well. The dust and scuttle of the sheep when two or three are gathered together; it's really beastly, but I shall smell it and hear it till I die.'
(That dialogue from Ives, a cheerfully self-deprecating young station hand fresh from an English public school, who loyally ships the main couple and who I suspect may have been something of a self-insert).
I've never been to Australia, but that kind of love for a place is universal, I think.
A few other things: the criminal theme is not as interesting as either the Raffles stories or those in some of the other earlier books, and the ending felt quite rushed, but it didn't detract too much from the enjoyment of the story. It was also interesting to see a 'why won't you tell me this thing' lack of trust between the central characters, with Moya's decision to forgive Rigden once she knows and understands all, seeing as how that's such a prominent element of the Raffles stories, although in rather a different context.
