The White Company by Arthur Conan Doyle

On Kindle via Project Gutenburg

It was for historical novels such as this that Doyle wished to be remembered rather than the detective who he tried in vain to kill.   I had read this when I was a boy and could not resist the chance to re-discover it and I am pleased to say that to me it stands the test of time.   The story concerns a young man who was put into a monastery as a boy with the proviso that he must leave on attaining his twentieth birthday and spend a year in the world at large before deciding to take the vows that would commit him to the monastery for life.   Returning to his familly home he is spurned by his brother and turned off the familly farm.   By chance he falls in with a group of soldiers who are heading for France to join the "White Company " under the command of a famous knight, Sir Nigel, and fight under the banner of the Black Prince.  
I enjoyed this book but perhaps not quite as much as when I read it so many years ago.   The dialogue was the main problem.   Written in the style that all authors of the nineteenth and early twentieth century used to convey "ancient speak", until it was taken to the point of self-parody by Jeffrey Farnol, the contrast with modern historical novelists was most marked.   However, this will not prevent me from reading the sequel, Sir Nigel, or any other of Conan Doyle's wonderful novels.