![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stonepicnicking_okapi"The Adventure of the Gloria Scott" is one of my favorite stories. This is the one where Holmes tells Watson about his first case and his friendship with Victor Trevor.
Trevor's dog bites Holmes on the ankle at university. And Trevor checks on him and they become pals.
Apparently, there is a lot of scholarly debate on topics which don't interest me. One is where Holmes went to uni: Cambridge or Oxford. And some scholars say that Trevor Senior's account of his past is so riddled with implausibilities and inaccuracies as to be not believable.
It's a very important story because we get Holmes' origin story as a detective. Holmes gets invited to the Trevors for the holiday and he does a decent deduction of Trevor Senior and the pater familias says,
I don't know how you manage this, Mr Holmes, but it seems to me that all the detectives of fact and of fancy would be children in your hands. That's your line of life, sir, and you may take the word of a man who has seen something of the world.
'And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby.
And say what you will about Johns and Jameses and milk-drinking snakes with ears, but when ACD wanted to turn a phrase, he could bloody well turn it.
Of all ghosts, the ghosts of our old loves are the worst.
I did a drabble of it. I've done many before. It's just a great line.
Title: Ghosts
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (ACD)
Rating: Gen
Length: 100
Summary: Holmes visits Trevor in Terai after the Fall.
“The governor was right: of all ghosts, the ghosts of our old loves are the worst. Stop lurking, Holmes.”
“Trevor.”
“Armitage, actually. I wondered if I would see you again.”
“No one will ever see Sherlock Holmes again.”
“So I read in our week-old papers. Didn’t believe a word of your reported death. Too fantastic. Come in and have a wash and a drink and a meal and a nap and tell me all about it, in any order you wish. Just be quiet. Wake up Bully IV and you’ll discover he’s as fierce an ankle-biter as his grand dad.”
And I love the last like about Trevor: "The good fellow was heartbroken at it, and went out to the Terai tea planting, where I hear he is doing well.
And I would like to visit the Broads one day.
Trevor's dog bites Holmes on the ankle at university. And Trevor checks on him and they become pals.
Apparently, there is a lot of scholarly debate on topics which don't interest me. One is where Holmes went to uni: Cambridge or Oxford. And some scholars say that Trevor Senior's account of his past is so riddled with implausibilities and inaccuracies as to be not believable.
It's a very important story because we get Holmes' origin story as a detective. Holmes gets invited to the Trevors for the holiday and he does a decent deduction of Trevor Senior and the pater familias says,
I don't know how you manage this, Mr Holmes, but it seems to me that all the detectives of fact and of fancy would be children in your hands. That's your line of life, sir, and you may take the word of a man who has seen something of the world.
'And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby.
And say what you will about Johns and Jameses and milk-drinking snakes with ears, but when ACD wanted to turn a phrase, he could bloody well turn it.
Of all ghosts, the ghosts of our old loves are the worst.
I did a drabble of it. I've done many before. It's just a great line.
Title: Ghosts
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (ACD)
Rating: Gen
Length: 100
Summary: Holmes visits Trevor in Terai after the Fall.
“The governor was right: of all ghosts, the ghosts of our old loves are the worst. Stop lurking, Holmes.”
“Trevor.”
“Armitage, actually. I wondered if I would see you again.”
“No one will ever see Sherlock Holmes again.”
“So I read in our week-old papers. Didn’t believe a word of your reported death. Too fantastic. Come in and have a wash and a drink and a meal and a nap and tell me all about it, in any order you wish. Just be quiet. Wake up Bully IV and you’ll discover he’s as fierce an ankle-biter as his grand dad.”
And I love the last like about Trevor: "The good fellow was heartbroken at it, and went out to the Terai tea planting, where I hear he is doing well.
And I would like to visit the Broads one day.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-13 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-13 06:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-13 07:14 pm (UTC)I love this story, so so much.
One of my long, pining WIPs is a BBC take on this- titled The Ghosts of Our Old Lovers. In mine, Mr Trevor is actually Mrs, and she was a huge influence for Sherlock in becoming a detective. He deduces a secret of hers when he's young that estranges him from Victor, as in canon, but in my story, she reaches out years later as she is being targeted once more. Victor makes an appearance. I've set in in Weymouth and Mrs Trevor owns an art gallery, the Gloria Scott. :) Will it ever be finished? Who knows, but it makes me happy to know I've got it on the back burner.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-13 08:59 pm (UTC)Oh wow. That sounds 😎 cool.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-14 07:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-14 01:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-16 10:31 am (UTC)We'll take you to the Broads and hunt out booming bitterns!
no subject
Date: 2025-04-17 01:14 pm (UTC)