e days.

The young Scot and his stanch and proudly tearless mother are, of
course, the heroic characters in the play. We have a hint that
Charles Edward Stuart himself is with the band whom the young man
protects so loyally. It may seem strange that the drama is named,
not for him, but for the crafty and pitiless executioner of the
king's justice. But he is after all the most interesting
character in the piece, with his Biblical references in broad
Lowland Scots (we may suppose that the Stewarts speak Gaelic
among themselves), his superstition, his remorseless cruelty. We
should like to see how he takes the discovery that, perhaps for
the first time, he has been baffled in his career of unscrupulous
and bloody deeds!

This play represents the most successful work of the Glasgow
Repertory Theatre in 1914. The author has written no others which
have been published, though he is credited with a good story or
two. It may be hoped that he will write other dramas as excellent
as this one. He has put into very brief and effective form here
the spirit and idea of a most intense period of merciless
conflict.

A _kebbuck_ is a cheese; _keek_ means peek; _toom_, empty; a
_besom_, a broom; and _soop_, sweep.

_John Galsworthy_: THE SUN

According to Professor Lewisohn and other critics Mr. Galsworthy
is without question the foremost English dramatist to-day.
Without arguing or attempting to offer solutions, he gives the
most searching presentation of problems which we have to face and
somehow settle. In _Strife_, after a furious contest and bitter
hardships, the strike is settled by a compromise which the
leaders of both sides count as failure. Things are much as they
were at the start; the difficulty is no nearer solution. In
_Justice_, "society stamps out a human life not without its fair
possibilities--for eighty-one pounds," because obviously clear
and guilty infraction of law cannot go unavenged. Justice is not
condemned by the facts shown in this play, nor is its working
extolled. In _The Mob_, the patrioteering element destroys a man
who proclaims the injustice of a small and greedy war of
conquest. In _The Pigeon_, brilliant debate is held, but no
conclusion reached, as to what we should do with derelict and
wasted lives, with men who do not fit into the scheme of success
and society.

In his sketches and stories Mr. Galsworthy presents these same
problems, and again without attempted conclusions. _The
Freelan