THE GENERAL POST OFFICE.
1834-1841.
While I was still learning my duty as an usher at Mr. Drury's school
at Brussels, I was summoned to my clerkship in the London Post
Office, and on my way passed through Bruges. I then saw my father
and my brother Henry for the last time. A sadder household never was
held together. They were all dying; except my mother, who would sit
up night after night nursing the dying ones and writing novels the
while,--so that there might be a decent roof for them to die under.
Had she failed to write the novels, I do not know where the roof
would have been found. It is now more than forty years ago, and
looking back over so long a lapse of time I can tell the story,
though it be the story of my own father and mother, of my own brother
and sister, almost as coldly as I have often done some scene of
intended pathos in fiction; but that scene was indeed full of pathos.
I was then becoming alive to the blighted ambition of my father's
life, and becoming alive also to the violence of the strain which my
mother was enduring. But I could do nothing but go and leave them.
There was something that comforted me in the idea that I need no
longer be a burden,--a fallacious idea, as it soon proved. My salary
was to be £90 a year, and on that I was to live in London, keep up my
character as a gentleman, and be happy. That I should have thought
this possible at the age of nineteen, and should have been delighted
at being able to make the attempt, does not surprise me now; but that
others should have thought it possible, friends who knew something
of the world, does astonish me. A lad might have done so, no doubt,
or might do so even in these days, who was properly looked after and
kept under control,--on whose behalf some law of life had been laid
down. Let him pay so much a week for his board and lodging, so much
for his clothes, so much for his washing, and then let him understand
that he has--shall we say?--sixpence a day left for pocket-money and
omnibuses. Any one making the calculation will find the sixpence
far too much. No such calculation was made for me or by me. It was
supposed that a sufficient income had been secured to me, and that
I should live upon it as other clerks lived.
But as yet the £90 a year was not secured to me. On reaching London
I went to my friend Clayton Freeling, who was then secretary at the
Stamp Office, and was taken by him to the scene of my future labours
in St. Martin's le Grand. Sir Francis Freeling was the secretary,
but he was greatly too high an official to be seen at first by a
new junior clerk. I was taken, therefore, to his eldest son Henry
Freeling, who was the assistant secretary, and by him I was examined
as to my fitness. The story of that examination is given accurately
in one of the opening chapters of a novel written by me, called _The
Three Clerks_. If any reader of this memoir would refer to that
chapter and see how Charley Tudor was supposed to have been admitted
into the Internal Navigation Office, that reader will learn how
Anthony Trollope was actually admitted into the Secretary's office
of the General Post Office in 1834. I was asked to copy some lines
from the _Times_ newspaper with an old quill pen, and at once made a
series of blots and false spellings. "That won't do, you know," said
Henry Freeling to his brother Clayton. Clayton, who was my friend,
urged that I was nervous, and asked that I might be allowed to do a
bit of writing at home and bring it as a sample on the next day. I
was then asked whether I was a proficient in arithmetic. What could
I say? I had never learned the multiplication table, and had no more
idea of the rule of three than of conic sections. "I know a little
of it," I said humbly, whereupon I was sternly assured that on the
morrow, should I succeed in showing that my handwriting was all that
it ought to be, I should be examined as to that little of arithmetic.
If that little should not be found to comprise a thorough knowledge
of all the ordinary rules, together with practised and quick skill,
my career in life could not be made at the Post Office. Going down
the main stairs of the building,--stairs which have I believe been
now pulled down to make room for sorters and stampers,--Clayton
Freeling told me not to be too downhearted. I was myself inclined
to think that I had better go back to the school in Brussels. But
nevertheless I went to work, and under the surveillance of my elder
brother made a beautiful transcript of four or five pages of Gibbon.
With a faltering heart I took these on the next day to the office.
With my caligraphy I was contented, but was certain that I should
come to the ground among the figures. But when I got to "The Grand,"
as we used to call our office in those days, from its site in St.
Martin's le Grand, I was seated at a desk without any further
reference to my competency. No one condescended even to look at my
beautiful penmanship.
That was the way in which candidates for the Civil Service were
examined in my young days. It was at any rate the way in which I
was examined. Since that time there has been a very great change
indeed;--and in some respects a great improvement. But in regard
to the absolute fitness of the young men selected for the public
service, I doubt whether more harm has not been done than good. And
I think that good might have been done without the harm. The rule
of the present day is, that every place shall be open to public
competition, and that it shall be given to the best among the comers.
