I AM DECIDEDLY AN INCUMBRANCE--BEGIN LIFE WITH HALF A DOZEN FRUITLESS
JOURNEYS--FIND A HOME AND A FOSTER FATHER--AND TALK LEARNEDLY OF
TRIANGLES AND ARCHBISHOPS.
What is to be done with the child? It is a fearful question, and has
been often asked under every degree of suffering. Of all possible
articles, a child is the most difficult to dispose of; a wife may be
dispensed with without much heart-breaking--even a friend and rubbish
may be shot out of the way, and the bosom remain tranquil; but a
helpless, new-born infant!--O there is a pleading eloquence in its
feeble wail that goes to the heart and ear of the stranger--and must act
like living fire in the bowels of the mother.
The whole household were immediately sent in quest of a wet-nurse. At
length one was found in the very pretty wife of a reprobate sawyer, of
the name of Brandon. He had seen many vicissitudes of life--had been a
soldier, a gentleman's servant, had been to sea, and was a shrewd,
vicious, and hard man, with a most unquenchable passion for strong beer,
and a steady addiction to skittles. His wife was a little gentle being,
of an extremely compact and prepossessing figure; her face was ruddy
with health, and, as said before, extremely pretty; for, had it not been
for an air of what fear must call vulgarity, for want of a more gentle
term, she would have merited the term of beautiful. Brandon was a
top-sawyer, but, as three out of the six working days of the week he was
to be found with a pot of porter by his side, pipe in mouth, and the
skittle-ball in his hand, it is not surprising that there was much
misery in his home, which he often heightened by his brutality. Yet was
he a very pleasant fellow when he had money to spend, and actually a
witty as well as a jovial dog when spending it. His wife had not long
given birth to a fine girl, and the mother's bosom bled over the
destitution with which her husband's recklessness had now made her so
long familiar.
All this time your humble servant was squalling, and none were found
who, under all the strange circumstances would take upon them the charge
of an infant, about to be immediately forsaken by its mother. At
length, one of the maid-servants at the inn remembered to have heard
Mrs Brandon say, that rather than live on among all her squalidness and
penury, she would endeavour to suckle another child besides her own;
and, as she was then in redundant health, and had two fine breasts of
milk,--for _a_ fine breast of milk would not have served my turn, or,
rather, Mary and I must have taken it by turns,--she was accordingly
sent for. Yet, when she understood that I was to be placed that moment
under her care, that no references could be given, and no address left
in the case of accident, all her wishes to better herself and babe were
not sufficiently strong to make her run the risk. A guinea-and-a-half a
week was offered, and the first quarter tendered in advance, but in
vain; at length, an additional ten-pound note gave her sufficient
courage, and flannel being in request, I was thus launched to struggle
with the world. The frantic kiss of the distracted mother was impressed
on my lips, the agonised blessing was called down upon me from the God
that she then thought not of interceding with for herself, and the
solemn objurgation given to my foster-mother to have a religious and
motherly care of me, by the love she bore her own child; and then, lest
the distress of this scene should become fatal to her who bore me, I and
my nurse were hurried away before the day of my birth had fully dawned.
This day happened to be one in which the top-sawyer had been graciously
pleased to toss his arms up and down over the pit--not of destruction,
but of preservation. He had started early, and, whilst he was setting
the teeth on edge of all within hearing, by setting an edge to his saw,
some very officious friend ran to him, to tell him that his wife was
increasing his family, without even his permission having been asked.
Instead, therefore, of making a dust in his own pit, he flung down his
file, took up his lanthorn, and hurried along to kick up a dust at home.
The brute! may he have to sharpen saws with bad files for half an
eternity! He swore--how awfully the fellow swore!--that I should be
turned from his inhospitable roof immediately--and my gentle nurse,
adding her tears to my squalls, through that dismal, sleety morning,
which was then breaking mistily upon so much wretchedness, was compelled
to carry me back to my mother.
The most impassioned entreaties, and an additional five pounds, at
length prevailed on Mrs Brandon to nestle me again in her bosom, and
try to excite the sympathy of her husband. She returned to him, but the
fellow had now taken to himself two counsellors, a drunken mate who
served under him in the pit, and his own avarice. I am stating mere
facts: I may not be believed--I cannot help it--but three times was I
carried backwards and forwards, every transit producing to the sawyer
five extra pounds, when, at length, my little head found a
resting-place. All these events I have had over and over again from my
nurse, and they are most faithfully recorded.
Before noon on that memorable morning the chaise-and-four were again at
the door, and the veiled and shawl-enveloped lady was lifted in, and the
vehicle dashed rapidly through the streets of Reading, in a northerly
direction. I pretend not to relate facts of which I have never had an
assured knowledge; I cannot state to where that chaise and its desolate
occupant proceeded, nor can I give a moving description of feelings that
I did not witness. When I afterwards knew that that lady was my mother,
I never dared question her upon these points, but, from the strength,
the intensity of every good and affectionate feeling that marked her
character, I can only conceive, that, if that journey was made in the
stupor of weakness and exhaustion, or even in the wanderings of
delirium, it must have been, to her, a dispensation of infinite mercy.
She deserted her new-born infant--she flung forth her child from the
warmth of her own bosom to the cold, hireling kindness of the stranger.
I think I hear some puritanical, world-observing, starched piece of
female rigidity exclaim, "And therein she did a great wickedness." The
fact I admit, but the wickedness I deny utterly.
That there were misery and much suffering inflicted, I do not deny; but
of all guilt, even of all blame, I eagerly acquit one, whose principles
of action were as pure, and the whole tenor of whose life was as
upright, as even Virtue herself could have dictated. Let the guilt and
the misery attendant upon this desertion of myself be attached to the
real sinners!
I have before said that Brandon was a _top_ sawyer. We must now call
him Mr Brandon--he has purchased a pair of _top_ boots, a swell _top_
coat, and though now frequently _top_ heavy, thinks himself altogether a
topping gentleman. He is now to be seen more frequently in the
skittle-ground, clasping a half-gallon, instead of a quart of beer. He
decides authoritatively upon foul and fair play, and his voice is
potential on almost all matters in debate at the Two Jolly Sawyers, near
Lambeth Walk, just at the top of Cut-throat Lane.
All this is now altered. We look in vain for the Two Jolly Sawyers. We
may ask, where are they? and not Echo, but the Archbishop of Canterbury,
must answer where--for he has most sacerdotally put down all the jollity
there, by pulling down the house, and has built up a large wharf, where
once stood a very pretty tree-besprinkled walk, leading to the said
Jolly Sawyers. Cut-throat Lane is no more; yet, though it bore a
villainous name, it was very pretty to walk through; and its many
turnstiles were as so many godsends to the little boys, as they enjoyed
on them, gratis, some blithe rides, that they would have had to pay for
at any fair in the kingdom. We can very well understand why the
turnstiles were so offensive to the dignitary; in fact, all this
building, and leasing of houses, and improvement of property, and
destroying of poor people's pleasant walks, is nothing more than an
improved reading of the words, "_benefit of clergy_."