Rattlin the Reefer | Page 5

being placed upon a narrow plank, toeing a chalked line. This was not a
line of conduct that he actually chalked out for himself; only it so
happened that, when he was settled at Lambeth, on the third day he
went out to look after work, and going down Stangate Street, he turned
up Cut-throat Lane, and, after passing all the turnstiles, he arrived at the
Two Jolly Sawyers, himself making a third. In his search for
employment, he found it impossible, for the space of a whole month, to
get any further.
But he was not long permitted to be the ascendant spirit among the top
and bottom men. Whether it be that Mrs Brandon overrated her powers
of affording sustenance, or that I had suffered through the inclemency
of the weather in my three journeys on my natal day, or whether that I
was naturally delicate, or perhaps all these causes contributing to it, I
fell into a very sickly state, and, before a third month had elapsed, I was
forced to another migration.
Though no one appeared, both myself and Mrs Brandon were
continually watched, and a very superior sort of surgeon in the
neighbourhood of Lambeth, from the second day of my arrival there,
found some pretence or another to get introduced to my nurse, and took
a violent liking to the little, puny, wailing piece of mortality, myself. I
was about this time so exceedingly small, that though at the risk of
being puerile, I cannot help recording that Joseph Brandon immersed
me, all excepting my head, in a quart pot. No one but a Joe Brandon, or
a top sawyer, could have had so filthy an idea. I have never been told
whether the pot contained any drainings, but I must attribute to this
ill-advised act a most plebeian fondness that I have for strong beer, and
which seems to be, even in these days of French manners and French
wines, unconquerable.
My health now became so precarious, that a letter arrived, signed
simply E.R., ordering that I should be immediately baptised, and five

pounds were enclosed for the expenses. The letter stated that two
decent persons should be found by Mrs Brandon to be my sponsors,
and that a female would appear on such a day, at such an hour, at
Lambeth Church, to act as my godmother. That I was to be christened
Ralph Rattlin, and, if I survived, I was to pass for their own child till
further orders, and Ralph Rattlin Brandon were to be my usual
appellations. Two decent persons being required, Joe Brandon, not
having done any work for a couple of months, thought, by virtue of
idleness, he might surely call himself one, to say nothing of his
top-boots. The other godfather was a decayed fishmonger, of the name
of Ford, a pensioner in the Fishmonger's Company, in whose
alms-houses, at Newington, he afterwards died. A sad reprobate was
old Ford--he was wicked from nature, drunken from habit, and full of
repentance from methodism. Thus his time was very equally divided
between sin, drink, and contrition. His sleep was all sin, for he would
keep the house awake all night blaspheming in his unhealthy slumbers.
As I was taken to church in a hackney-coach, my very honoured
godfather, Ford, remarked, that "it would be a very pleasant thing to get
me into hell before him, as he was sure that I was born to sin, a child of
wrath, and an inheritor of the kingdom of the devil." This bitter remark
roused the passions even of my gentle nurse, and she actually scored
down both sides of his face with her nails, in such a manner as to leave
deep scars in his ugliness, that nine years after he carried to his grave.
All this happened in the coach on our way to church. Ford had already
prepared himself for the performance of his sponsorial duties, by
getting half drunk upon his favourite beverage, gin, and it was now
necessary to make him wholly intoxicated to induce him to go through
the ceremony. As yet, my nurse had never properly seen my mother's
face; at the interview, on my birth, the agitation of both parties, and the
darkened room, though there was no attempt at concealment, prevented
Mrs Brandon from noticing her sufficiently to know her again; when,
therefore, as our party alighted at the gate of the churchyard, and a lady,
deeply veiled, got out of a carriage at some distance, Mrs Brandon
knew not if she had ever seen her before.
I have been unfortunate in religious ceremonies. Old Ford was a horrid
spectacle, his face streaming with blood, violently drunk, and led by

Brandon, who certainly was, on that occasion, both decent in
appearance and behaviour.