Brother Hawkyard (as he insisted on
my calling him) put me to school, and told me to work my
way. ‘You are all right, George,’ he
said. ‘I have been the best servant the Lord has had
in his service for this five-and-thirty year (O, I have!); and he
knows the value of such a servant as I have been to him (O, yes,
he does!); and he’ll prosper your schooling as a part of my
reward. That’s what he’ll do,
George. He’ll do it for me.’
From the first I could not like this familiar knowledge of the
ways of the sublime, inscrutable Almighty, on Brother
Hawkyard’s part. As I grew a little wiser, and still
a little wiser, I liked it less and less. His manner, too,
of confirming himself in a parenthesis,—as if, knowing
himself, he doubted his own word,—I found
distasteful. I cannot tell how much these dislikes cost me;
for I had a dread that they were worldly.
As time went on, I became a Foundation-boy on a good
foundation, and I cost Brother Hawkyard nothing. When I had
worked my way so far, I worked yet harder, in the hope of
ultimately getting a presentation to college and a
fellowship. My health has never been strong (some vapour
from the Preston cellar cleaves to me, I think); and what with
much work and some weakness, I came again to be
regarded—that is, by my fellow-students—as
unsocial.
All through my time as a foundation-boy, I was within a few
miles of Brother Hawkyard’s congregation; and whenever I
was what we called a leave-boy on a Sunday, I went over there at
his desire. Before the knowledge became forced upon me that
outside their place of meeting these brothers and sisters were no
better than the rest of the human family, but on the whole were,
to put the case mildly, as bad as most, in respect of giving
short weight in their shops, and not speaking the truth,—I
say, before this knowledge became forced upon me, their prolix
addresses, their inordinate conceit, their daring ignorance,
their investment of the Supreme Ruler of heaven and earth with
their own miserable meannesses and littlenesses, greatly shocked
me. Still, as their term for the frame of mind that could
not perceive them to be in an exalted state of grace was the
‘worldly’ state, I did for a time suffer tortures
under my inquiries of myself whether that young worldly-devilish
spirit of mine could secretly be lingering at the bottom of my
non-appreciation.
Brother Hawkyard was the popular expounder in this assembly,
and generally occupied the platform (there was a little platform
with a table on it, in lieu of a pulpit) first, on a Sunday
afternoon. He was by trade a drysalter. Brother
Gimblet, an elderly man with a crabbed face, a large
dog’s-eared shirt-collar, and a spotted blue neckerchief
reaching up behind to the crown of his head, was also a drysalter
and an expounder. Brother Gimblet professed the greatest
admiration for Brother Hawkyard, but (I had thought more than
once) bore him a jealous grudge.
Let whosoever may peruse these lines kindly take the pains
here to read twice my solemn pledge, that what I write of the
language and customs of the congregation in question I write
scrupulously, literally, exactly, from the life and the
truth.
On the first Sunday after I had won what I had so long tried
for, and when it was certain that I was going up to college,
Brother Hawkyard concluded a long exhortation thus:
‘Well, my friends and fellow-sinners, now I told you
when I began, that I didn’t know a word of what I was going
to say to you (and no, I did not!), but that it was all one to
me, because I knew the Lord would put into my mouth the words I
wanted.’
(‘That’s it!’ from Brother Gimblet.)
‘And he did put into my mouth the words I
wanted.’
(‘So he did!’ from Brother Gimblet.)
‘And why?’
(‘Ah, let’s have that!’ from Brother
Gimblet.)
‘Because I have been his faithful servant for
five-and-thirty years, and because he knows it. For
five-and-thirty years! And he knows it, mind you! I
got those words that I wanted on account of my wages. I got
’em from the Lord, my fellow-sinners. Down! I said,
“Here’s a heap of wages due; let us have something
down, on account.” And I got it down, and I paid it
over to you; and you won’t wrap it up in a napkin, nor yet
in a towel, nor yet pocketankercher, but you’ll put it out
at good interest. Very well. Now, my brothers and
sisters and fellow-sinners, I am going to conclude with a
question, and I’ll make it so plain (with the help of the
Lord, after five-and-thirty years, I should rather hope!) as that
the Devil shall not be able to confuse it in your
heads,—which he would be overjoyed to do.’
(‘Just his way. Crafty old blackguard!’ from
Brother Gimblet.)
‘And the question is this, Are the angels
learned?’
(‘Not they. Not a bit on it!’ from Brother
Gimblet, with the greatest confidence.)
‘Not they. And where’s the proof? sent
ready-made by the hand of the Lord. Why, there’s one
among us here now, that has got all the learning that can be
crammed into him. I got him all the learning that
could be crammed into him. His grandfather’ (this I
had never heard before) ‘was a brother of ours. He
was Brother Parksop. That’s what he was.
Parksop; Brother Parksop. His worldly name was Parksop, and
he was a brother of this brotherhood. Then wasn’t he
Brother Parksop?’
(‘Must be. Couldn’t help hisself!’
from Brother Gimblet.)
