Fear is a resourceful demon, with whom we are engaged in perpetual
conflict from the cradle to the grave. Fear assumes many forms, and has
always a shrewd eye for the joints in that armour of courage and
confidence which we put on in self-defence. One man conquers fear of
danger only to fall a prey to fear of public opinion; another succumbs
to superstitious fear, while a third, steadfast against all these, comes
under the thraldom of the most insidious and malign of all forms of
fear--the fear of death.
The power of fear has of late been forcibly impressed on my mind by
hearing from his own lips the story of my friend, Job Hesketh. Six
months ago I should have said that Job was entirely unconscious of fear.
I have never known a man so good-humouredly indifferent to public
opinion. "Say what thou thinks and do what thou says" was the golden
rule upon which he acted, and which he commended to others.
Superstition, in its myriad forms, was for him a lifelong jest. Thirteen
people at table had never been known to take the keen edge off his
Yorkshire appetite, and he liked to make fun of his friends' dread of
ghosts, witches and "gabbleratchets." Nothing pleased him better than to
stroll of an evening round the nearest cemetery, and he had often been
heard to declare: "I'd as sooin eat my supper off a tombstone as off wer
kitchen table."
He faced danger with reckless unconcern every day of his life. He was
employed as a "vessel-man" at the Leeds Steel Works, working on a
twelve-hours' shift, and his duty was to attend to the huge "vessels" or
crucibles in which the molten pig-iron is converted by the Bessemer
process into steel. The operation is one of enthralling interest and
beauty, and Job Hesketh's soul was in his work. The molten iron from the
blast furnaces flows along its channel into huge "ladles" or cauldrons,
and from there it is conveyed into a still larger reservoir or "mixer,"
where the greater part of the slag--which floats as a scum on the
surface--is drawn off. Then the purified metal passes into other
cauldrons, which are borne along by hydraulic machinery and their
contents gently tipped into the crucibles, which lower their gaping
mouths to receive the daffodil stream of molten iron. When their maws
are full, the crucibles are once more brought into an erect position,
and the process of converting iron into steel begins. A blast of air is
driven through the liquid metal, and the "vessels" are at once changed
into fountains of fire. A gigantic spray of flame and sparks rises from
their gaping mouths and ascends to a height of twenty feet, changing its
colour from green to gold and from gold to violet and blue as the impure
gases of sulphur and phosphorus are purged by the blast. For twenty
minutes this continues, and then the roar of the blast and the fiery
spray die down. What entered the crucible as iron is now ready to be
poured forth as steel. Once more the "vessels" are lowered and made to
discharge their contents. First comes a molten cascade of basic slag
which is borne away to cool, then to be ground to finest powder, before
its quickening power is given to pasture and cornfield, imparting a
deeper purple to the clover and a mellower gold to the rippling ears of
wheat. When all the slag has been drawn off, there is a moment's pause,
and then a new cascade begins. The steel is beginning to flow, not in a
daffodil stream like the slag, but in a cascade of exquisite turquoise
blue, melting away at the sides into iridescent opal. Sometimes a great
cloud of steam from the pit below passes across the mouth of the
crucible, and then the torrent of molten steel takes on all the colours
of the rainbow, and the great shed, with its alert, swiftly moving
figures, is suffused with a radiance of unearthly beauty.
When the vessels have discharged all their precious liquid, the cauldron
into which the metal has been poured is swung in mid-air by that unseen,
effortless power which we know as hydraulic pressure, through the arc of
a wide circle, until it reaches the point where the great ingot-moulds
stand ready to receive the molten steel. Then the cauldron is tapped,
and once more the stream of turquoise flows forth, until the ladle is
empty and the moulds are filled to the brim with liquid fire. Such was
the work in which Job Hesketh was engaged, and it absorbed him body and
soul from year's end to year's end.
