The Scotch character is held up in this story at its worst. All its harshness, love of money, unconscious hypocrisy, which believes in lip-service while serving but its own self, are concentrated in the figure of the old spinster who takes charge of her invalid brother’s household. She finds a match, however, in the Scotch servant she hires, hard like herself, but with the undemonstrative kindness that seems to be a virtue of the race. The book lacks the charm that lies at the root of the popularity of the books of the “Kailyard” school. In its disagreeable way, however, it is consistent, though the melodramatic climax is not the ending one has a right to expect.—The Mail and Express, June 21, 1899.
Captain Jackman
By W. CLARK RUSSELL
240 pages, size 7½ × 5, cloth, 3 stampings, $1.00
Clark Russell in “Captain Jackman” has told a good story of the strange conduct of a ship’s master, who starts out with a fake robbery by which he realizes £1500. The account of his peculiar courtship and the still more peculiar acceptance of his offer by the daughter of a retired naval commander is scarcely credible, but it is readable and the tragic end is not improbable. It is a mere short story, expanded by large type into a volume.
—San Francisco Chronicle, July 9, 1899.
“Captain Jackman; or, A Tale of Two Tunnels,” is a story by W. Clark Russell, not so elaborate in plot as some of his stories, or so full of life on the sea, but some of the characters are sailors, and its incidents are of the ocean, if not on it. Its hero is dismissed from the command of a ship by her owners, because of his loss of the proceeds of a voyage, which they evidently think he had appropriated to himself. The heroine discovers him in and rescues him from a deserted smuggler’s cave, where he had by some mischance imprisoned himself. He handsome, she romantic as well, they fall in love with each other. Her father, a retired commander of the Royal navy, storms and swears to no purpose, for she elopes with the handsome captain, who starts on an expedition to capture a Portuguese ship laden with gold—a mad scheme, conceived as it appears by a madman, which accounts for his curious and unconventional ways,
—Bookseller, Newsdealer and Stationer, July, 15, 1899.
It is readable, interesting, and admirable in its technical skill. Mr. Russell, without apparent effort, creates an atmosphere of realism. His personages are often drawn with a few indicative strokes, but this can never be said of his central figures. In the present little story the fascinating personality of Captain Jackman stands our very clearly. He is a curious study, and the abnormal state of his mind is made to come slowly into the recognition of the reader just as it does into that of old Commander Conway, R. N. This is really a masterly bit of story-craft, for it is to this that the maintenance of the interest of the story is due. The reader does not realize at first that he is following the fortunes of a madman, but regards Jackman as a brilliant adventurer. The denouement is excellently brought about, although it gives the tale its sketchy character.—N. Y. Times, July 1, 1899.
A Rogue’s Conscience