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<pre>
The Project Gutenberg eBook, George Silverman's Explanation, by Charles
Dickens
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
Title: George Silverman's Explanation
Author: Charles Dickens
Release Date: December 25, 2014 [eBook #810]
[This file was first posted on February 6, 1997]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGE SILVERMAN'S EXPLANATION***
</pre>
<p>Transcribed from the 1905 Chapman and Hall “Hard Times
and Reprinted Pieces” edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org</p>
<h1>GEORGE SILVERMAN’S EXPLANATION</h1>
<h2>FIRST CHAPTER</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">It</span> happened in this wise—</p>
<p>But, sitting with my pen in my hand looking at those words
again, without descrying any hint in them of the words that
should follow, it comes into my mind that they have an abrupt
appearance. They may serve, however, if I let them remain,
to suggest how very difficult I find it to begin to explain my
explanation. An uncouth phrase: and yet I do not see my way
to a better.</p>
<h2>SECOND CHAPTER</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">It</span> happened in <i>this</i>
wise—</p>
<p>But, looking at those words, and comparing them with my former
opening, I find they are the self-same words repeated. This
is the more surprising to me, because I employ them in quite a
new connection. For indeed I declare that my intention was
to discard the commencement I first had in my thoughts, and to
give the preference to another of an entirely different nature,
dating my explanation from an anterior period of my life. I
will make a third trial, without erasing this second failure,
protesting that it is not my design to conceal any of my
infirmities, whether they be of head or heart.</p>
<h2>THIRD CHAPTER</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">Not</span> as yet directly aiming at how
it came to pass, I will come upon it by degrees. The
natural manner, after all, for God knows that is how it came upon
me.</p>
<p>My parents were in a miserable condition of life, and my
infant home was a cellar in Preston. I recollect the sound
of father’s Lancashire clogs on the street pavement above,
as being different in my young hearing from the sound of all
other clogs; and I recollect, that, when mother came down the
cellar-steps, I used tremblingly to speculate on her feet having
a good or an ill-tempered look,—on her knees,—on her
waist,—until finally her face came into view, and settled
the question. From this it will be seen that I was timid,
and that the cellar-steps were steep, and that the doorway was
very low.</p>
<p>Mother had the gripe and clutch of poverty upon her face, upon
her figure, and not least of all upon her voice. Her sharp
and high-pitched words were squeezed out of her, as by the
compression of bony fingers on a leathern bag; and she had a way
of rolling her eyes about and about the cellar, as she scolded,
that was gaunt and hungry. Father, with his shoulders
rounded, would sit quiet on a three-legged stool, looking at the
empty grate, until she would pluck the stool from under him, and
bid him go bring some money home. Then he would dismally
ascend the steps; and I, holding my ragged shirt and trousers
together with a hand (my only braces), would feint and dodge from
mother’s pursuing grasp at my hair.</p>
<p>A worldly little devil was mother’s usual name for
me. Whether I cried for that I was in the dark, or for that
it was cold, or for that I was hungry, or whether I squeezed
myself into a warm corner when there was a fire, or ate
voraciously when there was food, she would still say, ‘O,
you worldly little devil!’ And the sting of it was,
that I quite well knew myself to be a worldly little devil.
