BOOKS OF THE DAY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3854, 24 January 1928, Page 74

BOOKS OF THE DAY.

COVENANTING DAYS.

Witch Wood.” By John Buchan. (Cloth, 7s Gd net.) London: Hodder and Stoughton.

Religion and superstition are the two forces that shape the events described in the story of the minister of Woodilee, a parish between the Scotch midlands and the Border country. In a prologue the author compares the Woodilee he knows—prim, cultivated, without a hint of mystery—with the Woodilee in which the Rev.' David Sempill began his pastorate, with no roads but horse tracks over hill and brae and bog, and the great gloomy wood oi Melanudrigill shrouding the encircling hills, In his childhood old people still told tales of the vanished forest that long ago provided shelter for deer, and for witches and warlocks and fairies, and in the midst of a farmer’s turnip field, pointed out the spring where the minister of Woodilee left the earth to live in fairy land. The tale here unfolded purports to give the. true history of David Sempill’s pastorate and disappearance.

The Rev. David. Sempill began his ministry at Woodilee, his first charge, in the year 1644, when battle was being waged between the forces of the League and Covenant and those of the Marquis of Montrose,, whom Covenanters hated as one who had betrayed their cause. The minister is a man of peace, more anxious to preach the Gospel and attend tj the duties of a country minister than to concern himself with the political disputes of the day. Chance procures him a meeting with Montrose himself, who, with two companions, is guided by David to the house of the Laird of Calidon, a sort of Border keep, but i* is only later that David discovers the identity of the wandering soldier who had interested him. At Calidon, too, he catches a glimpse of the Laird’s niece, Katrine, who later on in the history is seen by Woodilee people in her green woodland dress talking with the minister in the Melanudrigill woods, and is taken for a fairy. After some time in his parish David is disturbed by evidences of gross sin among his people. He finds that many qf them, including people to all appearances devout, are in the habit of consorting -in the wood and holding orgies, which are in fact a revival of ancient pagan revelries. He discovers an old altar dating back to Roman times, which has been restored and put to its ancient uses. David, filled with horror, feels himself called like a Hebrew prophet to denounce and tear up the evil by. its roots, but he is astonished and chilled by the indifference of nearly all to whom he. speaks of the matter. * All, including his brother ministers, prefer to ignore the eanker that is destroying

the souls of his people. David, with only one ally as witness, breaks up the horrible revels one night an ' denounces those against whom he has clear proof of being participants, and (thereby brings himself into general odium. The secret love attachment of a pure and romantic nature between the poor minister and the fair maiden of Calidon begins through David enlisting her aid to help him in sheltering in the wood a disabled friend of her uncle’s and associate of Montrose. Later on Woodilee and the surrounding country are afflicted by the plague. David devotes himself to succouring the sick, and Katrine aids him, to fall a victim to an aftermath of the plague when it seems to have worn itself out. David is summoned before the Kirk on charges of unorthodoxy and abetting the enemies of the Kirk, and is.formally deposed and excommunicated. Aided by friends, he leaves Woodilee for a kinder land beyond the sea, and his disappearance, with the troublesome events that have preceded it, give rise to legends, one representing him as having been carried off by devils, another as having gone to live in fairyland. As in all Mr Buchan’s stories the atmosphere of the time is revived with convincing realism. SOCIAL CONTRASTS. “An Unofficial Rose.” By Mary Marlowe. (Cloth, 6s local price.) London: W. Collins Sons and Co. Per Robertson and Mullens, Melbourne. The heroine of this brightly written story by a popular Australian author is the illegitimate child of a servant girl, a handsome, easy-natured, utterly nonmoral young woman who has lately come out alone from her native Wales to try her fortunes in Australia. She is employed by Stephen Lee and his wife Helen, who have a pleasant country home, “ Pinehurst,” by a village within hail of Melbourne. Helen, who had married late in life, is childless, and the mother hunger in her heart prompts her to adopt the stray infant, though she first does her best, vainly, to get the mother, Fanny Brown, respectably married and awakened to a proper sense of her maternal duties. Eighteen months la.ter Fanny, still in the employ of the kindly Lees, has another child, a bov, as vigorous as the first child had been small and puny, and the half-brother and sister, separated for many years, are destined to come into close touch under dramatic circumstances in England. Before Charmian, as the foundling has been christened, is old enough to remember her Australian surroundings, Stephen Lee comes into family property in Kent, England, where he and his wife take up their, residence, and Charmian has an English upbringing, with two years at a Belgian convent school after' the war. Only a few near connections are aware that she is an adopted daughter. She comes home from her foreign school and travels at Hie age of 18, overflowing with health and the zest of life; self-centred, thoughtless, and apparently quite commonplace, though the sequel shows that she has the makings of strong character in her. A cousin of Stephen’s, Archie Lee, had been unexpectedly dispossessed by the discovery of the' forgotten representative of the Lee family in Australia, and Charmian’s foster parents and other connections hope that contending interests will be settled by her marriage to Archie. The latter, however, is deeply, though as it seems hopelessly, in love with another woman, Keith Alain, while Charmian is attracted by another voung man, Rodney Coombe, who also belongs to a country family. Ultimately the twoare engaged, and soon after, Charmian, who has captured London society and had her portrait painted by the foremost portrait painter of the day, loses almost at once her foster parents, and learns tlie truth of her antecedents. She has already at Margate made acquaintance with the members of a vaudeville company of acrobats, one of whom is her half-brother. Society receives a shock worse than the revelation of Charmian’s ignoble origin when she appears at the Glamorganshire assizes as witness for the defence of her half-brother, who has killed the rival in business and in love w-ho had. treacherously sought to bring about his death during a performance. The provocation being proved, Max gets °fi with six months for manslaughter. Charmian, determining to have done with disguises and pretences, goes to Australia to live at Pinehurst, which has been left to her. On the discovery of her origin she had written to her'fiance Rodney, breaking off their but hoping that his love would be strong enough for him to insist on its immediate fulfilment. She is disappointed, though a little later repents of having let her go, and follows her to Australia. Charmian’s mother is still living in the village near Pinehurst, her lax life being condoned in virtue of her merits as a charwoman, and Charmian installs her at Pinehurst and acknowledges her as her, mother, conduct which Fanny accepts as her due, quite without gratitude. A nephew of Helen Lee who manages Pinehurst had as a boy played with the little Charmian, and after a period of uncertainty on Charmian’s part she finds happiness with him in a land where class distinctions and social antecedents count for less than in England. It is a pleasant, wholesome story. All the characters are well drawn and convincing, and talk and act with perfect naturalness, while the local colour, particularly in the Australian scenes and those showing the members of the vaudeville company

