"SILVER STRAND."

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2241, 29 August 1914, Page 5

"SILVER STRAND."

In "Silver Strand" (Hodder and Stoughton, per S.ahd W. Maokay), the late Mt.'.'S. E. Crockett went .back?to the scene and period of. those early and delightful Galloway stones, ''"Hi© Raiders", and "The Grey Man." The story, which is placed in the mouth of Nathan Crego, "sometime schoolmaster and parish clerk in Le&walt' (or Saulseat), -in tho. Rhynns of Galloway," and is thereby tinged by an archaic flavour -r-a touch of; what Stevenson called ' a, .lino,. full-Mooded romance of those full-Wooded Rimes' when Claverhouse and his dragoons; were, the terror 1 of the; Lowlands, and when John Faa,'a gipsy, who claimed to be of the blood royal of Egypt, and His rascally brother, Hector, were feared or beloved by the countryside folk. John Faa. becomes,, Silver Sand—from hie business of "carrying sytlie sand down from the straths of the mountain ilochs 'where no .other dares venture," ' and .helps the Sheriff Principal' of .the County, Sir '■ Andrew Agnew, and his outlawed son, against Claverhouse and his men. There is, of course, a romantic love Gtbry to vary the ■semi-historical colour, and Mr. Crockett has provided his readers with a most bountiful supply of "bouny fechtio." and pretty love-making, the whole against a very picturesque background. It is a pity that the hand which Denned so weliconstructed and readable a story should have been stilled for ever by death, especially as this last novel of Mr. Crockett's 'is so much stronger stuff than one or two of its immediate predecessors.