Job was a giant in stature and strength. Born on a farm in the very
heart of the Yorkshire wolds, he had drifted, as a boy of sixteen, to
Leeds, and had found the life and activities of the forge as congenial
as those of the farmstead. He had reached the age of fifty without
knowing a day's illness, and he would have been the first to admit that
fortune had smiled on him. His home life had been smooth, his wages had
been sufficient for his simple needs, and the good health that he
enjoyed was shared by his wife and five children. It is true that, in
spite of his long years of service, he had never risen to be a foreman;
but that, he knew quite well, was his own fault. During the summer
months his conduct at the forge was exemplary, but as soon as November
set in it was another matter. Fox-hunting was the passion of his life,
and with the fall of the leaf in the last days of October, Job grew
restless. He would eagerly scan the papers for news of the doings of the
Bramham Moor Hunt, and from the opening of the season to its close he
would play truant on at least one day a week. He knew every cover for
leagues around, and thought nothing of tramping six or eight miles to be
ready for the meet before following the hounds and huntsman all day on
foot across the stubble fields. In vain did foremen and works-managers
remonstrate with him; he promised to reform, but never kept his word.
The blood of many generations of wold farmers ran in his veins, and
everyone of them had been a keen sportsman. The cry of the hounds rang
in his dreams of a night, and when Mary Hesketh, lying by her husband's
side, heard him muttering in his sleep: "Tally-ho! Hark to Rover! Stown
away!" she knew that, when the hooter sounded at half-past five, it
would summon him, not to work, but to a day with the hounds. He would
return home between four and five, mud-stained from head to foot,
triumphant at heart, but with an amusingly cowed expression on his face,
as of a dog that expects a whipping.
The only whipping that Mary Hesketh could administer to her repentant
Job was that of the tongue. In her early matrimonial life she had
wielded this like a flail, and Job had winced before the blows which she
delivered. But in course of time she had come to realise that her
husband's passion for the chase was incurable, and, like a wise woman,
she accepted it as part of her destiny. "Thou's bin laikin' agean, thou
gert good-for-nowt," was her usual greeting for Job on these occasions.
"Ay, ay, lass," he would reply; "I've addled nowt all t' day. But thou
promised, when we wed, to tak me for better or worse; an' if t' worse
wasn't t' hounds, it would happen be hosses or drink. Sithee, Mally,
I've browt thee a two-three snowdrops; thou can wear 'em o' Sunday."
Such was the Job Hesketh that I had known and loved for many years, and
I saw no reason why his genial temper and buoyant heart should not
remain with him to the end of his life. Yet within six months the man
changed completely. He grew suddenly old and shrunken; the great blithe
laugh that pealed through the house was silenced, the look of suave
contentment with himself and with the world about him vanished from his
face, and in its place I saw a nervous, troubled glance as of one who
suspects a lurking foe ready to spring at his throat. The change which
came over Job was like that which sometimes comes over a city sky in
autumn. The morning breaks fair, and the sun rises from out a cloudless,
frosty sky, promising a day of sunshine. But then, with the lighting of
a hundred thousand fires, a change takes place. The smoke cannot escape
in the windless air, but hangs like a pall over the houses. The sun
grows chill, coppery and rayless, and soon a fog, creeping along the
river, silently encloses each particle of smoke within a watery shroud,
and a mantle of murky gloom invests the city.
What was it that wrought this sudden change in the mind of Job Hesketh?
The story is soon told. For a long time there had been no serious
accident at the Leeds Steel Works, and the workmen, almost without being
aware of it, had grown somewhat reckless of the dangers which they had
to face. They knew quite well that in many of the operations which the
metal undergoes in its passage from crude ore to ingots of steel, a
false step meant instant death. But they had known this so long that the
knowledge had lost its terrors.
There are many moments of enforced idleness for the vesselmen as they
stand on their raised platform in front of the crucibles; but, even
during these moments of inactivity, alertness of mind is required. One
morning their minds were not alert, and one of the workmen, Abe Verity
by name, seated on the railing which separates the platform from the pit
in which stand the ingot-moulds, had snatched the cap from the head of
one of his fellows. The latter, in response to this, had raised his
crowbar, as if he meant to strike Abe on the head, and Abe, lurching
backward on the railing in order to avoid the blow, had lost his balance
and fallen backwards. Under ordinary circumstances this would have meant
nothing worse than a drop into the pit below, but, as ill-luck would
have it, one of the cauldrons of molten steel was being swung along the
arc of the pit by a hydraulic crane, and, at the very moment when Abe
lost his balance, it had reached the point beneath which he was sitting.
