Sir Nigel. By Arthur Conan Doyle. (Smith, Elder, and Co,
.6s.)—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's new story will appeal specially to those readers who, like the distinguished author himself, live in Surrey. It is impossible to help being attracted by descrip- tions of what happened in the fourteenth century in country roads and scenes that one knows well, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is so careful an historian that readers may rely implicitly upon his facts. It would be interesting to know exactly which of the existing tracks on or near the North Downs Sir Arthur takes to have been the Pilgrims' Way. The author gives a very spirited account of his hero's journey along this famous road, thronged with pedestrians, merchants, and passers-by of every sort, but he does not clearly establish its course. The first part of the book, which is concerned with the hero's adventures in England, is very much more interesting than that which deals with the wars in France, though the description of the "stricken field" of Poiotiers is exciting, and also, what all descriptions of betide axe not, quite intelligible to the lay reader. The book is a painstaking attempt to reproduce the life of the fourteenth century, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle deserves the gratitude of the reader for his careful study of the manners of the time.
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