The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) | Page 7

was not mistaken: there was a footstep on my landing, and I listened for the one heavy knock. It seemed to me I waited about an hour and a half, judging by the palpitations of my heart, and wished the man had knocked as vigorously. But I was rewarded: the knocker fell, and as my boy was away with the toothache, I opened the door myself. He was the same wheezy man I had heard below some time before; and I really seem to have liked asthmatical people ever since--except when I became a judge and they disturbed me in court.
"Papers!"
That is enough to say to any one who understands the situation. You may be sure I gave them my best attention, that they were finished promptly, and, as I hoped, in the best style. If I had required any additional incentive to keep me to my daily task of watching, this would have been sufficient; but I wanted none. I knew that my whole future depended upon it, and there I was from ten in the morning till ten at night.
My first fee was small, but it was the biggest fee I ever had. It was 10s. 6d. I was only a special pleader, and with some papers our fees were even less; we only had to draw pleadings, not to open them in court--that comes after you are called to the Bar. Drawing them means really drawing the points of the case for counsel, and opening them means a gabbling epitome of them to the jury, which no jury in this world ever yet understood or ever will.
This little matter was the forerunner of others, and by little and little I steadily went on, earning a few shillings now and a few shillings then, but, best of all, becoming known little by little here and there.
I was aware that some knowledge of the world would be necessary for me when I once got into it by way of business as an advocate, so I came to the conclusion that it would be well to commence that branch of study as soon as I closed the other for the day--or rather for the night.
I had not far to go to school, only to the Haymarket and its delightful purlieus; and there were the best teachers to be found in the world, and the most recondite studies. For all these I kept, as the great politicians say, an open mind, and learned a great deal which stood me in good stead in after-life.
It is not necessary, I suppose, in writing these reminiscences, to describe all I saw--at least I hope not. Manners have so changed since that time that people who have no imagination would not believe me, and those who have would imagine I was exaggerating. So I must skip this portion of my youthful studies, merely saying that I saw nearly, if not quite, all the life which was to be seen in London; and I am sure I am not exaggerating when I say that that would nearly fill an octavo volume of itself. There is so much to be seen in London, as a dear old lady I used to drink tea with once told me.
But she did not know more than I, for she had never seen the night-houses, gambling hells, and other places of amusement that at that time were open all night long, nor had she seen the ghastly faces of the morning. I attribute my escaping the consequences of all these allurements to the beautiful influence which my mother in early life exercised over me, as I attribute my knowledge of them to the removal of the restraint with which my earlier years had been curbed.
My mother died before I came to London, but undoubtedly her influence was with me, although I broke loose, as a matter of course, from all paternal control.
But I was never a "man about town." To be that you must have plenty of money or none at all, and in either case you are an object to avoid. I had, nevertheless, a great many pleasures that a young man from the country can enjoy. I loved horse-racing, cricket, and the prize-ring. It was not because pugilism was a fashionable amusement in those days that I attended a "set-to" occasionally; I went on my own account, not to ape people in the fashionable world, and enjoyed it on my own account, not because they liked it, but because I did.
My rent at this time of my entrance into the fashionable world was ��12 a year; my laundress, perhaps, a little less. She earned it by coming up the stairs; but she was a good old soul. I remembered her long years after, and always with gratitude for her