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Very pathetic, and marked by some distinctively Antipodean traits, is the sister of the bushrangers in Robbery under Arms. Aileen Marston has the strong self-reliance and independence which are born of the exigencies, as well as of the free life, of the country. She and her brothers represent much of what is best in Boldrewood's portrayal of native character.
The personal observation strongly marked in all Boldrewood's novels has in Robbery under Arms its fullest, as well as most skilful, expression. As a squatter, the author had seen the practices of the cattle-thief, and learned his language.
Gordon was a mounted policeman, a horse-breaker, a steeplechase-rider anything but a professional man of letters; Marcus Clarke was a journalist and playwright, and wrote only two novels in fourteen years; Rolf Boldrewood's books were written in spare hours before and after his daily duties as a country magistrate; Henry Kingsley returned to England before publishing anything; Kendall held a Government clerkship which he exchanged for journalism; Mr.
They repressed Boldrewood's usual tendency to excessive detail, and kept his attention closely fixed on the drama of the story.
Where the weakness of some of Boldrewood's characters is not due to deficiency of interest in them on the part of the author, it is the result of an attempt to copy life with an accuracy which sacrifices picturesqueness. The attempt to preserve absolute truth in every detail of the life-story of John Redgrave, the hero of The Squatter's Dream, seems distinctly a case in point.
At the same time, no such considerations can detract from the sterling merits of Rolf Boldrewood's actual services to Australian literature.
Redgrave, she remarks on his return after a day's riding over the station with her brother; 'yesterday the sheep were lost to-day the sheep are found; so passes our life on the Warroo. The best argument against Boldrewood's usual treatment of character is furnished by the great bushranger chief who is the central figure in Robbery under Arms.
Moreover, the latter, in their monotonous and circumscribed life, lacked much of the mystery and romance so vital to the novel of adventure. But when this has been admitted in Boldrewood's favour, there still remains a broader charge to which he is liable. The fault is purely one of judgment.
The author here submits for the first and only time to that fundamental law of fiction which demands a certain judicious exaggeration in the characters of a story depending for its interest mainly on the charm of circumstance. Starlight is at once the most real and least possible personage to be found in any of Boldrewood's novels.
In The Miner's Right, which ranks second in popularity among Boldrewood's novels, the personal narrative style is again adopted, but with little effect of the kind produced by Dick Marston's vivid directness in the earlier novel.
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