Though without appetite, I forced myself to make what would be called a good breakfast. The sitting-room adjoined the bedroom; I rang the bell and toasted myself before the fire whilst I waited until the maid had cleared away the breakfast things. I then went into my bedroom, unclothed and dressed myself in the sailor-dress. This done, I mixed some soot and rouge, and lightly rubbed the compound into parts of my face. The effect was good; you would have supposed I was fresh from the ocean. The clothes I had taken off I made into a parcel and addressed it thus:
‘To the care of the Commander,
‘Government Transport Childe Harold,
‘Off Woolwich.’
This I had made up my mind to do whilst I lay thinking during the long and stormy watches of the previous night. It was just a speculation, and, good or bad, would amount to little or nothing. The landlady of the lodgings, on finding I did not return, might send the parcel to the ship; if not, no matter. The captain, on receipt of it, might hand it to the steward to hold, concluding there was a blunder somewhere. If he rejected it and sent it back, still, as I say, no matter. I valued not the clothes one farthing, but, I had reasoned, if the parcel found its way on board, and my sex should be discovered, there would be my clothes in the ship ready for me.
Having addressed the parcel, I put the little packet of candles and the other few matters I had bought into my pockets, and counted my money. I had between four and five pounds, one guinea of which I had received for my hair; and I need not tell you that this was even more money than it was prudent I should have if I was to act the part of a stowaway supposed to be driven from home by poverty; that is to say, if I should come to be searched, which on board a convict ship was extremely probable.
I paused to consider if more remained to be done. I then opened the door and listened, and, finding all quiet, slipped down the short stairs, passed into the street, and walked quickly in the direction of the Dockyard.
And perhaps I should repeat here that I had paid the woman of the house in advance for her lodgings, and that I had departed leaving her in my debt, so to call it, for I had purchased everything I had eaten, and left enough behind me in groceries and the like to last her for a week.
CHAPTER XVI
SHE HIDES AS A STOWAWAY
I felt excessively nervous when I first set out toward the Dockyard. I had never before shown myself in public in male attire, and imagined that everybody who looked at me saw that I was a girl. I was somewhat reassured, however, by a hulking fellow in leggings crossing the road and asking me for a pipe of tobacco. I told him I had none. ‘A cuss’d lie,’ he roared fiercely. ‘Gi’ us the plug out of your jaws, you damn’d shellback!’ I pushed on. He shouted after me, and, though his language was by no means refined, I did not dislike to hear him, for what he said left me in no doubt that he took me for a sailor.