I TOO HAVE MY CALL--TO DEATH'S DOOR--A GREAT RISE IN LIFE--BRANDON
ALLOWS NEITHER SLUGS NOR SLUGGARDS IN HIS SAWPIT--IS RUINED, AND BEATS
THE REVEREND MR. CATE.
All this was preparatory to an event, to me of the utmost importance,
which is, perhaps, at this very moment, influencing imperceptibly my
mind, and directing my character. Brandon's call, in our humble circle,
made a great deal of noise. He had taken care that I should know what
drunkenness meant. I thought he ought to have been drunk on the
afternoon of his election, yet he so well disguised his intoxication
that he appeared not to be so. I listened attentively to the sermon of
the preacher that followed. I no longer doubted. I could not believe
that a grave man in a pulpit could speak anything but truth, when he
spoke so loudly, and spoke for two hours. My mind was a chaos of
confusion: I began to be very miserable. The next, or one or two
Sundays after, produced the crisis. My dress was always much superior
to what could have been expected in the son of a mere operative. I was,
at that time, a fair and mild-featured child, and altogether remarkable
among the set who frequented the meeting-house. Mr Cate had been very
powerful indeed in his description of the infernal regions--of the
abiding agonies--the level lake that burneth--the tossing of the waves
that glow; and, when he had thrown two or three old women into
hysterics, and two or three young ones into fainting-fits, amidst the
torrent of his oratory, and the groaning, and the "Lord have mercy upon
me's," of his audience, he made a sudden pause. There was a dead
silence for half a minute, then suddenly lifting his voice, he pointed
to me, and exclaimed, "Behold that beautiful child--observe the pure
blood mantling in his delicate countenance--but what is he after all but
a mouthful for the devil? All those torments, all those tortures, that
I have told you of, will be his; there, look at him, he will burn and
writhe in pain, and consume for ever, and ever, and ever, and never be
destroyed, unless the original sin be washed out from him by the `call,'
unless he be made, hereafter, one of the `elect.'"
At this direct address to myself, I neither fainted, shuddered, nor
cried--I felt, at the time, a little stupefied: and it was some hours
after (the hideous man's words all the time ringing in my ears) before I
fully comprehend my hopeless state of perdition. I looked at the fire
as I sat by it, and trembled. I went to bed, but not to sleep. No
child ever haunted by a ghost-story was more terrified than myself, as I
lay panting on my tear-steeped pillow. At length, imagination began its
dreadful charms--the room enlarged itself in its gloom to vast space--I
began to hear cries from under my bed. Some dark bodies first of all
flitted across the gloaming. My bed began to rock. I tried to sing a
hymn. I thought that the words came out of my mouth in flames of bright
fire. I then called to mind the offerings from the altars of Cain and
Abel. I watched to see if my hymns turned into fire, and ascended up to
heaven. I felt a cold horror when I discovered them scattered from my
mouth exactly in the same manner that I had seen the flames in the
engraving in our large Bible on the altar of Cain. Then there came a
huge block of wood, and stationed itself in the air above me, about six
inches from my eyes. I remember no more--I was in a raging fever.
I was ill for some weeks, and a helpless invalid for many more. When
again I enjoyed perception of the things around me, I found myself in a
new house in Red Cross Street, near Saint Luke's. My foster-parents had
opened a shop--it had the appearance of a most respectable fruiterer's.
Mr Brandon had become a small timber-merchant, had sawpits in the
premises behind the house, and men of his own actually sawing in them.
But the most surprising change of all was, that the reverend Mr Cate
was domesticated with us. Brandon, as a master, worked harder than ever
he did as a man. My nurse became anxious and careworn, and never seemed
happy--for my part, I was so debilitated, that I then took but little
notice of anything. However, the beautiful lady never called. I used
to spend my time thinking upon angels and cherubs, and in learning hymns
by heart. I suppose that I, like my foster-father, had had my call, but
I am sure that after it, I was as much weaker in mind as I was in body.
When I became strong enough to be again able to run about, I was once
more sent to a day-school, and all that I remember about the matter was,
that every day about eleven o'clock, I was told to run home and get a
wigful of potatoes from Brandon's, the venerable pedagogue coolly taking
off his wig, and exchanging it for a red night-cap, until my return with
the provender.
Things now wore a dismal aspect at home. At length, one day, the broker
sent his men into the shop, who threw all the greengrocery about like
peelings of onions. They carted away Mr Brandon's deals and planks,
and timber, and, not content with all this, they also took away the best
of the household furniture. My nurse called Mr Cate a devil in a white
sheet--her husband acted as he always would do when he was offended and
found himself strong enough: he gave the reverend gentleman, most
irreverently, a tremendous beating. The sheep sadly gored the shepherd.
Afterwards, when he had nearly killed his pastor, he seceded from his
flock, and gave him, under his own hand, a solemn abjuration of the
Caterian tenets. How Brandon came to launch out into this expensive and
ill-advised undertaking of green-groceries and sawpits, how he
afterwards became involved, and how much the preacher had been guilty in
deceiving him, I never clearly understood. However, my nurse never, for
a long time after, spoke of the reverend gentleman without applying the
corner of her apron to her eyes, or her husband without a hearty
malediction. We removed to our old neighbourhood, but, instead of
taking a respectable house, we were forced to burrow in mean lodgings.