Worldly as to wanting to be housed and warmed, worldly as to
wanting to be fed, worldly as to the greed with which I inwardly
compared how much I got of those good things with how much father
and mother got, when, rarely, those good things were going.</p>
<p>Sometimes they both went away seeking work; and then I would
be locked up in the cellar for a day or two at a time. I
was at my worldliest then. Left alone, I yielded myself up
to a worldly yearning for enough of anything (except misery), and
for the death of mother’s father, who was a machine-maker
at Birmingham, and on whose decease, I had heard mother say, she
would come into a whole courtful of houses ‘if she had her
rights.’ Worldly little devil, I would stand about,
musingly fitting my cold bare feet into cracked bricks and
crevices of the damp cellar-floor,—walking over my
grandfather’s body, so to speak, into the courtful of
houses, and selling them for meat and drink, and clothes to
wear.</p>
<p>At last a change came down into our cellar. The
universal change came down even as low as that,—so will it
mount to any height on which a human creature can
perch,—and brought other changes with it.</p>
<p>We had a heap of I don’t know what foul litter in the
darkest corner, which we called ‘the bed.’ For
three days mother lay upon it without getting up, and then began
at times to laugh. If I had ever heard her laugh before, it
had been so seldom that the strange sound frightened me. It
frightened father too; and we took it by turns to give her
water. Then she began to move her head from side to side,
and sing. After that, she getting no better, father fell
a-laughing and a-singing; and then there was only I to give them
both water, and they both died.</p>
<h2>FOURTH CHAPTER</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">When</span> I was lifted out of the cellar
by two men, of whom one came peeping down alone first, and ran
away and brought the other, I could hardly bear the light of the
street. I was sitting in the road-way, blinking at it, and
at a ring of people collected around me, but not close to me,
when, true to my character of worldly little devil, I broke
silence by saying, ‘I am hungry and thirsty!’</p>
<p>‘Does he know they are dead?’ asked one of
another.</p>
<p>‘Do you know your father and mother are both dead of
fever?’ asked a third of me severely.</p>
<p>‘I don’t know what it is to be dead. I
supposed it meant that, when the cup rattled against their teeth,
and the water spilt over them. I am hungry and
thirsty.’ That was all I had to say about it.</p>
<p>The ring of people widened outward from the inner side as I
looked around me; and I smelt vinegar, and what I know to be
camphor, thrown in towards where I sat. Presently some one
put a great vessel of smoking vinegar on the ground near me; and
then they all looked at me in silent horror as I ate and drank of
what was brought for me. I knew at the time they had a
horror of me, but I couldn’t help it.</p>
<p>I was still eating and drinking, and a murmur of discussion
had begun to arise respecting what was to be done with me next,
when I heard a cracked voice somewhere in the ring say, ‘My
name is Hawkyard, Mr. Verity Hawkyard, of West
Bromwich.’ Then the ring split in one place; and a
yellow-faced, peak-nosed gentleman, clad all in iron-gray to his
gaiters, pressed forward with a policeman and another official of
some sort. He came forward close to the vessel of smoking
vinegar; from which he sprinkled himself carefully, and me
copiously.</p>
<p>‘He had a grandfather at Birmingham, this young boy, who
is just dead too,’ said Mr. Hawkyard.</p>
<p>I turned my eyes upon the speaker, and said in a ravening
manner, ‘Where’s his houses?’</p>
<p>‘Hah! Horrible worldliness on the edge of the
grave,’ said Mr. Hawkyard, casting more of the vinegar over
me, as if to get my devil out of me. ‘I have
undertaken a slight—a very slight—trust in behalf of
this boy; quite a voluntary trust: a matter of mere honour, if
not of mere sentiment: still I have taken it upon myself, and it
shall be (O, yes, it shall be!) discharged.’</p>
<p>The bystanders seemed to form an opinion of this gentleman
much more favourable than their opinion of me.</p>
<p>‘He shall be taught,’ said Mr. Hawkyard,
‘(O, yes, he shall be taught!) but what is to be done with
him for the present? He may be infected. He may
disseminate infection.’ The ring widened
considerably. ‘What is to be done with
him?’</p>
<p>He held some talk with the two officials. I could
distinguish no word save ‘Farm-house.’ There
was another sound several times repeated, which was wholly
meaningless in my ears then, but which I knew afterwards to be
‘Hoghton Towers.’</p>
<p>‘Yes,’ said Mr. Hawkyard. ‘I think
that sounds promising; I think that sounds hopeful. And he
can be put by himself in a ward, for a night or two, you
say?’</p>
<p>It seemed to be the police-officer who had said so; for it was
he who replied, Yes! It was he, too, who finally took me by
the arm, and walked me before him through the streets, into a
whitewashed room in a bare building, where I had a chair to sit
in, a table to sit at, an iron bedstead and good mattress to lie
upon, and a rug and blanket to cover me. Where I had enough
to eat too, and was shown how to clean the tin porringer in which
it was conveyed to me, until it was as good as a
looking-glass. Here, likewise, I was put in a bath, and had
new clothes brought to me; and my old rags were burnt, and I was
camphored and vinegared and disinfected in a variety of ways.</p>
<p>When all this was done,—I don’t know in how many
days or how few, but it matters not,—Mr. Hawkyard stepped
in at the door, remaining close to it, and said, ‘Go and
stand against the opposite wall, George Silverman. As far
off as you can. That’ll do. How do you
feel?’</p>
<p>I told him that I didn’t feel cold, and didn’t
feel hungry, and didn’t feel thirsty. That was the
whole round of human feelings, as far as I knew, except the pain
of being beaten.</p>
<p>‘Well,’ said he, ‘you are going, George, to
a healthy farm-house to be purified. Keep in the air there
as much as you can. Live an out-of-door life there, until
you are fetched away. You had better not say much—in
fact, you had better be very careful not to say
anything—about what your parents died of, or they might not
like to take you in. Behave well, and I’ll put you to
school; O, yes! I’ll put you to school, though
I’m not obligated to do it. I am a servant of the
Lord, George; and I have been a good servant to him, I have,
these five-and-thirty years. The Lord has had a good
servant in me, and he knows it.’</p>
<p>What I then supposed him to mean by this, I cannot
imagine. As little do I know when I began to comprehend
that he was a prominent member of some obscure denomination or
congregation, every member of which held forth to the rest when
so inclined, and among whom he was called Brother Hawkyard.
