Читать книгу Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters - Daniel Stashower, Исмаил Шихлы - Страница 24

We were out skating yesterday, I got 48 tumbles, which would have broken anybodys head except a schoolboys; we are to go again this evening. If you have any more stamps, send them; dont tire yourself by writing too often.

The durability of Conan Doyle’s skull would be tested many more times as his passion for skating and other sports grew. Meanwhile, though he remained upbeat in his letters home, he began to find school dreary and monotonous. ‘The life was Spartan,’ he later wrote. ‘Dry bread and hot well-watered milk was our frugal breakfast. There was a ‘joint’ and twice a week a pudding for dinner. Then there was an odd snack called ‘bread and beer’ in the afternoon, a bit of dry bread and the most extraordinary drink, which was brown but had no other characteristic of beer. Finally there was hot milk again, bread, butter, and often potatoes for supper. We were all very healthy on this régime, with fish on Fridays. Everything in every way was plain to the verge of austerity.’

Against this backdrop, Father Cassidy’s little acts of kindness toward the boys like the one mentioned below gave Conan Doyle a lasting sense of gratitude toward him that he expressed in letters late in the priest’s life.