‘Well, he left that one now here present among us to the
care of a brother-sinner of his (and that brother-sinner, mind
you, was a sinner of a bigger size in his time than any of you;
praise the Lord!), Brother Hawkyard. Me. I got
him without fee or reward,—without a morsel of myrrh, or
frankincense, nor yet amber, letting alone the
honeycomb,—all the learning that could be crammed into
him. Has it brought him into our temple, in the
spirit? No. Have we had any ignorant brothers and
sisters that didn’t know round O from crooked S, come in
among us meanwhile? Many. Then the angels are
not learned; then they don’t so much as know their
alphabet. And now, my friends and fellow-sinners, having
brought it to that, perhaps some brother present—perhaps
you, Brother Gimblet—will pray a bit for us?’
Brother Gimblet undertook the sacred function, after having
drawn his sleeve across his mouth, and muttered,
‘Well! I don’t know as I see my way to hitting
any of you quite in the right place neither.’ He said
this with a dark smile, and then began to bellow. What we
were specially to be preserved from, according to his
solicitations, was, despoilment of the orphan, suppression of
testamentary intentions on the part of a father or (say)
grandfather, appropriation of the orphan’s house-property,
feigning to give in charity to the wronged one from whom we
withheld his due; and that class of sins. He ended with the
petition, ‘Give us peace!’ which, speaking for
myself, was very much needed after twenty minutes of his
bellowing.
Even though I had not seen him when he rose from his knees,
steaming with perspiration, glance at Brother Hawkyard, and even
though I had not heard Brother Hawkyard’s tone of
congratulating him on the vigour with which he had roared, I
should have detected a malicious application in this
prayer. Unformed suspicions to a similar effect had
sometimes passed through my mind in my earlier school-days, and
had always caused me great distress; for they were worldly in
their nature, and wide, very wide, of the spirit that had drawn
me from Sylvia. They were sordid suspicions, without a
shadow of proof. They were worthy to have originated in the
unwholesome cellar. They were not only without proof, but
against proof; for was I not myself a living proof of what
Brother Hawkyard had done? and without him, how should I ever
have seen the sky look sorrowfully down upon that wretched boy at
Hoghton Towers?
Although the dread of a relapse into a stage of savage
selfishness was less strong upon me as I approached manhood, and
could act in an increased degree for myself, yet I was always on
my guard against any tendency to such relapse. After
getting these suspicions under my feet, I had been troubled by
not being able to like Brother Hawkyard’s manner, or his
professed religion. So it came about, that, as I walked
back that Sunday evening, I thought it would be an act of
reparation for any such injury my struggling thoughts had
unwillingly done him, if I wrote, and placed in his hands, before
going to college, a full acknowledgment of his goodness to me,
and an ample tribute of thanks. It might serve as an
implied vindication of him against any dark scandal from a rival
brother and expounder, or from any other quarter.
Accordingly, I wrote the document with much care. I may
add with much feeling too; for it affected me as I went on.
Having no set studies to pursue, in the brief interval between
leaving the Foundation and going to Cambridge, I determined to
walk out to his place of business, and give it into his own
hands.
It was a winter afternoon, when I tapped at the door of his
little counting-house, which was at the farther end of his long,
low shop. As I did so (having entered by the back yard,
where casks and boxes were taken in, and where there was the
inscription, ‘Private way to the counting-house’), a
shopman called to me from the counter that he was engaged.
‘Brother Gimblet’ (said the shopman, who was one
of the brotherhood) ‘is with him.’
I thought this all the better for my purpose, and made bold to
tap again. They were talking in a low tone, and money was
passing; for I heard it being counted out.
‘Who is it?’ asked Brother Hawkyard, sharply.
‘George Silverman,’ I answered, holding the door
open. ‘May I come in?’
Both brothers seemed so astounded to see me that I felt shyer
than usual. But they looked quite cadaverous in the early
gaslight, and perhaps that accidental circumstance exaggerated
the expression of their faces.
‘What is the matter?’ asked Brother Hawkyard.
‘Ay! what is the matter?’ asked Brother
Gimblet.
‘Nothing at all,’ I said, diffidently producing my
document: ‘I am only the bearer of a letter from
myself.’
‘From yourself, George?’ cried Brother
Hawkyard.
‘And to you,’ said I.
‘And to me, George?’
He turned paler, and opened it hurriedly; but looking over it,
and seeing generally what it was, became less hurried, recovered
his colour, and said, ‘Praise the Lord!’
‘That’s it!’ cried Brother Gimblet.
‘Well put! Amen.’
Brother Hawkyard then said, in a livelier strain, ‘You
must know, George, that Brother Gimblet and I are going to make
our two businesses one. We are going into
partnership. We are settling it now. Brother Gimblet
is to take one clear half of the profits (O, yes! he shall have
it; he shall have it to the last farthing).’
‘D.V.!’ said Brother Gimblet, with his right fist
firmly clinched on his right leg.
‘There is no objection,’ pursued Brother Hawkyard,
‘to my reading this aloud, George?’
As it was what I expressly desired should be done, after
yesterday’s prayer, I more than readily begged him to read
it aloud. He did so; and Brother Gimblet listened with a
crabbed smile.