It was enough for me to know, on that day in the ward, that the
farmer’s cart was waiting for me at the street
corner. I was not slow to get into it; for it was the first
ride I ever had in my life.</p>
<p>It made me sleepy, and I slept. First, I stared at
Preston streets as long as they lasted; and, meanwhile, I may
have had some small dumb wondering within me whereabouts our
cellar was; but I doubt it. Such a worldly little devil was
I, that I took no thought who would bury father and mother, or
where they would be buried, or when. The question whether
the eating and drinking by day, and the covering by night, would
be as good at the farm-house as at the ward superseded those
questions.</p>
<p>The jolting of the cart on a loose stony road awoke me; and I
found that we were mounting a steep hill, where the road was a
rutty by-road through a field. And so, by fragments of an
ancient terrace, and by some rugged outbuildings that had once
been fortified, and passing under a ruined gateway we came to the
old farm-house in the thick stone wall outside the old quadrangle
of Hoghton Towers: which I looked at like a stupid savage, seeing
no specially in, seeing no antiquity in; assuming all farm-houses
to resemble it; assigning the decay I noticed to the one potent
cause of all ruin that I knew,—poverty; eyeing the pigeons
in their flights, the cattle in their stalls, the ducks in the
pond, and the fowls pecking about the yard, with a hungry hope
that plenty of them might be killed for dinner while I stayed
there; wondering whether the scrubbed dairy vessels, drying in
the sunlight, could be goodly porringers out of which the master
ate his belly-filling food, and which he polished when he had
done, according to my ward experience; shrinkingly doubtful
whether the shadows, passing over that airy height on the bright
spring day, were not something in the nature of
frowns,—sordid, afraid, unadmiring,—a small brute to
shudder at.</p>
<p>To that time I had never had the faintest impression of
duty. I had had no knowledge whatever that there was
anything lovely in this life. When I had occasionally slunk
up the cellar-steps into the street, and glared in at
shop-windows, I had done so with no higher feelings than we may
suppose to animate a mangy young dog or wolf-cub. It is
equally the fact that I had never been alone, in the sense of
holding unselfish converse with myself. I had been solitary
often enough, but nothing better.</p>
<p>Such was my condition when I sat down to my dinner that day,
in the kitchen of the old farm-house. Such was my condition
when I lay on my bed in the old farm-house that night, stretched
out opposite the narrow mullioned window, in the cold light of
the moon, like a young vampire.</p>
<h2>FIFTH CHAPTER</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">What</span> do I know of Hoghton
Towers? Very little; for I have been gratefully unwilling
to disturb my first impressions. A house, centuries old, on
high ground a mile or so removed from the road between Preston
and Blackburn, where the first James of England, in his hurry to
make money by making baronets, perhaps made some of those
remunerative dignitaries. A house, centuries old, deserted
and falling to pieces, its woods and gardens long since
grass-land or ploughed up, the Rivers Ribble and Darwen glancing
below it, and a vague haze of smoke, against which not even the
supernatural prescience of the first Stuart could foresee a
counter-blast, hinting at steam-power, powerful in two
distances.</p>
<p>What did I know then of Hoghton Towers? When I first
peeped in at the gate of the lifeless quadrangle, and started
from the mouldering statue becoming visible to me like its
guardian ghost; when I stole round by the back of the farm-house,
and got in among the ancient rooms, many of them with their
floors and ceilings falling, the beams and rafters hanging
dangerously down, the plaster dropping as I trod, the oaken
panels stripped away, the windows half walled up, half broken;
when I discovered a gallery commanding the old kitchen, and
looked down between balustrades upon a massive old table and
benches, fearing to see I know not what dead-alive creatures come
in and seat themselves, and look up with I know not what dreadful
eyes, or lack of eyes, at me; when all over the house I was awed
by gaps and chinks where the sky stared sorrowfully at me, where
the birds passed, and the ivy rustled, and the stains of winter
weather blotched the rotten floors; when down at the bottom of
dark pits of staircase, into which the stairs had sunk, green
leaves trembled, butterflies fluttered, and bees hummed in and
out through the broken door-ways; when encircling the whole ruin
were sweet scents, and sights of fresh green growth, and
ever-renewing life, that I had never dreamed of,—I say,
when I passed into such clouded perception of these things as my
dark soul could compass, what did I know then of Hoghton
Towers?</p>
<p>I have written that the sky stared sorrowfully at me.
