Читать книгу Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters - Daniel Stashower, Исмаил Шихлы - Страница 103

I suppose papa is with you by this time; I think his short sojourn in the country did him good, but he was in a fright about his ticket, which some stupid official said would not do for the return unless he went soon. Of course I advised him to have the ticket sent to you, and wait here while you inquired at headquarters about its validity, but he would not hear of it. So he departed yesterday. I had no warning or I would have written to tell you he was going.

Lottie and Conny have performed such a feat! They are the talk of all Brodick. They set out with me on Monday for Loch Ranza, which by the guidebook is 14, but by the united testimony of all the aborigines more than 15 miles away. We started at 9 o’clock, got there about 2, and were in Brodick again by 8. So that the youngsters did between 28 and 30 miles. An amusing adventure befell us on the way; Conny was slightly tired on the way there once; just about this time we passed a peat cutting wherein lay an old wheelbarrow, and as I knew that the owner must come from Loch Ranza, I did not scruple to clap the young woman in, and wheel her along for about quarter of a mile. Then we left the vehicle on a conspicuous place near the road. When returning I entered into conversation with a countryman, and as we passed the cutting I told him as a joke what we had done, and said ‘That’s the barrow, which that old woman has over there.’ To my horror he answered with a broad grin ‘Oh aye, th’ auld wuman is just my wife, and the barry’s my barry.’ He was very good natured and laughed at the way I had insulted his wife & his ‘barry’.

I am not sure if I told you that I am bringing an interesting family of 10 young vipers home with me. A pretty plaything for old Duff. I need, I think, scarcely bring my old football boots home. They are a sight for ‘men to wonder at, not to see’. The soles are off, the uppers broken, and all in rags.

I met no less a person than Dr Joseph Bell in Brodick yesterday.* I wonder what he is doing here.

[P.S.] We all went out fishing last night in the brook, with a very original & primitive apparatus. However I managed to catch two fine trout, which we ate for supper. I suppose if we leave on Saturday it will be soon enough. I have paid her for our rent for this week, up to Thursday; the grub is the only thing I need to pay for, then 4s for the two extra nights. However one more pound will pay all that and take us home into the bargain. Did you notice in the ‘Scotsman’ that the sea serpent had been seen close to Brodick here, off the Sannox rock?*

In the spring of 1878, Arthur undertook his first assistantship, with a Dr Charles Sidney Richardson of Nelson Terrace, 80 Spital Hill, Sheffield. ‘When I first set forth to do this,’ Conan Doyle said in Memories and Adventures, ‘my services were so obviously worth nothing that I had to put that valuation upon them.’ This policy he would come to regret, though he also allowed, ‘Even then it might have been a hard bargain for the doctor, for I might have proved like the youth in Pickwick who had a rooted idea that oxalic acid was Epsom salts. However, I had horse sense enough to save myself and my employer from any absolute catastrophe.’

His first outing as an assistant ended unhappily nonetheless. He was young and had too few medical or apothecary skills to be a good assistant to Dr Richardson. ‘I did my best, and I dare say he was patient,’ Conan Doyle acknowledged, ‘but at the end of three weeks we parted by mutual consent.’

He then went to London, staying with his aunts and uncles. ‘I fear that I was too Bohemian for them and they too conventional for me. However, they were kind to me, and I roamed about London for some time with pockets so empty that there was little chance of idleness breeding its usual mischief.’ This visit included a glimpse of a British war hero, later Field Marshal Wolseley, in whose honour a banquet would be chaired one day by the famous author A. Conan Doyle; another play with Henry Irving; a concert by a brilliant violinist; and a report to Lottie and Connie that could have been written by Dr Seuss.