SOME RECENT FICTION.

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 300, 7 September 1918, Page 11

SOME RECENT FICTION.

"Whore England Sets Her Feet." "Where England Sets Her Feet," by Bernard Capes (W. Collins; Sons, and Co.), is n well-written story, the principal scenes of which are laid in a lonely moorland district in.Devon during those "spacious" Elizabethan days when the Don was England's bitter enemy, the days of Drake and lialeigh and many other gallant adventurers who sailed westward ho in.search of glory and booty at the expense of the Spaniard. Tho hero of Iho story, Brion Middloton, is an illegitimate son of (he proud Earl of. Leicester, who .treats the la'd's mother, a Devonshire lady of good family, as heartlessly as the Leicester of "Kenilworth" treated the lovely but ill-fated Amy.-Eobsart. Young Drion resides' with his uncle, once a famous Judge, but broken for having accepted a bribe, in a lonely old.house,, the Moated Grange, oiice the home of a. retired buccaneer. When still in his 'teens lirion falls under tho influence of Raleigh, a very picturesque, if scarcely convincing, figure in the story, and the scene changes-to tho West Indies. .Returning to England the hero finds that his uncle, long suspected of being a Papist, is dead, and that, a cunning adventurer,■ "masquoradjuij us a Jesuit priest,, has robbed the young man of part at'least of his heritage. By the time, bowever, the final chapter is reached. Mr. Canes provides his hero with both a,bride and a lanre. fortune, .the long hidden treasure of the old buccaneer. The story' is, 'perhaps, a trifle too loismely told at first, but once , the author gets into bis stride, as it were, the narrative displays a greater vigour, and the West .Indian and final scenes display some, vividly picturesque colour. A minor character, Brion's faithful servant.. Olairevault. a man of French descent, but. in his sturdy patriotism more English than were many Englishmen-of-the-.time, is a fascinating figure. The historical colour of the story is excellent, the famous Sir Richard Orouvillo. as noil as Raleigh and Leicester, being amonir the characters. "Where England Sets Hor Feet" can be confidently, recommended to those who like a welltold" historical romance.-