I recollect the way one tail brawny Scotchman,
over six feet high, named Macdonald, used to select his gangs; he would go to the dock gates where the crowd was waiting, and not say a word but plunge in and take those he wanted by the collar and swing them round behind him just like you would select from a drove of ponies, and his attendant would give them a ticket with a number on it. From thence the engaged commenced the walk from Chelsea to the docks, through the College Walk, up Ebury Street, and through Elliot’s, the Stag Brewery, always having a look in at the stables at several of the most beautiful black dray horses, splendidly kept and as well cared for as in a nobleman’s stables. Then up Castle Lane to Palmer’s Village, where I would meet a companion who was employed in Thames Street, and then along York Street and Tuttle Street, next out in the open space by Westminster Hospital, close to Palace Yard, up the steps to the high pavement, and through a passage by a public house to Westminster Bridge, through Pedler’s acre, along Stangate and Bankside, through the Brewery, and come over the new Bridge just opened, and out by the water wheel, along Thames Street, over Tower Hill to the docks. I got my appointment through the interest of an old Quaker gentleman who lived at No. 5 Paradise Row, with his two sisters. I had to go of an evening
to get instructions in my duties, and he was very particular to impress upon me that neatness was the most important point in bookkeeping, and that the red ink lines in their proper place was the beauty of a ledger, and never to erase a mistake, but draw the red lines across it and enter the correction in red ink on the margin, which I hear is still held good to the present day. I have often walked from Chelsea to the Robin Hood at Kingston Bottom and back after I had done my day’s work, to do my courting and see the young lady, the daughter of the head gardener at Park House, who lived at the lodge by the entrance gates. I was not a recognized suitor, and had to do the courting under difficulties; I would go along the road past the lawn and shrubbery to where the peacock roosted in the big trees, and imitate its screech as a signal that I was there, and then come along the road to where the fence and the hedge met and squeeze through into the kitchen garden, and sit down on the trunk of an old walnut tree and wait. It was here that most of our courting was done.
This went on for some time, till the young lady was sent away as companion to an old lady at Bath, but correspondence was both difficult and expensive. As every letter cost eightpence for postage it was too expensive to last long. I
would sometime be able to get them franked, which was a privilege allowed Members of Parliament and certain persons in an official position to send them free of charge. I could generally get a couple sent off in this way by meeting the manservant of an old officer in the hospital, and treating him to a four of hot rum at the Phœnix Tavern, in Smith Street.
CHAPTER 9.—An Exciting Experience.
I was always fairly successful in getting employment, as I was always ready and willing to earn a few shillings, our circumstances being needy. I recollect sitting at home one Saturday evening when a friend of mother’s came in who kept an old tavern at the bottom of Church Street, and was in sad trouble. She had just been to Doctor Philpot at the corner of the street for advice, and found out the doctor had been attending her husband for what was then known as the “Blue Devils,” after a drinking bout. The potman who had attended to him had gone to take his pension and had not come back, and could not be found anywhere, and the patient was very restless, and there was no one in the house but her, the servant, and a young girl who served in the bar. She was afraid to be left, and I was asked if I would mind going home with her, and if she could get no one else I was to stop there where the young people and I knew each other well. I consented and started with her. By that time it was nearly eleven o’clock, and we found the patient quiet, and
had been sleeping; and as soon as we could get the customers out, we closed the house, and had a good supper. The servant had been sitting with him. It was then past one o’clock when I went upstairs; it was a beautiful bright moonlight night, with the moon shining in through the garret casements, making it almost as light as day. There was very little furniture in the room; an old three-legged round bedroom table and two or three rush bottom chairs, a bedroom candlestick, and a tallow dip. I had brought with me one of the sensational tales that I had been reading at home, and sat quietly down to finish the tale. It must have been some hours, as it was just getting daylight, and the patient had not appeared to have moved, but lay on his back with his eyes wide open and shining like stars, staring at the ceiling. All of a sudden he appeared to jump clean on the top of me, and clutch me by the throat, upsetting the table and candle, and we both fell on the top of it and crushed it like a match box, and then the struggle commenced. We fought up and down, and in the struggle I stripped every rag off him, and he appeared to be trying to get me to the window to throw me out; and how our heels did rattle in that midnight struggle on the old garret floor, as we danced round in the shadow of the old Church on that Sunday morning.
He was a little man, and I began to get the better of him, and got him on his back on the floor and held his arms down, when he made a plunge and snapped at my nose with his teeth. He just grazed the skin, and looked up and laughed. Of all the slippery things to handle, a naked man beats everything. The noise we made brought his wife and the two women in, and with their assistance we got him on to the bedstead, and with strips of the sheet we tore up, we tied him down to the bedstead, and he appeared to be pretty well done up. By that hour it was time to open, as there were always early customers on a Sunday morning, as it was a noted house for Dog’s Nose and other early drinks at that time. It was then about seven, and we saw old Kirk, the beadle, going past to dust and prepare the Church, and as he was a friend we called him in for advice, and he suggested a straight waistcoat. As he knew the master of the workhouse in Arthur Street, he promised to go and borrow one, which he did, and brought one of the old pauper nurses to show how to put it on. It was a large shirt made of strong bed tick sewn up at the bottoms, with two holes to put the legs through, and open behind, with strap and buckles and sleeves a yard long, with large pieces of webbing sewn at the ends. When we had got the patient comfortably settled, I had some
breakfast and went home with five shillings in my pocket, but I do not think I felt like taking on another such job.