of Shropshire folk, with a background of actual scenery, a
very liberal garnish of dialect, and photographs of houses and towns. The result ought to be curiously vivid ; but we fear that that intention has not been fully realised. One of the reasons is perhaps the use of photographs, which, always emphatically modern, come here, among tales of witchcraft and elemental passion, with a discpncerting incongruity. But even were there no triumphs of the camera to impart a bizarre effect, we doubt if the book could be called quite successful, for the author, gifted though she is, has rather stated the case than proved it. To narrate the strange traditional happenings of the Shropshire countryside is not enough; they must be made to live again, and the perform- ance of such a feat is, we fear, beyond Lady Catherine Milnes Gaskell's art. Witches, murderers, and women dominated by a white-hot passion are kittle-cattle, needing great powers of imagina- tion in the novelist who would make them persuasive and credible. Lady Catherine Milnes Gaskell does little more than record their existence. This she does very capably, though with a thought too much of the melodramatic spirit ; as, for example :—" Then with a horrible curse, like the howl of a wild beast, the gipsy, followed by the old crone, who suddenly seemed to possess mar- vellous agility, leapt out of the window into the darkness. `Young bones in old bags,' exclaimed the idiot boy, and continued to fill his pockets with cakes and apples!' The book, however, has lighter and more composed moments, and now and then there is a really humorous touch, as when old Sakes sums up the sex: " They be silly things, be women ; birdy-brained, not a Latin name about 'em." In the glossary at the end are some admirably forcible and descriptive words, such as " nottamy," a thin, meagre person ; " oont," a mole (very different from Mr. Kipling's use of the word ! ) ; " scrimmer," a niggardly person ; " scrimmity," mean, stingy; and " waeny-wanty," irregular in shape.
Previous page
