TUCK OF DRUM, AND OTHER STORIES, By Alfred Tresidder Sheppard.
(Hodder and Stoughton. 7s. As a writer of short stories Mr. A. T. Sheppard sometimes falls between two stools. He does not appear to airn at the neatly parcelled plot of the popular magazine story : yet he is ill at ease without it. His episodes are not significant enough in themselves, and his characters are but superficially studied. He is finally debarred from the better type of short story by his vocabulary and his overblown romantic style. A middle-aged man hears the voice of the sea, addressing gay youth upon the pier. "'Ay, enjoy yourselves, rejoice in your youth now; for the lights will all be put out, and music will die away, and moths will feed on pretty clothing, and you brown-faced lads and dainty lasses will lie in the dustheaps of this earth you tread so gaily. . . . ' There had seemed, sometimes, a sob in the tired old voice, never silent since God gathered all the waters and let their names be Seas."
Previous page