There was an agonised cry from the vesselmen on their platform, a
hissing splash with great gouts of liquid fire flying in all directions,
a sickening smell, and then, a few minutes later, a clergyman, hastily
summoned from the adjoining church, was reciting the burial service over
the calcined body of Abe Verity.
Blank terror gleamed in the eyes of the men who had been witnesses of
this grim holocaust. All work was suspended for the day, and Job Hesketh
was led home, dazed and trembling in every joint, by his two eldest
sons, who worked in another part of the forge. Huddled together in his
chair by the kitchen fire, perspiration streamed from his face. He was
in a state bordering on delirium, and the answers which he gave to the
questions put to him were wildly incoherent.
Abe Verity was his friend. They had been boys together in the little
wold village where they had been born, and it was at Job's earnest
entreaty that Abe had quitted farm work and joined his friend at the
Leeds Steel Works. Their tastes had been similar, and the Veritys had
often joined the Heskeths in their summer holiday at the seaside. And
now, in one fell moment, the lifelong friendship had been severed, and
Abe, the glad, strong, heart-warm man, had plunged from life to death.
Job refused to go to bed that night, but sat in his chair by the
flickering embers of his kitchen fire. His wife, lying awake in the
bedroom above, listened to his hard breathing and to the half-stifled
words which now and again fell from his lips. He was brooding over the
terrible scene he had witnessed. Every detail had bitten itself into his
brain like acid into metal. He saw the waves of liquid steel closing
over his friend, the greedy swirl of the molten metal, and then the
little tongues of red fire playing upon the surface. They reminded him
of the red tongues of wolves which he had once seen in a cage, as they
licked their chops after their feed of horse-flesh. Then it was the
clergyman reading from his Prayer Book in the garish light of the forge
that fastened itself on his mind. The words seemed charged with bitter
mockery: "We give Thee hearty thanks, for that it hath pleased Thee to
deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world."
"Hearty thanks"! he muttered scornfully. "I'll gie God nowt o' t' sort.
Life tasted gooid to Abe. He knew nowt about t' miseries o' t' sinful
world. He led a clean life, did Abe; an' he were fain o' life, same as I
am."
Time gradually assuaged the first horror of the tragedy which Job had
witnessed, but it failed to bring him peace of mind. Fear of death,
which up to the moment of the tragedy at the forge had never given him
an uneasy moment, now entered into possession of his mind and haunted
him awake or asleep. His work at the forge, once a joy to him, was now
an unbroken agony. He saw death lying in wait for him every time he
climbed a ladder or lifted a crowbar. Nor could he wholly escape from
the terror in what had always seemed to him the security of his home.
The howling of the wind in the chimney, the muttering of a distant
thunderstorm, even the sight of his razor on the dressing-table, were
enough to arouse the morbid fear and strike terror to his heart.
He said little of the agony that he suffered, but it was written plainly
in his eyes, in his ashen face and in the trembling of his hand. I did
my best to induce him to speak his mind to me, but with poor success.
One Sunday evening, however, when I found him and his wife seated by
themselves over the fire, I found him more communicative, and I realised
that what he dreaded most of all in the thought of death was loss of
personality. Of the unelect Calvinist's fear of hell he knew nothing.
What troubled him was, rather, dissatisfaction with heaven. Job was not
much of a theologian, though he attended chapel regularly of a Sunday
evening. His ideas of heaven were drawn mainly from certain popular
hymns, which depicted the life of the redeemed as a perpetual practice
of psalmody.
"What sud I be doin' i' heaven," he asked, "wi' a crown o' gowd on my
heead and nowt to do all day but twang a harp, just as if I were one o'
them lads i' t' band? What mak o' life's yon for a chap like me, that's
allus bin used to tug an' tew for his livin'!"
"Nay, Job," his wife replied, "but thou'll be fain o' a bit o' rest when
thy turn cooms. It's a place o' rest, that's what heaven is; thou'll
noan be wanted to play on t' harp without thou's a mind to."
