Part 2 (2/2)

In those days I read a little, and did learn to read French and Latin I made myself familiar with Horace, and becareatest poets I hadout of thein 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 -house keeper by ot my daily bread I can hardly reet enerally now have their meals provided for them I kept house, as it were

Every day I had to find et soh 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 whoularly Out on the Fulham Road I had an uncle, but his house was four ings Then cas 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 friendshi+ps which lessened its misfortunes My earliest friend in life was John Merivale, hom I had been at school at Sunbury and Harrow, and as 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 a to dine with me one day this week

I hope Ithat 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 ive 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 soo in poverty He was most perverse; bashful to very fear of a lady's dress; unable to restrain hi, but yet with a conscience that was always stinging hih 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 the-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 andered on foot about the counties adjacent to London Southahamshi+re and Hertfordshi+re were more dear to us These were the happiest hours of h ere frequently in peril froed Not to pay for any conveyance, never to spend above five shi+llings a day, to obey all orders from the elected ruler of the hour (this enforced under heavy fines), were a our statutes I would fain tell here some of our adventures:--how A---- enacted an escaped ot ourselves a lift in a cart, from which we ran away as we approached the lunatic asyluht, the townsfolk frightened by the loudness of our mirth; and hoe once crept into a hayloft and akened in the darkby a pitchfork,--and how the juvenile owner of that pitchfork fled through the hen 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 bythese 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 rine Birch, a clerk in the House of Lords, who hters of Colonel Grant who assisted us in the raid we oods 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 hatingthat 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 tiland, 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 beenmen in the office whether they should or should not apply for these places The e; but there was at first supposed to be soatory in the position There was a ruot 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 Tohave been given me But after a while there came a report from the far west of Ireland that the ht then that none but a o 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 ti debts on my head and quarrels with our Secretary-Colonel, and a full conviction thatme doards to the lowest pits So I went to the Colonel boldly, and volunteered for Ireland if he would send lad to be so rid of ust, 1841, when I enty-six years old My salary in Ireland was to be but 100 a year; but I was to receive fifteen shi+llings a day for every day that I ay from home, and sixpence for every land; but at that tilish prices My inco ood 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 race, and inward re will have left an idea simply of their absurdities; but in truth I retched,--sometimes almost unto death, and have often cursed the hour in which I was born There had clung tothat I had been looked upon always as an evil, an encu,--as a creature of whom those connected with hi days I was so regarded Even my few friends who had found with me a certain capacity for enjoyreat desire to be loved,--of a strong wish to be popular withman, 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 ti round upon all those I know, I cannot put my hand upon one But all is not over yet And, ony of adversity, how crushi+ng the despondency of degradation, how susceptible I a also how quickly good things ain teswell now--

”Sin aliquem infandum casum, Fortuna, minaris; Nunc, o nunc liceat crudelereat 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 toldon thisto dissuade me I think it must have been evident to all ere 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 ainst it Indeed, I consulted no one, except a dear old cousin, our faland He lenthis head ”After all you were right to go,” he said to me when I paid him the ht I was right to go To becoht, with a salary of 100 a year, at twenty-six years of age! I did not think it right even ht which would take me away from the General Post Office and from London

My ideas of the duties I was to perforenerally Hitherto I had passedlettersinto books those which others had written I had never been called upon to do anything I was unable or unfitted to do I now understood that in Ireland I was to be a deputy-inspector of country post offices, and that as to be inspected would be the postmasters' accounts! But as no other person asked a question as to my fitness for this work, it seemed unnecessary for me to do so

On the 15th of September, 1841, I landed in Dublin, without an acquaintance in the country, and with only two or three letters of introduction from a brother clerk in the Post Office I had learned to think that Ireland was a land floith fun and whisky, in which irregularity was the rule of life, and where broken heads were looked upon as honourable badges I was to live at a place called Banagher, on the Shannon, which I had heard of because of its having once been conquered, though it had heretofore conquered everything, including the devil And fro tours were to be ht, but also over a strip of country eastwards, which would enable me occasionally to run up to Dublin I went to a hotel which was very dirty, and after dinner I ordered some whisky punch There was an exciteone I was very dull It seee to be in a country in which there was not a single individual whom I had ever spoken to or ever seen And it was to be ht and adjust accounts,--the destiny of me who had never learned thedivision!

