Britta, a Shetland Romance, by George Temple (Ishister), is a
really powerful story. It professes to be a chapter in the autobio- graphy of Thomas Jack, a Scotch clergyman who settles in a Shetland parish—Mr. Temple writes of the Shetland of forty years ago—and passes for rich on £150 a year. His circumstances make him intimate with the families of Jerome Arena, the " laird " of his parish, and of Magnus Halcrow, an essentially Norwegian crofter, and, indeed, vassal of Arens. There appears on the scene Jim Areas,
the rebellious eon of Jerome, a sailor of the old law-defying, Berserkir, pagan stamp, who calls the minister "Jack " to his face, mocks him, drinks his spirits by tumblers, and contracts a private marriage with hie assistant-housekeeper, Britta Halorow. A terrible quarrel takes place between the laird and the crofter, the elder Arms being found at the bottom of a cliff dead, with a knife near the place from which he must have fallen or been hurled. Halorow, Ore, is not unnaturally accused of and tried for what seems a murder. He would be condemned too, but for the eleventh-how appearance in the witness-box at Edin- burgh of Britta Halorow, who adequately explains how the knife happens to be at the top of the cliff. All ends well, for the enfant terrible, Jim, is drowned, and Mr. Jack, having given his widow, Britta, a decent education, marries her,—a rather improbable event, by the way. Mr. Temple reproduces the Shetland dialect admirably, and certain local "customs," such as that of "the gnisers," are illustrated vividly and realistically. Jim Areas, too, is a strong personality. If Mr. Temple has merely read up Shetland literature for Britta, he has read it very thoroughly, although we should say this is improbable, if not impos- sible. Britta, however it may have been constructed, is a thoroughly original and artistic story.
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