"I can't sit idle like thee, Mary," Job answered. "I mun allus be doin'
summat. If it isn't Steel Works, it's fox-huntin'; and if it isn't
fox-huntin' it's fettlin' up t' henhouse, or doin' a bit o' wark wi' my
shool i' t' tatie-patch."
"Thou'll happen change thy mind when thou's a bit owder," was Mary
Hesketh's answer to this. "When I'm ower thrang wi' wark on a
washin'-day, I just set misen down on t' chair and think o' t' rest o'
heaven, an' I say ower to misen yon lines that I larnt frae my muther:
"I knew a poor lass that allus were tired,
Shoo lived in a house wheer help wasn't hired.
Her last words on earth were, 'Dear friends, I am goin'
Wheer weshin' ain't doon, nor sweepin', nor sewin',
Don't weep for me now, don't weep for me niver,
I'm boun' to do nowt for iver an' iver.'"
"Ay, lass," Job replied, "that's reight enif for thee. Breedin' barns
taks it out o' a woman. But it'll noan suit me so weel."
I did my best to reason with Job and to enlarge his conception of the
life to come and of the progress of the soul after death, but I made
little impression on his mind. A heaven without forges, fox-hunting and
hen-coops offered him no possible attraction.
"What thou says may be true," he would answer, "but it'll noan be Job
Hesketh that's sittin' theer. It'll be somebody else o' t' same name."
Thus did he fall back upon his ever-besetting fear of loss of
personality in the life hereafter, and, like his Biblical namesake, he
refused to be comforted.
The agony which Job Hesketh was enduring did not make him listless. On
the contrary, it seemed to give him new energy. It is true that the old
pleasure had gone out of his work and play, but to him work and play
meant life, and to life he clung with the energy of one who lived in
constant fear lest it should be suddenly snatched from him. It was
January when Abe Verity had met with his fatal accident, and all through
the next six months Job toiled like a galley-slave.
It was the practice of the Heskeths to spend the first ten days of
August at the seaside. It was their annual holiday, long talked of and
long prepared, and it was invariably spent at Bridlington. There Job
could indulge to the full in his favourite holiday pastime of swimming,
and there he was in close touch with the undulating wold country where
his boyhood had been spent. He could renew old acquaintances, lend a
hand to the farmers, or wander at will along the chalk beds of the
_gipsies_ or dry water-courses which wind their way from the hills to
the sea. Years ago he and his wife had given a trial to Scarborough,
Blackpool and Morecambe as seaside resorts, but they felt like
foreigners there and had come back to Bridlington as to an old home.
"There's nowt like Bridlington sands," he would say, in self-defence.
"I'm noan sayin' but what there's a better colour i' t' watter at
Blackpool, but there's ower mich wind on' t sea. Sea-watter gits into
your mouth when you're swimmin' and then you've to blow like a grampus.
Scarborough's ower classy for t' likes o' Mary an' me; it's all reight
for bettermy-bodies that likes to dizen theirselves out an' sook cigars
on church parade. But me an' t' owd lass allus go to Bridlington. It's
homely, is Bridlington, an' you're not runnin' up ivery minute agean
foreign counts an' countesses that ought to bide wheer they belang, an'
keep theirsens to theirsens."
There had been no improvement in Job's state of mind during the long
summer days that preceded his holiday. In his most robust days inquiries
as to his health always elicited the answer that he was "just middlin',"
which is the invariable answer that the cautious Yorkshireman vouchsafes
to give. Now, with a shrunken frame, and fever in his eye, he was still
"just middlin'," and, only when hard pressed would he acknowledge the
carking fear that was gnawing at his heart. I was, however, not without
hope that change of air and sea-bathing, for which Job had a passion
almost equal to that for fox-hunting, would restore him to health and
tranquillity of mind.
The Heskeths started for Bridlington on a Friday, and on the following
Sunday the news reached me that my old friend had been drowned while
bathing. I was stunned by the blow, and a feeling of intense gloom
pervaded my mind all day. But next morning the rumour was corrected.
