the Tramp Society, and subjected to certain rules, in obedience to
which we wandered on foot about the counties adjacent to London.
Southampton was the furthest point we ever reached; but Buckinghamshire
and Hertfordshire were more dear to us. These were the happiest
hours of my then life--and perhaps not the least innocent, although
we were frequently in peril from the village authorities whom we
outraged. Not to pay for any conveyance, never to spend above five
shillings a day, to obey all orders from the elected ruler of the
hour (this enforced under heavy fines), were among our statutes.
I would fain tell here some of our adventures:--how A---- enacted
an escaped madman and we his pursuing keepers, and so got ourselves
a lift in a cart, from which we ran away as we approached the
lunatic asylum; how we were turned out of a little town at night,
the townsfolk frightened by the loudness of our mirth; and how we
once crept into a hayloft and were wakened in the dark morning by
a pitchfork,--and how the juvenile owner of that pitchfork fled
through the window when he heard the complaints of the wounded man!
But the fun was the fun of W---- A----, and would cease to be fun
as told by me.
It was during these years that John Tilley, who has now been for
many years the permanent senior officer of the Post Office, married
my sister, whom he took with him into Cumberland, where he was
stationed as one of our surveyors. He has been my friend for more
than forty years; as has also Peregrine Birch, a clerk in the House
of Lords, who married one of those daughters of Colonel Grant who
assisted us in the raid we made on the goods which had been seized
by the Sheriff's officer at Harrow. These have been the oldest and
dearest friends of my life, and I can thank God that three of them
are still alive.
When I had been nearly seven years in the Secretary's office of
the Post Office, always hating my position there, and yet always
fearing that I should be dismissed from it, there came a way of
escape. There had latterly been created in the service a new body
of officers called surveyors' clerks. There were at that time
seven surveyors in England, two in Scotland and three in Ireland.
To each of these officers a clerk had been lately attached, whose
duty it was to travel about the country under the surveyor's orders.
There had been much doubt among the young men in the office whether
they should or should not apply for these places. The emoluments
were good and the work alluring; but there was at first supposed
to be something derogatory in the position. There was a rumour that
the first surveyor who got a clerk sent the clerk out to fetch his
beer, and that another had called upon his clerk to send the linen
to the wash. There was, however, a conviction that nothing could be
worse than the berth of a surveyor's clerk in Ireland. The clerks
were all appointed, however. To me it had not occurred to ask for
anything, nor would anything have been given me. But after a while
there came a report from the far west of Ireland that the man sent
there was absurdly incapable. It was probably thought then that
none but a man absurdly incapable would go on such a mission to the
west of Ireland. When the report reached the London office I was
the first to read it. I was at that time in dire trouble, having
debts on my head and quarrels with our Secretary-Colonel, and a
full conviction that my life was taking me downwards to the lowest
pits. So I went to the Colonel boldly, and volunteered for Ireland
if he would send me. He was glad to be so rid of me, and I went.
This happened in August, 1841, when I was twenty-six years old. My
salary in Ireland was to be but (pounds)100 a year; but I was to receive
fifteen shillings a day for every day that I was away from home,
and sixpence for every mile that I travelled. The same allowances
were made in England; but at that time travelling in Ireland was
done at half the English prices. My income in Ireland, after paying
my expenses, became at once (pounds)400. This was the first good fortune
of my life.
CHAPTER IV Ireland--my first two novels 1841-1848
In the preceding pages I have given a short record of the first
twenty-six years of my life,--years of suffering, disgrace, and
inward remorse. I fear that my mode of telling will have left an idea
simply of their absurdities; but, in truth, I was wretched,--sometimes
almost unto death, and have often cursed the hour in which I was
born. There had clung to me a feeling that I had been looked upon
always as an evil, an encumbrance, a useless thing,--as a creature
of whom those connected with him had to be ashamed. And I feel
certain now that in my young days I was so regarded. Even my few
friends who had found with me a certain capacity for enjoyment were
half afraid of me. I acknowledge the weakness of a great desire to
be loved,--of a strong wish to be popular with my associates. No
child, no boy, no lad, no young man, had ever been less so. And I
had been so poor, and so little able to bear poverty. But from the
day on which I set my foot in Ireland all these evils went away
from me. Since that time who has had a happier life than mine?
Looking round upon all those I know, I cannot put my hand upon
one. But all is not over yet. And, mindful of that, remembering
how great is the agony of adversity, how crushing the despondency
of degradation, how susceptible I am myself to the misery coming
from contempt,--remembering also how quickly good things may go
and evil things come,--I am often again tempted to hope, almost to
pray, that the end may be near. Things may be going well now--
"Sin aliquem infandum casum, Fortuna, minaris;
Nunc, o nunc liceat crudelem abrumpere vitam."
There is unhappiness so great that the very fear of it is an alloy
to happiness. I had then lost my father, and sister, and brother,--have
since lost another sister and my mother;--but I have never as yet
lost a wife or a child.
When I told my friends that I was going on this mission to Ireland
they shook their heads, but said nothing to dissuade me. I think
it must have been evident to all who were my friends that my life
in London was not a success. My mother and elder brother were
at this time abroad, and were not consulted;--did not even know
my intention in time to protest against it. Indeed, I consulted
no one, except a dear old cousin, our family lawyer, from whom I
borrowed (pounds)200 to help me out of England. He lent me the money, and
looked upon me with pitying eyes--shaking his head. "After all,
you were right to go," he said to me when I paid him the money a
few years afterwards.
But nobody then thought I was right to go. To become clerk to
an Irish surveyor, in Connaught, with a salary of (pounds)100 a year, at
twenty-six years of age! I did not think it right even myself,--except
that anything was right which would take me away from the General
Post Office and from London.
My ideas of the duties I was to perform were very vague, as were
also my ideas of Ireland generally. Hitherto I had passed my time,
seated at a desk, either writing letters myself, or copying into
books those which others had written. I had never been called upon