Welsh Journals

THE WOMAN'S HOUSE. Mr. H. L. V. Fletcher's new novel, THE WOMAN'S HOUSE," is a quiet but fascinating drama enacted amid the desolate mountains of what we may assume to be Radnorshire. A lonely farmhouse on the moors with Plinlimmon and Cader Idris brooding in the distance is the scene of the story. There are many wild spots in this countryside where, with an involuntary shudder we feel even the atmosphere to be permeated by sinister happenings of the past, and when we are made aware of the bog on one side of the farm, it becomes for us one of those places where evil deeds must have been plotted and done. Lizbeth Humphreys, the woman of the house is quite alien to our idea of a Radnorshire house-wife and when she claims the strange tramp as her husband-whom all thought lost at sea, we are immed- iately intrigued by the possibilities of the situation. We suspect that behind Lizbeth's lovely eyes there dwells a secret and when it becomes obvious that she and the stranger love each other, we are eager to discover her story. Perhaps the most convincing character in the book is old Adam Winter who does the outdoor work of the farm and looks after the sheep. As soon as Adam begins to speak we hear with pleasure the authentic Radnorshire way of talking which so rarely finds its way into print. He is ignorant of that world wlr'ch lies beyond his own neigh- bourhood and unconscious of, or indifferent to, events which do not affect him personally; yet he has a natural honesty and a native shrewdness typical of his kind In the local minister, Mr. Mundy, we have depicted the religious fanatic. These mountain districts frequently exhibit men of this type. In the midst of hard and sombiely romantic country it is not unusual to find amongst their pastors the rigid Sabbatarian and uncompromising zealot whose Celtic fervour, working in narrow ways, finds a vent in religious frenzies. Through Mundy's tormented passions we have a crisis forced upon Lizbeth and the way in which she and her supposed husband react to this tension forms the plot of the story. As we read on, the mysterious bog and what it may conceal be- comes more and more important. When Dr. Lethbridge the archaeologist