Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters. Daniel Stashower

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      Cricket began yesterday; I am in the 1^st match, and am in the middle of a match, the 4 best against the rest. I have not much news; a father named Father postleskite is dying. I am getting on nicely. I am horridly tired, so good by

      to Mary Doyle STONYHURST

      I have just received another letter from Tottie. I hope you enjoy yourself in the country, you will be further from the Pentlands than before, for if. I am not mistaken there was no road that way. Has Papa to walk in to office every day if so I pity him. I must now stop & ask you to write soon to your ever loving son

      Tired as he was, Conan Doyle could not help but notice that letters from Edinburgh conveyed a sense that all was not well at home. Charles Doyle’s behaviour was becoming increasingly erratic as he succumbed to alcoholism, and the income from his surveyor’s post was no longer reliable. ‘His thoughts were always in the clouds and he had no appreciation of the realities of life,’ Conan Doyle remarked in Memories and Adventures without discussing his father’s problems directly in public. It was left to Mary Doyle to cope with what he called ‘the realities of life’, particularly the raising of the large family. She did so, including changing addresses in Edinburgh at least six times before young Conan Doyle reached the age of eleven, in a search for more affordable quarters.

      In London, where the prosperous Doyles lived, he had a number of aunts, but the ‘Auntie’ referred to in the next letter was probably Annette, his father’s sister, who never married and so took a special interest in the boy, eleven years old now.

      to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, AUTUMN 1870

      I received a nice kind note from Auntie today, they are all well in London, she says you are the best correspondent she ever saw. she sent a little ornamented card with the names of some Marquise’s ancestors, she praises Tots up to the skies.

      I am very happy now, but I miss Cony’s laugh sometimes I hope you are all more or less well.

      I am taking care of my clothes. that big coat is grand. I always wear it now as the weather is chilly, and it never gets dirty, every dirt flies off it. I am so glad I brought the sardines and jam it is so pleasant after a hard day’s study to sit down to sardines & tea I like having tea & coffee awfully. I keep a diary I am continually using my chalks, they are jolly

      to Mary Doyle STONYHURST

      we had a dreadfully long walk about a week ago, 25 miles, really I am quite in earnest, 25 miles and such a walk—across rivers, and ditches & hedges—we went nearly up to the top of Pendle. we were awfully tired, and had to change all our clothes on coming in. we had to wade in water above our knees often, and once we crossed a very rapid stream about a yard deep & 5 yards wide by getting from the branches at one side of the stream on to the top of a tree on the other side. Guibara who is small, gave up after walking 15 miles but I and a lot of fellows made a litter out of some branches and carried him about 2 miles till luckily a small dog cart passed us, and we put him into it & he drove off to Stonyhurst.

      to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, OCTOBER 31, 1870

I have just been telling some of the fellows the grey man of the forest which you told me several years ago.* The compositions are next Monday. I am composing poetry in a large theme book. I copy a part of 1 of the pieces

      A STUDENTS DREAM

      1

       The Student he lay on his narrow bed he dreamt not of the morrow confused thoughts they filled his head and he dreamt of his home with sorrow

      2

       The Student he lay on his narrow bed all round dark was the night the stars they twinkled above his head and the moon it shone quite bright

      3

       He thought of the birch’s stinging stroke and he thought with fear on the morrow he wriggled and tumbled and nearly awoke and again he sighed with sorrow

      His letters do not tell how much Stonyhurst employed corporal punishment to enforce order and discipline. He received more than his share, for he was long deemed an insubordinate, rebellious boy by his schoolmasters, but he seems never to have described punishments in letters home (which may have been read by school authorities before being posted). Only this poem, and a later comment about overcoming the sulkiness and ill temper his masters had charged him with, allude meaningfully to what he described in Memories and Adventures:

      Corporal punishment was severe, and I can speak with feeling as I think few, if any, boys of my time endured more of it. It was of a peculiar nature, imported also, I fancy, from Holland. The instrument was a piece of india-rubber of the size and shape of a thick boot sole. This was called a ‘Tolley’—why, no one has explained, unless it is a Latin pun on what we had to bear. One blow of this instrument, delivered with intent, would cause the palm of the hand to swell up and change colour. When I say that the usual punishment of the larger boys was nine on each hand, and that nine on one hand was the absolute minimum, it will be understood that it was a severe ordeal, and that the sufferer could not, as a rule, turn the handle of the door to get out of the room in which he had suffered. To take twice nine upon a cold day was about the extremity of human endurance.

      The budding poet soon found uses for his talents. He began to be aware of ‘some literary streak’ setting him apart from others. ‘There was my debut as a storyteller,’ he later told an interviewer: ‘On a wet half-holiday I have been elevated onto a desk, and with an audience of little boys all squatting on the floor, with their chins upon their hands, I have talked myself husky over the misfortunes of my heroes. Week in and week out those unhappy men have battled and striven and groaned for the amusement of that little circle.’ Even at his tender age he expected payment for his efforts. ‘I was bribed with pastry,’ he recalled. ‘Sometimes, too, I would stop dead in the very thrill of a crisis, and could only be set a-going again by apples. When I had got so far as ‘With his left hand in her glossy locks, he was waving the blood-stained knife above her head, when—’I knew that I had my audience in my power.’

      As it happened, the young storyteller was introduced about now to Sir Walter Scott, a writer who would inspire even greater flights of fancy.

      to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, NOVEMBER 25, 1870

Your letter has just come I beg of you not to take any trouble doing stockings for me, and I assure you I am quite well. I was in the infirmary yesterday but it was only because I threw up from the heat of the chapel. I have had a good rest and Ann brought me Ivanhoe to read, and now I feel jolly.* I will try and write longer letters now.

      Many hurrahs for the stamps some of which I had not got and for 5 of which a fellow gave me a rare Austria, Brunswick Normandy Germany and Sweden. I am glad to hear that the canaries and their 2 little owners are very well. One of the boys in our school got a fit and nearly died this morning but he is recovering now & little Guibara would have died of the croup only that it was found out that he had it I am enjoying myself very much and often look forward to Xmas.

      PS My number is 31 like last year.

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