My brethren, I must do them the justice to say, were no niggards of information. To me, perhaps, they felt a sense of exultation in describing the dignity of the craft,—perhaps they hoped to deter me from a career so surrounded with difficulties. They little knew that they were only stimulating the curiosity of one to whom any object or any direction in life was a boon and a blessing. Hardship and neglect had so far altered my appearance that, even had I cared for it, any artificial disguisement was unnecessary. My beard and moustache covered the lower part of my face, and my hair, long and lank, hung heavily on my neck behind. But, were it otherwise, how few had ever known me! There were none to blush for me,—none to feel implicated in what they might have called the disgrace of my position. I reasoned thus,—I went even further, and persuaded myself there was something akin to heroism in thus braving the current of opinion, and stemming the strong tide of the world's prejudice. If this be my fitting station in life, thought I, there is no impropriety in my abiding by it; and if, perchance, I might have worthily filled a higher one, the disgrace is not with me, but with that world that treated me so harshly.
Though all these arguments satisfied me thoroughly as I thought over them, they did not give me the support I had hoped for. When the hour came for me to assume my calling, I am almost ashamed to say how I shrunk from it. I grieve to think how much more easy for me had it been to commit a crime than to go forth, broom in hand, and earn my livelihood! But I was determined to go on, and I did so. The first week or so was absolute misery; I scarcely dared to look any one in the face. If perchance I caught an eye fixed upon me, I imagined I was recognized. I dreaded to utter a word, lest my voice might betray me. I was repeatedly questioned about old Harry, and what had become of him; and I could see, that with all my attempts at disguise, my accent attracted attention, and men looked at me with curiosity, and even suspicion. Is it not strange that there should be more real awkwardness in maintaining a station that one deems below him than in the assumption of a rank as unquestionably above his own? Perhaps our self-love is the cause of it, and that, in our estimate of our own natures, we think nothing too great or too exalted for us.
Be this as it may, my struggles were very painful; and, far from conforming easily to the exigencies of my lot, each day's experience rendered them still harder to me. Two entire days passed over without my having received a farthing. I could not bring myself to ask for payment, and the crowd passed on, unheeding me. Some who seemed prepared with the accustomed mite replaced it in their pockets when they saw what seemed my indifference. One young fellow threw me a penny as he went, but I could not have stooped for it had my life been on the issue. What a wonderful thing is fortune!—or rather, how rarely can we plot for ourselves any combination of circumstances so successful as those that arise from what we deem accident! These that seemed evidences of failure were the first promises of prosperity. My comrades had given me the nickname of “Gentleman Jack.” The sobriquet attracted notice to me and to my habit of never making a demand; and long ere I came to learn the cause, I found myself deriving all the advantage of it. Few now went by without paying; many gave me silver, some even accompanying the gift with a passing salutation, or a word of recognition. Slight as these were, and insignificant, they were far more precious to me than any praises I have ever listened to in my days of prosperity!
I gradually came to know all the celebrities of the town, and be myself known by them. How like a dream does it seem to me, as I think over those days! When Alderman Whitbread would give me a shilling, and Wilkes borrow a crown of me; when Colonel O'Kelly would pay me with a wink, and Sir Philip Francis with a curse; when Baron Geramb, frizzed, moustached, and decorated, lounged lazily along on the arm of Admiral Payne, followed by a gorgeously-equipped chasseur,—a rare sight in those days! Nor is it altogether an old man's prejudice makes me think that the leaders of fashion in those times had more unmistakably the signs of being Grand Seigneurs than the men of our own day.
I have said that the tide of fortune had turned with me, and to an extent scarcely credible. Many days saw my gains above a guinea; once or twice they more than doubled that amount. I have frequently read in newspapers announcements of the fortunes accumulated by men in the very humblest stations,—statements which, with less experience than my own, I might have hesitated to believe; but now I know them to be credible. I know, too, that many of the donors who contemptuously threw their penny as they passed were far poorer than the recipient of their bounty.
If time did not reconcile me to my lot, yet a certain hardihood to brave destiny in any shape fortified me. I reasoned repeatedly with myself on this wise: Fate can scarcely have anything lower in store for me; from this there can be no descent in fortune. If, then, I can here maintain within me the feelings which moved me in happier days, and live unchanged in the midst of what might have been degradation, there is yet a hope that I may emerge to hold a worthy station among my fellow-men.
I will not affirm that this feeling was not heightened by an almost resentful sense of the world's treatment of me,—a feeling which, combat how I would, hourly gained more and more possession of me. To struggle against this growing misanthropy, I formed the resolve that I would devote all my earnings of each Sunday to charity. It was but too easy, in my walk of life, for me to know objects of want and suffering. The little close in which I lived—near Seven Dials—was filled with such; and amongst them I now dispensed the seventh of my gains,—in reality far more, since Sunday almost equalled two entire days in profit. Thus did I vacillate betwixt good and evil influences,—now yielding, now resisting,—but always gaining some little advantage over selfishness and narrow-mindedness, by the training of that best of teachers,—adversity. How my trials might have ended, had the course of my life gone on uninterruptedly, I cannot even guess. Whether the bad might have gained the ascendant, or the good triumphed, I know not. An incident, too slight to advert to, save in its influence upon my fate, suddenly gave another direction to my destiny; and though, as I have said, in itself a mere trifle, yet for its singularity, as well as in its consequences, requires a mention, and shall have—albeit a short one—a chapter of its own.
The incident I am about to relate has not—at least so far as I know—ever been made public. Up to three years ago I could have called a witness to its truth; but I am now the only survivor of those who once could have corroborated my tale. Still, I am not without hope that there are some living who, having heard the circumstances before, will generously exonerate me from any imputation of being the inventor.
This preface may excite in my reader the false expectation of something deeply interesting; and I at once and most explicitly own that I have none such in store for him. It is, I repeat for the third time, an incident only curious from those engaged in it, and only claiming a mention in such a history as mine.