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.