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153 pages

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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. Amongst the books to which I am indebted for my material in my endeavour to draw various phases of life and character in England at the beginning of the century, I would particularly mention Ashton's Dawn of the Nineteenth Century; Gronow's Reminiscences; Fitzgerald's Life and Times of George IV.; Jesse's Life of Brummell; Boxiana; Pugilistica; Harper's Brighton Road; Robinson's Last Earl of Barrymore and Old Q.; Rice's History of the Turf; Tristram's Coaching Days; James's Naval History; Clark Russell's Collingwood and Nelson.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	23 octobre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819918257
Langue	English

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PREFACE
Amongst the books to which I am indebted for mymaterial in my endeavour to draw various phases of life andcharacter in England at the beginning of the century, I wouldparticularly mention Ashton's "Dawn of the Nineteenth Century;"Gronow's "Reminiscences;" Fitzgerald's "Life and Times of GeorgeIV.;" Jesse's "Life of Brummell;" "Boxiana;" "Pugilistica;"Harper's "Brighton Road;" Robinson's "Last Earl of Barrymore" and"Old Q.;" Rice's "History of the Turf;" Tristram's "Coaching Days;"James's "Naval History;" Clark Russell's "Collingwood" and"Nelson."
I am also much indebted to my friends Mr. J. C.Parkinson and Robert Barr for information upon the subject of thering.
A. CONAN DOYLE. HASLEMERE, September 1, 1896.
CHAPTER I – FRIAR'S OAK
On this, the first of January of the year 1851, thenineteenth century has reached its midway term, and many of us whoshared its youth have already warnings which tell us that it hasoutworn us. We put our grizzled heads together, we older ones, andwe talk of the great days that we have known; but we find that whenit is with our children that we talk it is a hard matter to makethem understand. We and our fathers before us lived much the samelife, but they with their railway trains and their steamboatsbelong to a different age. It is true that we can put history-booksinto their hands, and they can read from them of our weary struggleof two and twenty years with that great and evil man. They canlearn how Freedom fled from the whole broad continent, and howNelson's blood was shed, and Pitt's noble heart was broken instriving that she should not pass us for ever to take refuge withour brothers across the Atlantic. All this they can read, with thedate of this treaty or that battle, but I do not know where theyare to read of ourselves, of the folk we were, and the lives weled, and how the world seemed to our eyes when they were young astheirs are now.
If I take up my pen to tell you about this, you mustnot look for any story at my hands, for I was only in my earliestmanhood when these things befell; and although I saw something ofthe stories of other lives, I could scarce claim one of my own. Itis the love of a woman that makes the story of a man, and many ayear was to pass before I first looked into the eyes of the motherof my children. To us it seems but an affair of yesterday, and yetthose children can now reach the plums in the garden whilst we areseeking for a ladder, and where we once walked with their littlehands in ours, we are glad now to lean upon their arms. But I shallspeak of a time when the love of a mother was the only love I knew,and if you seek for something more, then it is not for you that Iwrite. But if you would come out with me into that forgotten world;if you would know Boy Jim and Champion Harrison; if you would meetmy father, one of Nelson's own men; if you would catch a glimpse ofthat great seaman himself, and of George, afterwards the unworthyKing of England; if, above all, you would see my famous uncle, SirCharles Tregellis, the King of the Bucks, and the great fightingmen whose names are still household words amongst you, then give meyour hand and let us start.
But I must warn you also that, if you think you willfind much that is of interest in your guide, you are destined todisappointment. When I look over my bookshelves, I can see that itis only the wise and witty and valiant who have ventured to writedown their experiences. For my own part, if I were only assuredthat I was as clever and brave as the average man about me, Ishould be well satisfied. Men of their hands have thought well ofmy brains, and men of brains of my hands, and that is the best thatI can say of myself. Save in the one matter of having an inbornreadiness for music, so that the mastery of any instrument comesvery easily and naturally to me, I cannot recall any singleadvantage which I can boast over my fellows. In all things I havebeen a half-way man, for I am of middle height, my eyes are neitherblue nor grey, and my hair, before Nature dusted it with herpowder, was betwixt flaxen and brown. I may, perhaps, claim this:that through life I have never felt a touch of jealousy as I haveadmired a better man than myself, and that I have always seen allthings as they are, myself included, which should count in myfavour now that I sit down in my mature age to write my memories.With your permission, then, we will push my own personality as faras possible out of the picture. If you can conceive me as a thinand colourless cord upon which my would-be pearls are strung, youwill be accepting me upon the terms which I should wish.