I object to this, that at present there exists no known mode of
learning who is best, and that the method employed has no tendency
to elicit the best. That method pretends only to decide who among a
certain number of lads will best answer a string of questions, for
the answering of which they are prepared by tutors, who have sprung
up for the purpose since this fashion of election has been adopted.
When it is decided in a family that a boy shall "try the Civil
Service," he is made to undergo a certain amount of cramming.
But such treatment has, I maintain, no connection whatever with
education. The lad is no better fitted after it than he was before
for the future work of his life. But his very success fills him with
false ideas of his own educational standing, and so far unfits him.
And, by the plan now in vogue, it has come to pass that no one is in
truth responsible either for the conduct, the manners, or even for
the character of the youth. The responsibility was perhaps slight
before; but existed, and was on the increase.
There might have been,--in some future time of still increased
wisdom, there yet may be,--a department established to test the
fitness of acolytes without recourse to the dangerous optimism of
competitive choice. I will not say but that there should have been
some one to reject me,--though I will have the hardihood to say that,
had I been so rejected, the Civil Service would have lost a valuable
public servant. This is a statement that will not, I think, be denied
by those who, after I am gone, may remember anything of my work.
Lads, no doubt, should not be admitted who have none of the small
acquirements that are wanted. Our offices should not be schools in
which writing and early lessons in geography, arithmetic, or French
should be learned. But all that could be ascertained without the
perils of competitive examination.
The desire to insure the efficiency of the young men selected, has
not been the only object--perhaps not the chief object--of those who
have yielded in this matter to the arguments of the reformers. There
had arisen in England a system of patronage, under which it had
become gradually necessary for politicians to use their influence for
the purchase of political support. A member of the House of Commons,
holding office, who might chance to have five clerkships to give away
in a year, found himself compelled to distribute them among those
who sent him to the House. In this there was nothing pleasant to the
distributer of patronage. Do away with the system altogether, and
he would have as much chance of support as another. He bartered
his patronage only because another did so also. The beggings,
the refusings, the jealousies, the correspondence, were simply
troublesome. Gentlemen in office were not therefore indisposed to rid
themselves of the care of patronage. I have no doubt their hands are
the cleaner and their hearts are the lighter; but I do doubt whether
the offices are on the whole better manned.
As what I now write will certainly never be read till I am dead, I
may dare to say what no one now does dare to say in print,--though
some of us whisper it occasionally into our friends' ears. There are
places in life which can hardly be well filled except by "Gentlemen."
The word is one the use of which almost subjects one to ignominy. If
I say that a judge should be a gentleman, or a bishop, I am met with
a scornful allusion to "Nature's Gentlemen." Were I to make such an
assertion with reference to the House of Commons, nothing that I ever
said again would receive the slightest attention. A man in public
life could not do himself a greater injury than by saying in public
that the commissions in the army or navy, or berths in the Civil
Service, should be given exclusively to gentlemen. He would be defied
to define the term,--and would fail should he attempt to do so. But
he would know what he meant, and so very probably would they who
defied him. It may be that the son of the butcher of the village
shall become as well fitted for employments requiring gentle culture
as the son of the parson. Such is often the case. When such is the
case, no one has been more prone to give the butcher's son all the
welcome he has merited than I myself; but the chances are greatly
in favour of the parson's son. The gates of the one class should be
open to the other; but neither to the one class nor to the other can
good be done by declaring that there are no gates, no barrier, no
difference. The system of competitive examination is, I think, based
on a supposition that there is no difference.
I got into my place without any examining. Looking back now, I think
I can see with accuracy what was then the condition of my own mind
and intelligence. Of things to be learned by lessons I knew almost
less than could be supposed possible after the amount of schooling I
had received. I could read neither French, Latin, nor Greek. I could
speak no foreign language,--and I may as well say here as elsewhere
that I never acquired the power of really talking French. I have been
able to order my dinner and take a railway ticket, but never got much
beyond that. Of the merest rudiments of the sciences I was completely
ignorant. My handwriting was in truth wretched. My spelling was
imperfect. There was no subject as to which examination would have
been possible on which I could have gone through an examination
otherwise than disgracefully. And yet I think I knew more than the
average of young men of the same rank who began life at nineteen.