Therein have I anticipated the answer. I knew that all
these things looked sorrowfully at me; that they seemed to sigh
or whisper, not without pity for me, ‘Alas! poor worldly
little devil!’</p>
<p>There were two or three rats at the bottom of one of the
smaller pits of broken staircase when I craned over and looked
in. They were scuffling for some prey that was there; and,
when they started and hid themselves close together in the dark,
I thought of the old life (it had grown old already) in the
cellar.</p>
<p>How not to be this worldly little devil? how not to have a
repugnance towards myself as I had towards the rats? I hid
in a corner of one of the smaller chambers, frightened at myself,
and crying (it was the first time I had ever cried for any cause
not purely physical), and I tried to think about it. One of
the farm-ploughs came into my range of view just then; and it
seemed to help me as it went on with its two horses up and down
the field so peacefully and quietly.</p>
<p>There was a girl of about my own age in the farm-house family,
and she sat opposite to me at the narrow table at
meal-times. It had come into my mind, at our first dinner,
that she might take the fever from me. The thought had not
disquieted me then. I had only speculated how she would
look under the altered circumstances, and whether she would
die. But it came into my mind now, that I might try to
prevent her taking the fever by keeping away from her. I
knew I should have but scrambling board if I did; so much the
less worldly and less devilish the deed would be, I thought.</p>
<p>From that hour, I withdrew myself at early morning into secret
corners of the ruined house, and remained hidden there until she
went to bed. At first, when meals were ready, I used to
hear them calling me; and then my resolution weakened. But
I strengthened it again by going farther off into the ruin, and
getting out of hearing. I often watched for her at the dim
windows; and, when I saw that she was fresh and rosy, felt much
happier.</p>
<p>Out of this holding her in my thoughts, to the humanising of
myself, I suppose some childish love arose within me. I
felt, in some sort, dignified by the pride of protecting
her,—by the pride of making the sacrifice for her. As
my heart swelled with that new feeling, it insensibly softened
about mother and father. It seemed to have been frozen
before, and now to be thawed. The old ruin and all the
lovely things that haunted it were not sorrowful for me only, but
sorrowful for mother and father as well. Therefore did I
cry again, and often too.</p>
<p>The farm-house family conceived me to be of a morose temper,
and were very short with me; though they never stinted me in such
broken fare as was to be got out of regular hours. One
night when I lifted the kitchen latch at my usual time, Sylvia
(that was her pretty name) had but just gone out of the
room. Seeing her ascending the opposite stairs, I stood
still at the door. She had heard the clink of the latch,
and looked round.</p>
<p>‘George,’ she called to me in a pleased voice,
‘to-morrow is my birthday; and we are to have a fiddler,
and there’s a party of boys and girls coming in a cart, and
we shall dance. I invite you. Be sociable for once,
George.’</p>
<p>‘I am very sorry, miss,’ I answered; ‘but
I—but, no; I can’t come.’</p>
<p>‘You are a disagreeable, ill-humoured lad,’ she
returned disdainfully; ‘and I ought not to have asked
you. I shall never speak to you again.’</p>
<p>As I stood with my eyes fixed on the fire, after she was gone,
I felt that the farmer bent his brows upon me.</p>
<p>‘Eh, lad!’ said he; ‘Sylvy’s
right. You’re as moody and broody a lad as never I
set eyes on yet.’</p>
<p>I tried to assure him that I meant no harm; but he only said
coldly, ‘Maybe not, maybe not! There, get thy supper,
get thy supper; and then thou canst sulk to thy heart’s
content again.’</p>
<p>Ah! if they could have seen me next day, in the ruin, watching
for the arrival of the cart full of merry young guests; if they
could have seen me at night, gliding out from behind the ghostly
statue, listening to the music and the fall of dancing feet, and
watching the lighted farm-house windows from the quadrangle when
all the ruin was dark; if they could have read my heart, as I
crept up to bed by the back way, comforting myself with the
reflection, ‘They will take no hurt from
me,’—they would not have thought mine a morose or an
unsocial nature.</p>
<p>It was in these ways that I began to form a shy disposition;
to be of a timidly silent character under misconstruction; to
have an inexpressible, perhaps a morbid, dread of ever being
sordid or worldly. It was in these ways that my nature came
to shape itself to such a mould, even before it was affected by
the influences of the studious and retired life of a poor
scholar.</p>
<h2>SIXTH CHAPTER</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">Brother Hawkyard</span> (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 <i>he</i>’ll do,
George. He’ll do it for me.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<p>‘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.’</p>
