John Buchan

Sir Quixote of the Moors (1895), by John Buchan

Sir Quixote of the Moors, a dramatic incident in the life of Sieur Rohaine, is a tale full of interest from the time of the Frenchman's escape from the robbers of the Scottish moors to the almost tragic ending of his love for Anne. The reader unconsciously forgets the father and Master Henry Temple in their distressful surroundings, and hopes that a providence will intervene, disastrous as it may be to others, to make it fit and proper for Jean and Anne to confess their love. Much is left to the imagination, but the story goes on with a swing that fairly makes one catch his breath, up to the last sentence- " 'Recreant fool!' and I turned back." The old French proverb, that the Devil when he spoils a German in the making turns him into a Scot, is hardly proven by Jean's attitude to his Scotch lassie. The story is particularly well told and although the scene is laid in Scotland, there is so little of the Scotch brogue in it that the friends of literature and Scotch dialect may well begin to tremble. Can it be possible that the use of the English language is to be resumed?