I could have given a fuller list of the names of the poets of
all countries, with their subjects and periods,--and probably of
historians,--than many others; and had, perhaps, a more accurate idea
of the manner in which my own country was governed. I knew the names
of all the Bishops, all the Judges, all the Heads of Colleges, and
all the Cabinet Ministers,--not a very useful knowledge indeed, but
one that had not been acquired without other matter which was more
useful. I had read Shakespeare and Byron and Scott, and could talk
about them. The music of the Miltonic line was familiar to me. I had
already made up my mind that _Pride and Prejudice_ was the best novel
in the English language,--a palm which I only partially withdrew
after a second reading of _Ivanhoe_, and did not completely bestow
elsewhere till _Esmond_ was written. And though I would occasionally
break down in my spelling, I could write a letter. If I had a thing
to say, I could so say it in written words that the readers should
know what I meant,--a power which is by no means at the command of
all those who come out from these competitive examinations with
triumph. Early in life, at the age of fifteen, I had commenced the
dangerous habit of keeping a journal, and this I maintained for
ten years. The volumes remained in my possession unregarded--never
looked at--till 1870, when I examined them, and, with many blushes,
destroyed them. They convicted me of folly, ignorance, indiscretion,
idleness, extravagance, and conceit. But they had habituated me to
the rapid use of pen and ink, and taught me how to express myself
with facility.
I will mention here another habit which had grown upon me from still
earlier years,--which I myself often regarded with dismay when I
thought of the hours devoted to it, but which, I suppose, must have
tended to make me what I have been. As a boy, even as a child, I
was thrown much upon myself. I have explained, when speaking of my
school-days, how it came to pass that other boys would not play with
me. I was therefore alone, and had to form my plays within myself.
Play of some kind was necessary to me then, as it has always been.
Study was not my bent, and I could not please myself by being all
idle. Thus it came to pass that I was always going about with some
castle in the air firmly built within my mind. Nor were these efforts
in architecture spasmodic, or subject to constant change from day
to day. For weeks, for months, if I remember rightly, from year to
year, I would carry on the same tale, binding myself down to certain
laws, to certain proportions, and proprieties, and unities. Nothing
impossible was ever introduced,--nor even anything which, from
outward circumstances, would seem to be violently improbable.
I myself was of course my own hero. Such is a necessity of
castle-building. But I never became a king, or a duke,--much less
when my height and personal appearance were fixed could I be an
Antinous, or six feet high. I never was a learned man, nor even a
philosopher. But I was a very clever person, and beautiful young
women used to be fond of me. And I strove to be kind of heart, and
open of hand, and noble in thought, despising mean things; and
altogether I was a very much better fellow than I have ever succeeded
in being since. This had been the occupation of my life for six or
seven years before I went to the Post Office, and was by no means
abandoned when I commenced my work. There can, I imagine, hardly be
a more dangerous mental practice; but I have often doubted whether,
had it not been my practice, I should ever have written a novel. I
learned in this way to maintain an interest in a fictitious story, to
dwell on a work created by my own imagination, and to live in a world
altogether outside the world of my own material life. In after years
I have done the same,--with this difference, that I have discarded
the hero of my early dreams, and have been able to lay my own
identity aside.
I must certainly acknowledge that the first seven years of my
official life were neither creditable to myself nor useful to the
public service. These seven years were passed in London, and during
this period of my life it was my duty to be present every morning
at the office punctually at 10 A.M. I think I commenced my quarrels
with the authorities there by having in my possession a watch which
was always ten minutes late. I know that I very soon achieved a
character for irregularity, and came to be regarded as a black sheep
by men around me who were not themselves, I think, very good public
servants. From time to time rumours reached me that if I did not
take care I should be dismissed; especially one rumour in my early
days, through my dearly beloved friend Mrs. Clayton Freeling,--who,
as I write this, is still living, and who, with tears in her eyes,
besought me to think of my mother. That was during the life of Sir
Francis Freeling, who died,--still in harness,--a little more than
twelve months after I joined the office. And yet the old man showed
me signs of almost affectionate kindness, writing to me with his own
hand more than once from his death-bed.
Sir Francis Freeling was followed at the Post Office by Colonel
Maberly, who certainly was not my friend. I do not know that I
deserved to find a friend in my new master, but I think that a man
with better judgment would not have formed so low an opinion of me
as he did. Years have gone by, and I can write now, and almost feel,
without anger; but I can remember well the keenness of my anguish
when I was treated as though I were unfit for any useful work. I did
struggle--not to do the work, for there was nothing which was not
easy without any struggling--but to show that I was willing to do it.