<p>(‘That’s it!’ from Brother Gimblet.)</p>
<p>‘And he did put into my mouth the words I
wanted.’</p>
<p>(‘So he did!’ from Brother Gimblet.)</p>
<p>‘And why?’</p>
<p>(‘Ah, let’s have that!’ from Brother
Gimblet.)</p>
<p>‘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.’</p>
<p>(‘Just his way. Crafty old blackguard!’ from
Brother Gimblet.)</p>
<p>‘And the question is this, Are the angels
learned?’</p>
<p>(‘Not they. Not a bit on it!’ from Brother
Gimblet, with the greatest confidence.)</p>
<p>‘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>I</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?’</p>
<p>(‘Must be. Couldn’t help hisself!’
from Brother Gimblet.)</p>
<p>‘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>I</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
<i>not</i> 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?’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>‘Brother Gimblet’ (said the shopman, who was one
of the brotherhood) ‘is with him.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>‘Who is it?’ asked Brother Hawkyard, sharply.</p>
<p>‘George Silverman,’ I answered, holding the door
open. ‘May I come in?’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>‘What is the matter?’ asked Brother Hawkyard.</p>
<p>‘Ay! what is the matter?’ asked Brother
Gimblet.</p>
<p>‘Nothing at all,’ I said, diffidently producing my
document: ‘I am only the bearer of a letter from
myself.’</p>
<p>‘From yourself, George?’ cried Brother
Hawkyard.</p>
<p>‘And to you,’ said I.</p>
<p>‘And to me, George?’</p>
<p>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!’</p>
<p>‘That’s it!’ cried Brother Gimblet.
‘Well put! Amen.’</p>
<p>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).’</p>
<p>‘D.V.!’ said Brother Gimblet, with his right fist
firmly clinched on his right leg.</p>
<p>‘There is no objection,’ pursued Brother Hawkyard,
‘to my reading this aloud, George?’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>‘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.’</p>
<p>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
<i>their</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>‘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 <i>he</i> 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>of</i> 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!</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h2>SEVENTH CHAPTER</h2>
<p>MY timidity and my obscurity occasioned me to live a secluded
life at college, and to be little known. No relative ever
came to visit me, for I had no relative. No intimate
friends broke in upon my studies, for I made no intimate
friends. I supported myself on my scholarship, and read
much. My college time was otherwise not so very different
from my time at Hoghton Towers.</p>
<p>Knowing myself to be unfit for the noisier stir of social
existence, but believing myself qualified to do my duty in a
moderate, though earnest way, if I could obtain some small
preferment in the Church, I applied my mind to the clerical
profession. In due sequence I took orders, was ordained,
and began to look about me for employment. I must observe
that I had taken a good degree, that I had succeeded in winning a
good fellowship, and that my means were ample for my retired way
of life. By this time I had read with several young men;
and the occupation increased my income, while it was highly
interesting to me. I once accidentally overheard our
greatest don say, to my boundless joy, ‘That he heard it
reported of Silverman that his gift of quiet explanation, his
patience, his amiable temper, and his conscientiousness made him
the best of coaches.’ May my ‘gift of quiet
explanation’ come more seasonably and powerfully to my aid
in this present explanation than I think it will!</p>
<p>It may be in a certain degree owing to the situation of my
college-rooms (in a corner where the daylight was sobered), but
it is in a much larger degree referable to the state of my own
mind, that I seem to myself, on looking back to this time of my
life, to have been always in the peaceful shade. I can see
others in the sunlight; I can see our boats’ crews and our
athletic young men on the glistening water, or speckled with the
moving lights of sunlit leaves; but I myself am always in the
shadow looking on. Not unsympathetically,—God
forbid!—but looking on alone, much as I looked at Sylvia
from the shadows of the ruined house, or looked at the red gleam
shining through the farmer’s windows, and listened to the
fall of dancing feet, when all the ruin was dark that night in
the quadrangle.</p>
<p>I now come to the reason of my quoting that laudation of
myself above given. Without such reason, to repeat it would
have been mere boastfulness.</p>
<p>Among those who had read with me was Mr. Fareway, second son
of Lady Fareway, widow of Sir Gaston Fareway, baronet. This
young gentleman’s abilities were much above the average;
but he came of a rich family, and was idle and luxurious.
