I obliged the man to crop me as close behind as though I were a convict, but to leave me enough in front to part my hair on one side. He did as I bid him, but when I came to part my hair I found it stubborn; the old parting down the middle would insist on showing; so I told him to crop me close that the hair might bristle on end.
When he had done so, I scarcely knew myself. The man looked at the hair he had cut off and asked what I wished to do with it.
‘I don’t know,’ said I, putting on my hat.
‘I’ll give you a guinea for it, miss, and throw in the job of cutting it.’
‘It is beautiful hair and worth three times what you offer; but you shall have it for a guinea, nevertheless.’
He paid me the money, and I left the shop. When I got to my lodgings, I locked the door, dressed myself in the boy’s clothes I had brought with me from Stepney, put on my cap, and then stood upon the table that I might see my full length in the chimney-glass. I was perfectly satisfied with the appearance I made. I looked just a hearty, strapping young lad of seventeen, out and away more manly to the eye than the saucy boy who had kissed his hand to me. I sprang on to the floor, and for a long while practised the paces of a man, striding round the room and stretching my legs, and whilst I walked I told over a few things I might require when I should be hidden under the forecastle of the convict ship, and paused at the table from time to time to note down the articles.
And, first of all, I was resolved not to lie in a black hole for a week, perhaps a fortnight, without the means of procuring a light. So I made an entry in my trifling list of wants of a parcel of small wax candles of the very finest quality, such a parcel as I could carry in my pocket without observation. I guessed that I should require a light only when I wished to eat and drink, that I might see where my food lay, and that the candles, used for a few minutes at a time and at long intervals, would last till Will released me. I also put down in my list a tinder-box and matches.
(My memory is at fault. I cannot recollect that we had the common lucifer match in 1838.)
The other items consisted of a couple of clay pipes, a clasp-knife, and a pair of strong shoes that should thicken out my feet to the look of a youth’s. These things, and the boy’s clothes I was disguised in, comprised all the luggage I intended to take.
The next day was unspeakably wretched both to body and soul. It blew hard, it was bitterly cold, and it rained incessantly, with a frequent clouding of grimy sleet. I struggled to the several shops to purchase the articles I had jotted down, and then returned to my lodgings, where I remained the rest of the day. To-morrow the Childe Harold was to haul alongside the hulk. I was to embark upon a more wild, perilous, romantic, heart-shaking undertaking than probably was ever conceived by woman since the days of the mother of all. I was banishing myself from my home, from friends, from every convenience and luxury of shore-going life within the reach of my purse. I was going to hide myself in the black and noisome hole of a convict ship, without having the least idea of what lay before me whilst I remained hidden and after I should have been discovered. I was going on a long voyage in a suit of boy’s clothes and no other wearing apparel, and should be taking my chance of being equipped by the charity of the captain out of the ship’s slop-chest, or of falling into rags, and so, perhaps, discovering my sex, unless it should be sooner detected, or unless I should find it necessary to confess it.