Job, it seems, had gone for a long swim on the Saturday morning, and,
not realising that he had lost strength during the last six months, had
swum too far out of his depth. His strength had given out on the return
journey, and only the arrival of a boatman had saved him from death by
drowning. Relieved as I was by this second account of what had happened,
I was, nevertheless, a prey to the fear that this second encounter with
death would have enhanced that agony of mind which he had endured ever
since the moment when his friend, Abe Verity, had fallen into the
cauldron of molten steel. I waited anxiously for Job's return home and
determined to go and see him on the evening following his arrival.
I was in my bedroom, preparing to start off, when, to my surprise, I
heard Job's voice at my front door. I ran downstairs and was face to
face with a Job Hesketh that I had not known for six months. His head
and shoulders were erect, he had put on flesh, and the cowed look had
entirely vanished from his eyes. I at once congratulated him on his
improved appearance.
"Aye, aye," he answered, "there's nowt mich wrang wi' me."
"Bridlington, I see, has done you a world of good."
"Nay, I've bin farther nor Bridlington," he replied, and the old merry
twinkle, that I knew so well and had missed so long, came into his eyes.
"What do you mean?" I asked. "Have you been on board one of the Wilson
liners in the Humber and crossed over to Holland?"
"Farther nor Holland," he replied, with a chuckle. "I've bin to heaven.
I reckon I'm t' first Yorkshireman that's bin to heaven an' gotten a
return ticket given him."
"Sit down, Job," I said, "and stop that nonsense. What do you mean?"
Job seated himself by my study fire, leisurely took from his pocket a
dirty clay pipe and a roll of black twist, which he proceeded to cut and
pound. As he was thus engaged he would look up from time to time into my
face and enjoy to the full the look of impatience imprinted on it.
"Aye, lad," he began at last, "I've bin to heaven sin I last saw thee,
an' heaven's more like Leeds nor I thowt for."
"Like Leeds!" I exclaimed, and, as Job seemed in a jesting mood, I
decided to humour him. "I fancy it must have been the other place you
got to. To think of you not being able to tell heaven from hell."
"Nay, 'twere heaven, reight enif," he continued, undisturbed. "I could
tell it by t' glint i' t' een o' t' lads an' lasses."
I could see that Job had a story to tell of more than ordinary interest.
His changed appearance and buoyant manner showed clearly that something
had happened to him which had dispelled the pall of gloom which had
settled on him since Abe Verity's death. I was determined to hear the
story in full.
"Now then, Job," I said, "let us get to business. Take that pipe out of
your mouth and tell me what you have been doing at Bridlington."
Job laid down his clay pipe, cleared his throat, and polished his face
till it shone, with a large red handkerchief, and began his story.
"Well, you see, t' missus an' me got to Bridlington Friday afore Bank
Holiday, an' next mornin' I went down to t' shore for my swim same as
I'd allus done afore. 'Twere a breet mornin', an t' chalk cliffs o'
Flamborough were glistenin' i' t' sun-leet. T' fishin' boats were out at
sea, an' t' air were fair wick wi' kittiwakes an' herrin' gulls. So I
just undressed misen, walked down to t' watter an' started swimmin'. Eh!
but t' sea were bonny an' warm, an' for once I got all yon dowly thowts
o' death clean out o' my head. So I just struck out for t' buoy that
were anchored out at sea, happen hafe a mile frae t' shore. That had
allus bin my swim sin first we took to comin' to Bridlington, and I'd
niver had no trouble i' swimmin' theer an' back. I got to t' buoy all
reight an' rested misen a bit an' looked round. Gow! but 'twere a grand
seet. I could see t' leet-house at Spurn, and reight i' front o' me were
Bridlington wi' t' Priory Church and up beyond were fields an' fields of
corn wi' farm-houses set amang t' plane-trees an' t' sun-leet glistenin'
on their riggins. Efter a while I started to swim back. But it were noan
so easy. Tide were agean me an' there were a freshish breeze off t'
land. Howiver, I'd no call to hurry misen, so when I got a bit tired I
lay on my back, an' floated an' looked up at t' gulls aboon my head. But
then I fan' out 'twere no use floatin'; t' tide were driftin' me out to
sea. So I got agate o' swimmin' an' kept at it for wellnigh ten minutes.