Our family, the Stones, have for many generationsbelonged to the navy, and it has been a custom among us for theeldest son to take the name of his father's favourite commander.Thus we can trace our lineage back to old Vernon Stone, whocommanded a high-sterned, peak-nosed, fifty-gun ship against theDutch. Through Hawke Stone and Benbow Stone we came down to myfather, Anson Stone, who in his turn christened me Rodney, at theparish church of St. Thomas at Portsmouth in the year of grace1786.
Out of my window as I write I can see my own greatlad in the garden, and if I were to call out "Nelson!" you wouldsee that I have been true to the traditions of our family.
My dear mother, the best that ever a man had, wasthe second daughter of the Reverend John Tregellis, Vicar ofMilton, which is a small parish upon the borders of the marshes ofLangstone. She came of a poor family, but one of some position, forher elder brother was the famous Sir Charles Tregellis, who, havinginherited the money of a wealthy East Indian merchant, became intime the talk of the town and the very particular friend of thePrince of Wales. Of him I shall have more to say hereafter; but youwill note now that he was my own uncle, and brother to mymother.
I can remember her all through her beautiful lifefor she was but a girl when she married, and little more when I canfirst recall her busy fingers and her gentle voice. I see her as alovely woman with kind, dove's eyes, somewhat short of stature itis true, but carrying herself very bravely. In my memories of thosedays she is clad always in some purple shimmering stuff, with awhite kerchief round her long white neck, and I see her fingersturning and darting as she works at her knitting. I see her againin her middle years, sweet and loving, planning, contriving,achieving, with the few shillings a day of a lieutenant's pay onwhich to support the cottage at Friar's Oak, and to keep a fairface to the world. And now, if I do but step into the parlour, Ican see her once more, with over eighty years of saintly lifebehind her, silver-haired, placid-faced, with her dainty ribbonedcap, her gold-rimmed glasses, and her woolly shawl with the blueborder. I loved her young and I love her old, and when she goes shewill take something with her which nothing in the world can evermake good to me again. You may have many friends, you who readthis, and you may chance to marry more than once, but your motheris your first and your last. Cherish her, then, whilst you may, forthe day will come when every hasty deed or heedless word will comeback with its sting to hive in your own heart.
Such, then, was my mother; and as to my father, Ican describe him best when I come to the time when he returned tous from the Mediterranean. During all my childhood he was only aname to me, and a face in a miniature hung round my mother's neck.At first they told me he was fighting the French, and then aftersome years one heard less about the French and more about GeneralBuonaparte. I remember the awe with which one day in Thomas Street,Portsmouth, I saw a print of the great Corsican in a bookseller'swindow. This, then, was the arch enemy with whom my father spenthis life in terrible and ceaseless contest. To my childishimagination it was a personal affair, and I for ever saw my fatherand this clean-shaven, thin-lipped man swaying and reeling in adeadly, year-long grapple. It was not until I went to the GrammarSchool that I understood how many other little boys there werewhose fathers were in the same case.
Only once in those long years did my father returnhome, which will show you what it meant to be the wife of a sailorin those days. It was just after we had moved from Portsmouth toFriar's Oak, whither he came for a week before he set sail withAdmiral Jervis to help him to turn his name into Lord St. Vincent.I remember that he frightened as well as fascinated me with histalk of battles, and I can recall as if it were yesterday thehorror with which I gazed upon a spot of blood upon his shirtruffle, which had come, as I have no doubt, from a mischance inshaving. At the time I never questioned that it had spurted fromsome stricken Frenchman or Spaniard, and I shrank from him interror when he laid his horny hand upon my head. My mother weptbitterly when he was gone, but for my own part I was not sorry tosee his blue back and white shorts going down the garden walk, forI felt, with the heedless selfishness of a child, that we werecloser together, she and I, when we were alone.
I was in my eleventh year when we moved fromPortsmouth to Friar's Oak, a little Sussex village to the north ofBrighton, which was recommended to us by my uncle, Sir CharlesTregellis, one of whose grand friends, Lord Avon, had had his seatnear there. The reason of our moving was that living was cheaper inthe country, and that it was easier for my mother to keep up theappearance of a gentlewoman when away from the circle of those towhom she could not refuse hospitality. They were trying times thoseto all save the farmers, who made such profits that they could, asI have heard, afford to let half their land lie fallow, whileliving like gentlemen upon the rest. Wheat was at a hundred and tenshillings a quarter, and the quartern loaf at one and ninepence.Even in the quiet of the cottage of Friar's Oak we could scarc