The Pilots of Pomona. By Robert Leighton. (Blackie and Son.)
—This is " a story of the Orkney Islands," Pomona being another name for " Mainland," the largest of the group. It is supposed to be told by one of the actors in the little drama, Halcro, son of Sandy Ericson, chief pilot of the island. A capital story it is, with plenty of adventure, and no more admixture of sentiment than the exigencies of tale-writing seem to require. Halcro and his companions discover a treasure, always a taking incident in fiction, and this treasure is ingeniously contrived to bring the fortunes of the various personages concerned to an appropriate issue. We may perhaps be allowed to suggest that the corpses which Halcro discovered in the ' Pilgrim,' could hardly have been, after thirteen years, in so good a state of preservation, seeing that
it had been drifting about in the open sea for at least a considerable part of that time. A buried corpse will remain unchanged in Arctic latitudes for many years, but it must be buried where the earth never thaws. The detail is not necessary for the due working out of the plot. Halcro is made to tell his story without either boasting or affectation of modesty,—not always easy when a tale of adventure has to be put into the first person.
Previous page