On the nextI called on the Secretary of the Irish Post Office, and learned from him that Colonel Maberly had sent a very bad character with ood one; but I felt a little hurt when I was informed by this new master that he had been informed that I orthless, and must in all probability be dise you by your own merits” From that time to the day on which I left the service, I never heard a word of censure, nor had many months passed before I found that my services were valued Before a year was over, I had acquired the character of a thoroughly good public servant

The time went very pleasantly Some adventures I had;--two of which I told in the _Tales of All Countries_, under the names of _The O'Conors of Castle Conor_, and _Father Giles of Ballymoy_ I will not swear to every detail in these stories, but the main purport of each is true I could tell many others of the same nature, were this the place for them I found that the surveyor to whoht a hunter I do not think he liked it, but he could not well complain He never rode to hounds hireat joys oflearned to love it with an affection which I cannot myself fathom or understand Surely no man has laboured at it as I have done, or hunted under such drawbacks as to distances, es I a--a poor ht outside a ht hunt the next day Nor have I ever been in truth a good horse life under the discipline of the Civil Service But it has been for more than thirty years a duty to me to ride to hounds; and I have perfor has ever been allowed to stand in the way of hunting,--neither the writing of books, nor the work of the Post Office, nor other pleasures As regarded the Post Office, it soon seemed to be understood that I was to hunt; and when land, no word of difficulty ever reached me about it I have written on very many subjects, and on ht as that on hunting I have dragged it into many novels,--into too many no doubt,--but I have always felt itimate joy when the nature of the tale has not allowed reatest delight was the description of a run on a horse accidentally taken from another sportsman,--a circumstance which occurred to my dear friend Charles Buxton, ill be reether a very jolly life that I led in Ireland I was alwaysabout, and soon found myself to be in pecuniary circumstances which were opulent in comparison with those of my past life The Irish people did not murder ood-huent than those of England--economical, and hospitable We hear ance is not the nature of an Irishs in a pound lishet twelve pennyworth from each But they are perverse, irrational, and but little bound by the love of truth I lived forthe country until 1859, and I had thetheir character

I had not been a fortnight in Ireland before I was sent down to a little town in the far west of county Galway, to balance a defaulting postmaster's accounts, find out how much he owed, and report upon his capacity to pay In these days such accounts are very simple They adjust themselves fro to do with theh the su with them were very intricate I went to work, however, andpostmaster teachthe account, and had no difficulty whatever in reporting that he was altogether unable to pay his debt Of course he was dismissed;--but he had been a very useful man to me I never had any further difficulty in theof complaints made by the public as to postal matters The practice of the office was and is to send one of its servants to the spot to see the complainant and to inquire into the facts, when the co to reat expense is often incurred for a very small object; but the systeendered, and a feeling is produced in the country that the department has eyes of its own and does keep them open This employment was very pleasant, and to me always easy, as it required at its close noof a report There were no accounts in this business, no keeping of books, no necessary manipulation of multitudinous forms I must tell of one such complaint and inquiry, because in its result I think it was eentleman in county Cavan had complained erievance has no present significance; but it was so unendurable that he had written e He was ed hiry mind The place was not in , that I e of his personal wrath It was mid-winter, and I drove up to his house, a squire's country seat, in thedark I was on an open jaunting-car, and was on my way from one little town to another, the cause of his co reference to some mail conveyance between the two I was certainly very cold, and very wet, and very uncomfortable when I entered his house I was adentlean to explain h

John, get Mr Trollope so reatcoat, and suggested that I should go up to my bedroom before I troubled myself with business ”Bedroom!” I exclai out on such a night as that, and into a bedroo first drank the brandy and water standing at the drawing-roohter, and the three of us went in to dinner I shall never forget his righteous indignation when I again brought up the postal question on the departure of the young lady Was I such a Goth as to contaminate ith business? So I drankwhile her father slept in his ar, butabout the Post Office that night It was absolutely necessary that I should go away the nextafter breakfast, and I explained that thehis hands in unust,--almost in despair ”But what a you please,” he said ”Don't spare me, if you want an excuse for yourself Here I sit all the day,--with nothing to do; and I like writing letters” I did report that Mr ---- was now quite satisfied with the postal arrangeret that I should have robbed my friend of his occupation Perhaps he was able to take up the Poor Law Board, or to attack the Excise At the Post Office nothingsurveyor at Banagher for three years, during which, at Kingstown, the watering-place near Dublin, I met Rose Heseltine, the lady who has since becoement took place when I had been just one year in Ireland; but there was still a delay of two years before we could be married She had no fortune, nor had I any income beyond that which came from the Post Office; and there were still a few debts, which would have been paid off no doubt sooner, but for that purchase of the horse When I had been nearly three years in Ireland ere ht to name that happy day as the commencement of my better life, rather than the day on which I first landed in Ireland