But t' shore were a lang way off, an' then, sudden-like, I began to
think o' Abe Verity, an' t' fear o' death got howd on me an' clutched me
same as if I'd bin taen wi' cramp. There were lads fishin' frae boats
noan so far off, an' I hollaed to 'em; but they niver heerd. I tewed an'
better tewed, but I got no forrarder; an' then I knew I were boun' to
drown."
As Job got to this point in his story something of the old terror crept
into his eyes, and I did my best to cheer him.
"Well, Job," I said, "they tell me that drowning is the pleasantest kind
of death that there is."
His face brightened up immediately, and he replied: "Thou's tellin'
true, lad, an' what's more, I know all about it. If anybody wants to
know what it's like to be drowned, send 'em to Job Hesketh. If I'd as
mony lives as an owd tom-cat, I'd get shut on 'em all wi' drownin'."
Job's spirits were evidently restored, so I urged him to get on with his
story.
"Well," he continued, "I tugged an' tewed as lang as I could, but my
mouth began to get full o' watter, my legs an' airms were dead beat, an'
I reckoned that 'twere all ower wi' me. An' then a fearful queer sort o'
thing happened me. I were i' my father's farm on t' wold, laikin' wi' my
brothers same as I used to do when I were a lile barn. An', what's more,
I thowt it were my ninth birthday. You see, when I were nine yeer owd,
my father gave me two gimmer lambs an' I were prouder yon day nor iver
I'd bin i' my life afore. Weel, that were t' day that had coom back; I
knew nowt about drownin', but theer was I teein' a bit o' ribbin' about
t' lambs' necks an' givin' 'em a sup o' milk out o' a bottle. An' then I
were drivin' wi' my father an' mother i' t' spring-cart to Driffield
markit. I'd donned my best clothes and my nuncle had gien me a new
sixpenny-bit for a fairin', an' I were to buy choose-what I liked. Well,
I were aimin' to think how I sud spend t' brass when I got to Driffield,
when suddenly I weren't a lile barn no more. I were Job Hesketh,
vesselman at Leeds Steel Works, and I were drownin' i' t' sea. I saw a
boat noan so far away and I tried to holla to t' boatman, but 'twere no
use; all my strength had given out, an' my voice were nobbut a groan.
An' then----"
Job paused, and I looked up into his face. A strange radiance had come
over it, such as I had never seen there before. I had heard it said that
all that was brightest in a man's past life rises like a vision before
his eyes when, in the act of drowning, his body sinks once, and then
again, beneath the water, but I had never before confronted a man who
could relate in detail what had happened to him. Then there was Job's
story about his return ticket to heaven, which puzzled me, and I urged
him to continue his story.
"Thou'll reckon I'm talkin' blether," he went on, "but I tell thee it's
true, ivery word on it. I'll tak my Bible oath on it. All on a sudden I
were stannin' i' a gert park, and eh! but there were grand trees. They
were birk-trees, an' their boles were that breet they fair glistened i'
t' sunleet. An' underneath t' birks were bluebells, yakkers an' yakkers
o' bluebells, an' I thowt they were bluer an' breeter nor ony I'd seen
afore. There were all maks o' birds i' t' trees--spinks an' throstles
an' blackbirds--an' t' air aboon my head were fair wick wi' larks an'
pipits singin' as canty as could be. Weel, I followed along t' beck-side
while I com to a gert lake, wi' lads an' lasses sailin' boats on it. So
I said to misen: 'My word! but it's Roundhay Park an' all.' But it
wern't nowt o' t' sort. For one thing there were no policemen about,
same as you'd see at Roundhay on a Bank Holiday, an' at low side o' t'
lake there was a town wi' all maks an' manders o' buildin's; an', what's
more, a steel works wi' blast-furnaces. Weel, I were stood there,
watchin' t' childer paddlin' about i' t' watter, when somebody clapped
his hand on my showder an' sang out: 'Hullo! Job, how long hasta bin
here?' I looked round an', by t' Mass! who sud I see but Abe Verity."