My bad character nevertheless stuck to me, and was not to be got rid
of by any efforts within my power. I do admit that I was irregular.
It was not considered to be much in my favour that I could write
letters--which was mainly the work of our office--rapidly, correctly,
and to the purpose. The man who came at ten, and who was always still
at his desk at half-past four, was preferred before me, though when
at his desk he might be less efficient. Such preference was no doubt
proper; but, with a little encouragement, I also would have been
punctual. I got credit for nothing, and was reckless.
As it was, the conduct of some of us was very bad. There was a
comfortable sitting-room up-stairs, devoted to the use of some one of
our number who in turn was required to remain in the place all night.
Hither one or two of us would adjourn after lunch, and play _écarté_
for an hour or two. I do not know whether such ways are possible
now in our public offices. And here we used to have suppers and
card-parties at night--great symposiums, with much smoking of
tobacco; for in our part of the building there lived a whole bevy of
clerks. These were gentlemen whose duty it then was to make up and
receive the foreign mails. I do not remember that they worked later
or earlier than the other sorting-clerks; but there was supposed to
be something special in foreign letters, which required that the men
who handled them should have minds undistracted by the outer world.
Their salaries, too, were higher than those of their more homely
brethren; and they paid nothing for their lodgings. Consequently
there was a somewhat fast set in those apartments, given to cards and
to tobacco, who drank spirits and water in preference to tea. I was
not one of them, but was a good deal with them.
I do not know that I should interest my readers by saying much of
my Post Office experiences in those days. I was always on the eve
of being dismissed, and yet was always striving to show how good a
public servant I could become, if only a chance were given me. But
the chance went the wrong way. On one occasion, in the performance of
my duty, I had to put a private letter containing bank-notes on the
secretary's table,--which letter I had duly opened, as it was not
marked private. The letter was seen by the Colonel, but had not been
moved by him when he left the room. On his return it was gone. In the
meantime I had returned to the room, again in the performance of some
duty. When the letter was missed I was sent for, and there I found
the Colonel much moved about his letter, and a certain chief clerk,
who, with a long face, was making suggestions as to the probable fate
of the money. "The letter has been taken," said the Colonel, turning
to me angrily, "and, by G----! there has been nobody in the room but
you and I." As he spoke, he thundered his fist down upon the table.
"Then," said I, "by G----! you have taken it." And I also thundered
my fist down;--but, accidentally, not upon the table. There was there
a standing movable desk, at which, I presume, it was the Colonel's
habit to write, and on this movable desk was a large bottle full of
ink. My fist unfortunately came on the desk, and the ink at once flew
up, covering the Colonel's face and shirt-front. Then it was a sight
to see that senior clerk, as he seized a quire of blotting-paper, and
rushed to the aid of his superior officer, striving to mop up the
ink; and a sight also to see the Colonel, in his agony, hit right
out through the blotting-paper at that senior clerk's unoffending
stomach. At that moment there came in the Colonel's private
secretary, with the letter and the money, and I was desired to go
back to my own room. This was an incident not much in my favour,
though I do not know that it did me special harm.
I was always in trouble. A young woman down in the country had taken
it into her head that she would like to marry me,--and a very foolish
young woman she must have been to entertain such a wish. I need
not tell that part of the story more at length, otherwise than by
protesting that no young man in such a position was ever much less to
blame than I had been in this. The invitation had come from her, and
I had lacked the pluck to give it a decided negative; but I had left
the house within half an hour, going away without my dinner, and had
never returned to it. Then there was a correspondence,--if that can
be called a correspondence in which all the letters came from one
side. At last the mother appeared at the Post Office. My hair almost
stands on my head now as I remember the figure of the woman walking
into the big room in which I sat with six or seven other clerks,
having a large basket on her arm and an immense bonnet on her head.
The messenger had vainly endeavoured to persuade her to remain in the
ante-room. She followed the man in, and walking up the centre of the
room, addressed me in a loud voice: "Anthony Trollope, when are you
going to marry my daughter?" We have all had our worst moments, and
that was one of my worst. I lived through it, however, and did not
marry the young lady. These little incidents were all against me in
the office.
