Brotherly Hate

Brotherly Hate

BROTHERS--L. A. G. Strong--Knobi ($2.50). , Along the rocky shores of the Western Highlands live hardy fishermen who catch lobsters in their naked hands, make Scotch moonshine in the veiling mists. With barnacle-like fervor they cling to the briny customs of their fathers. Silent (when sober) almost as clams, they are also prone to stew in their own juice. Peter Macrae is clever, his younger brother Fergus is strong. In all useful pursuits, fishing, seal-hunting, Fergus outstrips his brother. Peter hates him for his open disposition, his drunken glees with Captain Aeneas M'Grath, a roisterous old seadog who settles nearby. When Patriarch Hector Macrae dies soon after a terrible "rowing" to settle a family feud, Peter becomes patriarch in his stead, besets Fergus to his fall.

The feud had arisen because of Mary, their hired girl, who, failing Fergus, had gone a-loving elsewhere. Peter, who keeps a goat's eye on her himself, persuades Fergus that she has been the cause of their father's death, that she must be killed. On the day of the murder Peter feigns sick. Fergus loves Mary, but, under his brother's patriarchal command, he takes her out and drowns her. Convicted of murder, he is sentenced to penal servitude for life.

When, after long years, he wins a remission and returns home. Peter refuses to take him in. Fergus drinks holes in his stomach, himself into a hospital. On his recovery a priest forces Peter to let him come home. Fergus has at last caught on to Peter. He keeps a quarter of a mile distant from him whenever they walk the road to town. One day he catches up with his brother--a bull is kneeling on his crushed chest. The shock of Peter's death awakens the ulcer in Fergus' stomach, its starfish of pain begins to spread. He takes some drink to ease it, dies dreaming of dead friends and the sea. The Author. Englishman Leonard Alfred George Strong's first literary effort was a Chaucerian ballad about a sow named, after his grandmother, Amelia. This attracted his family's attention, but it was not until after he met up with Aldous Huxley, Robert Graves. Richard Hughes and Edmund Blunden at Oxford that his literary talent became widely recognized. A sometime theatrical cartoonist, ballad singer, actor, broadcaster, teacher, he now devotes all his time to writing. Other books: Dewer Rides, The Jealous Ghost, The English Captain, The Garden.

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