"Abe Verity!" I exclaimed.
"Ay, 'twere Abe hissen, plain as life.
"So I said: 'Hullo! Abe, how ista?'
"'Just middlin',' says Abe, 'an' how's thisen? How long hasta bin here?'
"Well, I didn't hardlins know what to say to him. You see I didn't
fairly know where I was, so I couldn't tell him how lang I'd bin theer.
So I says to him: 'Sithee, Abe, is this Roundhay Park?'
"'Raandhay Park,' says Abe. You see Abe allus talked a bit broad. He
couldn't talk gradely English same as you an' me. 'Twere all along o'
him livin' wi' them Leeds loiners up at Hunslet Carr. 'Raandhay Park!'
he says. 'Nay, lad, you'll noan see birk-trees like yon i' Raandhay
Park.' And he pointed to t' birk-trees by t' lake-side, wi' boles two
foot through.
"'What is it then?' I asked. 'Have I coom to foreign parts? I'm a bad
'un to mell wi' foreigners.'
"'Nay,' said Abe, 'thou's i' heaven.'
"'Heaven!' I shouted out, an' I looked up at Abe to see if he were
fleerin' at me. He looked as grave as a judge, did Abe, but then I
noticed that he were donned i' his blue overalls, same as if he'd just
coom frae his wark. So I said to him: 'Heaven, is it? I can't see mich
o' heaven about thee, Abe. Wheer's thy harp an' crown o' gowd?'
"'Harp an' crown o' gowd,' said Abe, an' he started laughin'. 'Who is
thou takkin' me for? I'm noan King David. I'm a vesselman at t' steel
works,' an' he pointed wi' his hand across t' lake to wheer we could see
t' forge.
"Gow! but I were fair flustrated. There was Abe Verity tellin' me one
minute that I were in heaven, and next minute he were sayin' that he
were workin' at t' steel works. You see I had allus thowt that i' heaven
iverything would be different to what it is on earth. So I said: 'Does
thou mean to tell me, Abe, that lads i' heaven do t' same sort o' wark
that they've bin doin' all their lives on earth?'
"'Nay,' says Abe, 'I'll noan go so far as to say just that. What I say
is that they start i' heaven wheer they've left off on earth; but t'
conditions is different.'
"'How's that?' I axed.
"'Well, for one thing, a lad taks more pride i' his wark; an', what's
more, he's freer to do what he likes. When I were at Leeds Steel Works I
had to do choose-what t' boss telled me. Up here I'm my own boss.'
"When I heerd that, I knew that Abe were weel suited. You see he were a
bit o' a Socialist, were Abe; he used to wear a red tie an' talk
Socialism of a Setterday neet on Hunslet Moor. So I said to him: 'Doesta
mean that heaven stands for Socialism, Abe?'
"But Abe laughed an' shook his heead. 'Nay, lad,' he said, 'we haven't
gotten no 'isms i' heaven. We've gotten shut o' all that sort o' thing.
There's no argifying i' heaven. There's plenty o' discipline, but it's
what we call self-discipline; an' I reckon that's t' only sort o'
discipline that's worth owt.'
"'That'll niver do for me, Abe,' I said. 'If it were a case o'
self-discipline, I reckon I'd niver do a stroke o' wark.'
"'Nay, lad,' he said; 'thou'll think different now thou's coom to
heaven. Thou'll hark to t' inner voice an' do what it tells thee.'
"'Inner voice,' I said; 'what's that?'
"'It's a new sort o' boss,' says Abe; 'an' a gooid 'un an' all. When
thou wants to know what to do or how to do it, thou just sets thisen
down, an' t' inner voice starts talkin' to thee an' keeps on talkin',
while thou gets agate o' doin' what it tells thee.'"
Job's story was gripping my imagination as nothing had done before.
Heaven was a place of activity and not of rest; a place where the
labours of earth were renewed at the point at which they had ceased on
earth, but under ideal conditions; so that labour, under the guidance of
self-discipline, became service. Job's account of his conversation with
Abe made all this as clear as sunlight, but I was still somewhat puzzled
by the story of the inner voice.