performing and behind the scenes, is excellent. Decidedly a book to be popular.

SOUTH AMERICAN JUNGLES. “ Black River.” By Neville Brand. (Cloth, 7s 6d net.) London: John Lane (the Bodley Head).

This is a well-written story of adventure in the back country of a a tropical South American republic. It is told in the first person, by Franklin Emerson, who at the time it begins is wearying of life in a dull city mercantile office. He has been a seafaring man, but after the war found himself without a ship and with no likelihood of getting another—"half the rivers in England .were cluttered up with ships, real big ships, which had been laid up because there were no cargoes going. The Dart and the Fal were more like graveyards than rivers.” So he was glad to accept his friend Peter Cardew’s suggestion that he should try office work for a change. Sent by Peter, a stranger of arresting and enigmatic personality appears in Emerson’s office one morning, introducing himself as Hugh Tressel, and appearing to take it as a foregone conclusion that Emerson will return with him to Black River in Guarany to assist him in his enterprises. He has spent 20 years in the region, has acquired property on the Rio Negro—which he prefers to call Black River—and commands the trade of the region Emerson decides to accept the adventure, and at Montevideo embarks with Tressel on his yacht, which is furnished with guns. He finds Tressel carries on his activities, whatever they may be, by means of motor boats and a seaplane. At “ the House of the Snake,” Tressel’s residence on the Black River, Emerson is introduced to Mrs Tressel, generally styled “ Madame,” a grotesque mountainous figure of a woman, but a. decided personality and a staunch ally of her husband, and to the pretty little girl-wif e of the secretary, Campard. Emerson goes on expeditions a couple of hundred mile s up the river, and learns the realities of tropical forest, with its stagnant gloom, its myriads of leeches and poisonous insects of all kinds waiting to bite and sting the human intruder, swarms of butterflies that feed on muck, and livid looking blossoms—“ the whole world there seeming to rot, to be sinking down into decay and at the same time rising up afresh, tree pushing tree, vines climbing and throttling without mercy.” After six comparatively uneventful months varied for Emerson by an attack of fever, things begin to happen. The secretary’s wife runs away with the Spanish pilot of the seaplane, and falls into the hands of hostile Indians, who are incensed by Tressel’s interference in their country. A long up-river pursuit by Tressel and a struggle through the stagnant jungle follow. Tressel’s party is captured by the jealous natives, who purpose putting their captives to death according to ancient Indian rites, an Indian girl who has had mission training, but relapsed to heathenism, officiating as priestess. Rescu e come s in the nick of time through the resources of one of Tressel’s associates. An unexpected love denouement provides a happy conclusion. A SPIRITED ROMANCE. “ The Inn of the Hawk and Raven.” A I ale of Old Graustark. By George Barr M’Cutcheon. (Cloth, 7 S 6d net.) London: John Lane (the Bodley HeaJ).

Mr M'Cutcheon has already written several tales of the imaginary Principality of Graustark, conveniently situated somewhere in the Balkans, where there are forests and mountains and age-long traditions of predatory strife and lawlessness to provide material for weaving romantic narratives. “ The Inn of the Hawk and Raven ” was no more, no less than the King’s highway through the sombre, forbidding Forest of Droon, lying darkly between the frontier and the fortified town of Ganlook on the road to Edelweiss ’’—the capital of the principality. And on this highway Jonifer Davos, a bandit chief, who has a secret stronghold in the bills, levies toll on travellers. He, has allies y in the peasants of the region, and still more useful allies in the capital who give him information as to the travelling movements of wealthy people who have to pass by “ the Inn of the Hawk and Raven.” One of these is his own sister, the Countess Jabassey, who with her poor-spirited husband lives in ease and comfort on their share of spoils taken on the King’s highway. In Jenifer’s fastness his lovely, suirited, and somewhat shrewish daughter Gerane grows up to the age of 19, a little queen among tne clanspeople. Her adventurous spirit leads her into exciting adventures, and fortune brings romance to her when her fattier captures Colonel Starcourt of’the Graustarkian Dragoons, and makes him oyer to Gerane as her servant. She employs him to teach her English, and in a very short time the two ar e in love though Gerane at first show’s the canricious, shrewish side of her nature to the captive. There is attack on Jenifer’s stronghold and rebellion among his adherents, and the sway of the line of the predatory house of Davos comes to an end with his life, while a new life opens to Gerane and her captive knight. The story is told in a spirited, racy style, and will please readers who like ’a well-told tal e of romance and adventure.