And then a certain other phase of my private life crept into official
view, and did me a damage. As I shall explain just now, I rarely at
this time had any money wherewith to pay my bills. In this state of
things a certain tailor had taken from me an acceptance for, I think,
£12, which found its way into the hands of a money-lender. With that
man, who lived in a little street near Mecklenburgh Square, I formed
a most heart-rending but a most intimate acquaintance. In cash I once
received from him £4. For that and for the original amount of the
tailor's bill, which grew monstrously under repeated renewals, I paid
ultimately something over £200. That is so common a story as to be
hardly worth the telling; but the peculiarity of this man was that he
became so attached to me as to visit me every day at my office. For a
long period he found it to be worth his while to walk up those stone
steps daily, and come and stand behind my chair, whispering to me
always the same words: "Now I wish you would be punctual. If you only
would be punctual, I should like you to have anything you want." He
was a little, clean, old man, who always wore a high starched white
cravat, inside which he had a habit of twisting his chin as he
uttered his caution. When I remember the constant persistency of his
visits, I cannot but feel that he was paid very badly for his time
and trouble. Those visits were very terrible, and can have hardly
been of service to me in the office.
Of one other misfortune which happened to me in those days I must
tell the tale. A junior clerk in the secretary's office was always
told off to sleep upon the premises, and he was supposed to be the
presiding genius of the establishment when the other members of the
Secretary's department had left the building. On an occasion when
I was still little more than a lad,--perhaps one-and-twenty years
old,--I was filling this responsible position. At about seven in the
evening word was brought to me that the Queen of,--I think Saxony,
but I am sure it was a Queen,--wanted to see the night mails sent
out. At this time, when there were many mail-coaches, this was
a show, and august visitors would sometimes come to see it. But
preparation was generally made beforehand, and some pundit of the
office would be at hand to do the honours. On this occasion we were
taken by surprise, and there was no pundit. I therefore gave the
orders, and accompanied her Majesty around the building, walking
backwards, as I conceived to be proper, and often in great peril as
I did so, up and down the stairs. I was, however, quite satisfied
with my own manner of performing an unaccustomed and most important
duty. There were two old gentlemen with her Majesty, who, no doubt,
were German barons, and an ancient baroness also. They had come
and, when they had seen the sights, took their departure in two
glass coaches. As they were preparing to go, I saw the two barons
consulting together in deep whispers, and then as the result of that
conversation one of them handed me half-a-crown! That also was a bad
moment.
I came up to town, as I said before, purporting to live a jolly
life upon £90 per annum. I remained seven years in the General Post
Office, and when I left it my income was £140. During the whole
of this time I was hopelessly in debt. There were two intervals,
amounting together to nearly two years, in which I lived with
my mother, and therefore lived in comfort,--but even then I was
overwhelmed with debt. She paid much for me,--paid all that I asked
her to pay, and all that she could find out that I owed. But who in
such a condition ever tells all and makes a clean breast of it? The
debts, of course, were not large, but I cannot think now how I could
have lived, and sometimes have enjoyed life, with such a burden of
duns as I endured. Sheriff's officers with uncanny documents, of
which I never understood anything, were common attendants on me. And
yet I do not remember that I was ever locked up, though I think I was
twice a prisoner. In such emergencies some one paid for me. And now,
looking back at it, I have to ask myself whether my youth was very
wicked. I did no good in it; but was there fair ground for expecting
good from me? When I reached London no mode of life was prepared
for me,--no advice even given to me. I went into lodgings, and then
had to dispose of my time. I belonged to no club, and knew very few
friends who would receive me into their houses. In such a condition
of life a young man should no doubt go home after his work, and spend
the long hours of the evening in reading good books and drinking tea.
A lad brought up by strict parents, and without having had even a
view of gayer things, might perhaps do so. I had passed all my life
at public schools, where I had seen gay things, but had never enjoyed
them. Towards the good books and tea no training had been given me.
There was no house in which I could habitually see a lady's face and
hear a lady's voice. No allurement to decent respectability came in
my way. It seems to me that in such circumstances the temptations of
loose life will almost certainly prevail with a young man. Of course
if the mind be strong enough, and the general stuff knitted together
of sufficiently stern material, the temptations will not prevail. But
such minds and such material are, I think, uncommon. The temptation
at any rate prevailed with me.