"What do you think Abe meant by the inner voice?" I asked.
"Nay," replied Job, "I can't tell. But what he said were true. I'm sure
o' that. There were a look in his een that I'd niver seen theer afore;
'twere as if t' inner voice were speakin' through his een as well as
through his mouth."
"It's something more than conscience," I went on, speaking as much to
myself as to Job. "Conscience tells a man what it is his duty to do, but
conscience does not teach him how to do things."
We were both silent for a few moments, pondering over the problem of the
inner voice. Then a thought flashed through my mind and, rising from my
seat, I went to my bookshelves and took down a volume of Browning's
poems. I eagerly turned over the pages of _Paracelsus_, read a few
verses to myself, and then exclaimed:
"I know what it is, Job. The inner voice is the voice of truth." And I
read aloud the verses in which Paracelsus, that eager quest after truth,
speaks his mind to his friend Festus:
Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, whate'er you may believe.
There is an inmost centre in us all,
Where truth abides in fullness; and around,
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,
This perfect, clear perception--which is truth.
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh
Binds it and makes all error: and to KNOW
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light,
Supposed to be without.
Browning was, perhaps, somewhat beyond the comprehension of Job Hesketh,
but he liked to hear me reading poetry aloud.
"Whativer it is," he said, "Abe Verity knows all about it. He were allus
a better scholar nor me, were Abe, sin first we went to schooil
together; but I reckon I'll know all about it, too, when I've slipped t'
leash an' started work at Heaven Steel Works."
It was evident that a great change had come over Job's mind, and that
the wonderful vision of a future life that had been granted to him
during that second immersion beneath the waves of the North Sea had
wholly taken away from him his old fear of death. But I wanted to hear
the conclusion of the story, and pressed him to continue.
"Nay," he said, "there's noan so mich more to tell. There was summat i'
Abe that made me a bit flaid o' axin' him ower mony questions. He were
drissed like a plain vesselman, sure enif; but he talked as if he were a
far-learnt man, an' his own maister. I axed him how lang t' shifts
lasted i' heaven, an' he said: 'We work as lang as t' inner voice tells
us to.' You see 'twere allus t' inner voice, an' I couldn't hardlins mak
out what he meant by that.
"Then a thowt com into my heead, but I didn't fairly like to out wi' it,
for fear T' Man Aboon were somewheer about an' sud hear me. So I just
leaned ovver and whispered i' Abe's lug:
"'Doesta tak a day off nows an' thens an' run wi' t' hounds or t'
harriers?'
"Abe laughed as if he were fit to brust hissen, an' then, afore he'd
time to answer, iverything went as dark as a booit. I saw no more o'
Abe, nor o' t' lake, nor o' t' birk-trees; an' t' next time I oppened my
een there were a doctor chap stannin' ower me wi' a belly-pump in his
hand, an' I were liggin' on a bed as weak as a kitlin."
Job was silent for a while, after finishing his story and relighting his
pipe, and his silence gave me a chance of looking at him closely.
Physically he was none the worse for his adventure; mentally,
spiritually, he was a new man. The fear of death had gone from his eyes,
and in its place was the joy of life, together with a sure faith in the
triumph of personality when, to use his own coursing phrase, he had
slipped the leash. His vision of heaven was somewhat too material to
satisfy me, but there could be no doubt that it had brought to his
terror-swept soul the peace of mind which passeth all understanding.
After a while Job rose, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and took his
leave. I accompanied him to the door and watched him as he walked down
the street. There was something buoyant in his tread, and his gigantic
shoulders rolled from side to side like a seaman's on the quarter-deck.
Soon he started whistling, and I smiled as I caught the tune. It was one
of his chapel hymns, and there was a note of exultation in the closing
bars:
"O grave! where is thy victory?
O death! where is thy sting?"
My mind was full of Job's story all that day. I somehow refused to
believe that what he had related was mere imagination, and it was
evident that he could not have invented the story of the inner voice,
for this remained a mystery to him. The inner voice haunted me all the
time, and, as I lay in bed that night, I asked myself again and again
the question: Why must we wait for a future life to hear this inner
voice?