Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

the townsfolk frightened by the loudness of our mirth; and how we

once crept into a hayloft and were wakened in the dark morning by

a pitchfork,--and how the juvenile owner of that pitchfork fled

through the window when 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 by me.

It was during these 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 my friend for more

than forty years; as has also Peregrine Birch, a clerk in the House

of Lords, who married one of those daughters of Colonel Grant who

assisted us in the raid we made on the goods 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 hating my position there, and yet always

fearing that 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 time

seven surveyors in England, 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 been much doubt among the young men in the office whether

they should or should not apply for these places. The emoluments

were good and the work alluring; but there was at first supposed

to be something derogatory in the position. There was a rumour that

the first surveyor who got 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. To me it had not occurred to ask for

anything, nor would anything have been given me. But after a while

there came a report from the far west of Ireland that the man sent

there was absurdly incapable. It was probably thought then that

none but a man absurdly incapable would go 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 time in dire trouble, having

debts on my head and quarrels with our Secretary-Colonel, and a

full conviction that my life was taking me downwards to the lowest

pits. So I went to the Colonel boldly, and volunteered for Ireland

if he would send me. He was glad to be so rid of me, and I went.

This happened in August, 1841, when I was twenty-six years old. My

salary in Ireland was to be but (pounds)100 a year; but I was to receive

fifteen shillings a day for every day that I was away from home,

and sixpence for every mile that I travelled. The same allowances

were made in England; but at that time travelling in Ireland was

done at half the English prices. My income in Ireland, after paying

my expenses, became at once (pounds)400. This was the first good fortune

of my life.

In the preceding pages I have given a short record of the first

twenty-six years of my life,--years of suffering, disgrace, and

inward remorse. I fear that my mode of telling will have left an idea

simply of their absurdities; but, in truth, I was wretched,--sometimes

almost unto death, and have often cursed the hour in which I was

born. There had clung to me a feeling that I had been looked upon

always as an evil, an encumbrance, a useless thing,--as a creature

of whom those connected with him had to be ashamed. And I feel

certain now that in my young days I was so regarded. Even my few

friends who had found with me a certain capacity for enjoyment were

half afraid of me. I acknowledge the weakness of a great desire to

be loved,--of a strong wish to be popular with my associates. No

child, no boy, no lad, no young man, 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 time who has had a happier life than mine?

Looking round upon all those I know, I cannot put my hand upon

one. But all is not over yet. And, mindful of that, remembering

how great is the agony of adversity, how crushing the despondency

of degradation, how susceptible I am myself to the misery coming

from contempt,--remembering also how quickly good things may go

and evil things come,--I am often again tempted to hope, almost to

pray, that the end may be near. Things may be going well now--

"Sin aliquem infandum casum, Fortuna, minaris;

Nunc, o nunc liceat crudelem abrumpere vitam."

There is unhappiness so great 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 told my friends that I was going on this mission to Ireland

they shook their heads, but said nothing to dissuade me. I think

it must have been evident to all who were 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

my intention in time to protest against it. Indeed, I consulted

no one, except a dear old cousin, our family lawyer, from whom I

borrowed (pounds)200 to help me out of England. He lent me the money, and

looked upon me with pitying eyes--shaking his head. "After all,

you were right to go," he said to me when I paid him the money a

few years afterwards.

But nobody then thought I was right to go. To become clerk to

an Irish surveyor, in Connaught, with a salary of (pounds)100 a year, at

twenty-six years of age! I did not think it right even myself,--except

that anything was right which would take me away from the General

Post Office and from London.

My ideas of the duties I was to perform were very vague, as were

also my ideas of Ireland generally. Hitherto I had passed my time,

seated at a desk, either writing letters myself, or copying into

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 among other things 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 flowing with 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 from Banagher my inspecting tours were to

be made, chiefly into Connaught, 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 excitement in this, but when the

punch was gone I was very dull. It seemed so strange 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 my destiny to go down into

Connaught and adjust accounts,--the destiny of me who had never

learned the multiplication table, or done a sum in long division!

On the next morning I called on the Secretary of the Irish Post

Office, and learned from him that Colonel Maberly had sent a very

bad character with me. He could not have sent a very good one; but

I felt a little hurt when I was informed by this new master that he

had been informed that I was worthless, and must, in all probability,

be dismissed. "But," said the new master, "I shall judge 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 whom I had

been sent kept a pack of hounds, and therefore I bought a hunter.

I do not think he liked it, but he could not well complain. He never

rode to hounds himself, but I did; and then and thus began one of

the great joys of my life. I have ever since been constant to the

sport, having learned 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, money, and

natural disadvantages. I am very heavy, very blind, have been--in

reference to hunting--a poor man, and am now an old man. I have

often had to travel all night outside a mail-coach, in order that

I might hunt the next day. Nor have I ever been in truth a good

horseman. And I have passed the greater part of my hunting 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

performed that duty with a persistent energy. Nothing 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 my services were re-transferred to England,

no word of difficulty ever reached me about it. I have written on

very many subjects, and on most of them with pleasure, but on no

subject with such delight as that on hunting. I have dragged it

into many novels,--into too many, no doubt,--but I have always felt

myself deprived of a legitimate joy when the nature of the tale has

not allowed me a hunting chapter. Perhaps that which gave me the

greatest 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, who will be remembered as one of the

members for Surrey.

It was altogether a very jolly life that I led in Ireland. I

was always moving about, and soon found myself to be in pecuniary

circumstances which were opulent in comparison with those of my