I wonder how many young men fall utterly to pieces from being
turned loose into London after the same fashion. Mine was, I think,
of all phases of such life the most dangerous. The lad who is
sent to mechanical work has longer hours, during which he is kept
from danger, and has not generally been taught in his boyhood
to anticipate pleasure. He looks for hard work and grinding
circumstances. I certainly had enjoyed but little pleasure, but I had
been among those who did enjoy it and were taught to expect it. And
I had filled my mind with the ideas of such joys. And now, except
during official hours, I was entirely without control,--without the
influences of any decent household around me. I have said something
of the comedy of such life, but it certainly had its tragic aspect.
Turning it all over in my own mind, as I have constantly done in
after years, the tragedy has always been uppermost. And so it was as
the time was passing. Could there be any escape from such dirt? I
would ask myself; and I always answered that there was no escape.
The mode of life was itself wretched. I hated the office. I hated
my work. More than all I hated my idleness. I had often told myself
since I left school that the only career in life within my reach was
that of an author, and the only mode of authorship open to me that of
a writer of novels. In the journal which I read and destroyed a few
years since, I found the matter argued out before I had been in the
Post Office two years. Parliament was out of the question. I had not
means to go to the Bar. In official life, such as that to which I
had been introduced, there did not seem to be any opening for real
success. Pens and paper I could command. Poetry I did not believe to
be within my grasp. The drama, too, which I would fain have chosen,
I believed to be above me. For history, biography, or essay writing I
had not sufficient erudition. But I thought it possible that I might
write a novel. I had resolved very early that in that shape must the
attempt be made. But the months and years ran on, and no attempt was
made. And yet no day was passed without thoughts of attempting, and a
mental acknowledgment of the disgrace of postponing it. What reader
will not understand the agony of remorse produced by such a condition
of mind? The gentleman from Mecklenburgh Square was always with me in
the morning,--always angering me by his hateful presence,--but when
the evening came I could make no struggle towards getting rid of him.
In those days I read a little, and did learn to read French and
Latin. I made myself familiar with Horace, and became acquainted with
the works of our own greatest poets. I had my strong enthusiasms,
and remember throwing out of the window in Northumberland Street,
where I lived, a volume of Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_, because he
spoke sneeringly of _Lycidas_. That was Northumberland Street by the
Marylebone Workhouse, on to the back-door of which establishment my
room looked out--a most dreary abode, at which I fancy I must have
almost ruined the good-natured lodging-house keeper by my constant
inability to pay her what I owed.
How I got my daily bread I can hardly remember. But I do remember
that I was often unable to get myself a dinner. Young men generally
now have their meals provided for them. I kept house, as it were.
Every day I had to find myself with the day's food. For my breakfast
I could get some credit at the lodgings, though that credit would
frequently come to an end. But for all that I had often breakfast to
pay day by day; and at your eating-house credit is not given. I had
no friends on whom I could sponge regularly. Out on the Fulham Road I
had an uncle, but his house was four miles from the Post Office, and
almost as far from my own lodgings. Then came borrowings of money,
sometimes absolute want, and almost constant misery.
Before I tell how it came about that I left this wretched life,
I must say a word or two of the friendships which lessened its
misfortunes. My earliest friend in life was John Merivale, with whom
I had been at school at Sunbury and Harrow, and who was a nephew of
my tutor, Harry Drury. Herman Merivale, who afterwards became my
friend, was his brother, as is also Charles Merivale, the historian
and Dean of Ely. I knew John when I was ten years old, and am happy
to be able to say that he is going to dine with me one day this week.
I hope I may not injure his character by stating that in those days I
lived very much with him. He, too, was impecunious, but he had a home
in London, and knew but little of the sort of penury which I endured.
For more than fifty years he and I have been close friends. And then
there was one W---- A----, whose misfortunes in life will not permit
me to give his full name, but whom I dearly loved. He had been
at Winchester and at Oxford, and at both places had fallen into
trouble. He then became a schoolmaster,--or perhaps I had better say
usher,--and finally he took orders. But he was unfortunate in all
things, and died some years ago in poverty. He was most perverse;
bashful to very fear of a lady's dress; unable to restrain himself in
anything, but yet with a conscience that was always stinging him; a
loving friend, though very quarrelsome; and, perhaps, of all men I
have known, the most humorous. And he was entirely unconscious of his
own humour. He did not know that he could so handle all matters as to
create infinite amusement out of them.
Poor W---- A----! To him there came no happy turning-point at which
life loomed seriously on him, and then became prosperous.
W---- A----, Merivale, and I formed a little club, which we called
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 £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 £400.
This was the first good fortune of my life.