‘It was in a good hour that I came here,’ he said,
wrinkling up his eyes. ‘It was in a good hour,
likewise, that I was moved yesterday to depict for the terror of
evil-doers a character the direct opposite of Brother
Hawkyard’s. But it was the Lord that done it: I felt
him at it while I was perspiring.’
After that it was proposed by both of them that I should
attend the congregation once more before my final
departure. What my shy reserve would undergo, from being
expressly preached at and prayed at, I knew beforehand. But
I reflected that it would be for the last time, and that it might
add to the weight of my letter. It was well known to the
brothers and sisters that there was no place taken for me in
their paradise; and if I showed this last token of
deference to Brother Hawkyard, notoriously in despite of my own
sinful inclinations, it might go some little way in aid of my
statement that he had been good to me, and that I was grateful to
him. Merely stipulating, therefore, that no express
endeavour should be made for my conversion,—which would
involve the rolling of several brothers and sisters on the floor,
declaring that they felt all their sins in a heap on their left
side, weighing so many pounds avoirdupois, as I knew from what I
had seen of those repulsive mysteries,—I promised.
Since the reading of my letter, Brother Gimblet had been at
intervals wiping one eye with an end of his spotted blue
neckerchief, and grinning to himself. It was, however, a
habit that brother had, to grin in an ugly manner even when
expounding. I call to mind a delighted snarl with which he
used to detail from the platform the torments reserved for the
wicked (meaning all human creation except the brotherhood), as
being remarkably hideous.
I left the two to settle their articles of partnership, and
count money; and I never saw them again but on the following
Sunday. Brother Hawkyard died within two or three years,
leaving all he possessed to Brother Gimblet, in virtue of a will
dated (as I have been told) that very day.
Now I was so far at rest with myself, when Sunday came,
knowing that I had conquered my own mistrust, and righted Brother
Hawkyard in the jaundiced vision of a rival, that I went, even to
that coarse chapel, in a less sensitive state than usual.
How could I foresee that the delicate, perhaps the diseased,
corner of my mind, where I winced and shrunk when it was touched,
or was even approached, would be handled as the theme of the
whole proceedings?
On this occasion it was assigned to Brother Hawkyard to pray,
and to Brother Gimblet to preach. The prayer was to open
the ceremonies; the discourse was to come next. Brothers
Hawkyard and Gimblet were both on the platform; Brother Hawkyard
on his knees at the table, unmusically ready to pray; Brother
Gimblet sitting against the wall, grinningly ready to preach.
‘Let us offer up the sacrifice of prayer, my brothers
and sisters and fellow-sinners.’ Yes; but it was I
who was the sacrifice. It was our poor, sinful,
worldly-minded brother here present who was wrestled for.
The now-opening career of this our unawakened brother might lead
to his becoming a minister of what was called ‘the
church.’ That was what he looked to. The
church. Not the chapel, Lord. The church. No
rectors, no vicars, no archdeacons, no bishops, no archbishops,
in the chapel, but, O Lord! many such in the church.
Protect our sinful brother from his love of lucre. Cleanse
from our unawakened brother’s breast his sin of
worldly-mindedness. The prayer said infinitely more in
words, but nothing more to any intelligible effect.
Then Brother Gimblet came forward, and took (as I knew he
would) the text, ‘My kingdom is not of this
world.’ Ah! but whose was, my fellow-sinners?
Whose? Why, our brother’s here present was. The
only kingdom he had an idea of was of this world.
(‘That’s it!’ from several of the
congregation.) What did the woman do when she lost the
piece of money? Went and looked for it. What should
our brother do when he lost his way? (‘Go and look
for it,’ from a sister.) Go and look for it,
true. But must he look for it in the right direction, or in
the wrong? (‘In the right,’ from a
brother.) There spake the prophets! He must look for
it in the right direction, or he couldn’t find it.
But he had turned his back upon the right direction, and he
wouldn’t find it. Now, my fellow-sinners, to show you
the difference betwixt worldly-mindedness and
unworldly-mindedness, betwixt kingdoms not of this world and
kingdoms of this world, here was a letter wrote by even
our worldly-minded brother unto Brother Hawkyard. Judge,
from hearing of it read, whether Brother Hawkyard was the
faithful steward that the Lord had in his mind only t’other
day, when, in this very place, he drew you the picter of the
unfaithful one; for it was him that done it, not me.
Don’t doubt that!
Brother Gimblet then groaned and bellowed his way through my
composition, and subsequently through an hour. The service
closed with a hymn, in which the brothers unanimously roared, and
the sisters unanimously shrieked at me, That I by wiles of
worldly gain was mocked, and they on waters of sweet love were
rocked; that I with mammon struggled in the dark, while they were
floating in a second ark.
I went out from all this with an aching heart and a weary
spirit: not because I was quite so weak as to consider these
narrow creatures interpreters of the Divine Majesty and Wisdom,
but because I was weak enough to feel as though it were my hard
fortune to be misrepresented and misunderstood, when I most tried
to subdue any risings of mere worldliness within me, and when I
most hoped that, by dint of trying earnestly, I had
succeeded.