He presented himself to me too late, and afterwards came to me
too irregularly, to admit of my being of much service to
him. In the end, I considered it my duty to dissuade him
from going up for an examination which he could never pass; and
he left college without a degree. After his departure, Lady
Fareway wrote to me, representing the justice of my returning
half my fee, as I had been of so little use to her son.
Within my knowledge a similar demand had not been made in any
other case; and I most freely admit that the justice of it had
not occurred to me until it was pointed out. But I at once
perceived it, yielded to it, and returned the money—</p>
<p>Mr. Fareway had been gone two years or more, and I had
forgotten him, when he one day walked into my rooms as I was
sitting at my books.</p>
<p>Said he, after the usual salutations had passed, ‘Mr.
Silverman, my mother is in town here, at the hotel, and wishes me
to present you to her.’</p>
<p>I was not comfortable with strangers, and I dare say I
betrayed that I was a little nervous or unwilling.
‘For,’ said he, without my having spoken, ‘I
think the interview may tend to the advancement of your
prospects.’</p>
<p>It put me to the blush to think that I should be tempted by a
worldly reason, and I rose immediately.</p>
<p>Said Mr. Fareway, as we went along, ‘Are you a good hand
at business?’</p>
<p>‘I think not,’ said I.</p>
<p>Said Mr. Fareway then, ‘My mother is.’</p>
<p>‘Truly?’ said I.</p>
<p>‘Yes: my mother is what is usually called a managing
woman. Doesn’t make a bad thing, for instance, even
out of the spendthrift habits of my eldest brother abroad.
In short, a managing woman. This is in
confidence.’</p>
<p>He had never spoken to me in confidence, and I was surprised
by his doing so. I said I should respect his confidence, of
course, and said no more on the delicate subject. We had
but a little way to walk, and I was soon in his mother’s
company. He presented me, shook hands with me, and left us
two (as he said) to business.</p>
<p>I saw in my Lady Fareway a handsome, well-preserved lady of
somewhat large stature, with a steady glare in her great round
dark eyes that embarrassed me.</p>
<p>Said my lady, ‘I have heard from my son, Mr. Silverman,
that you would be glad of some preferment in the
church.’ I gave my lady to understand that was
so.</p>
<p>‘I don’t know whether you are aware,’ my
lady proceeded, ‘that we have a presentation to a
living? I say <i>we</i> have; but, in point of fact,
<i>I</i> have.’</p>
<p>I gave my lady to understand that I had not been aware of
this.</p>
<p>Said my lady, ‘So it is: indeed I have two
presentations,—one to two hundred a year, one to six.
Both livings are in our county,—North Devonshire,—as
you probably know. The first is vacant. Would you
like it?’</p>
<p>What with my lady’s eyes, and what with the suddenness
of this proposed gift, I was much confused.</p>
<p>‘I am sorry it is not the larger presentation,’
said my lady, rather coldly; ‘though I will not, Mr.
Silverman, pay you the bad compliment of supposing that
<i>you</i> are, because that would be mercenary,—and
mercenary I am persuaded you are not.’</p>
<p>Said I, with my utmost earnestness, ‘Thank you, Lady
Fareway, thank you, thank you! I should be deeply hurt if I
thought I bore the character.’</p>
<p>‘Naturally,’ said my lady. ‘Always
detestable, but particularly in a clergyman. You have not
said whether you will like the living?’</p>
<p>With apologies for my remissness or indistinctness, I assured
my lady that I accepted it most readily and gratefully. I
added that I hoped she would not estimate my appreciation of the
generosity of her choice by my flow of words; for I was not a
ready man in that respect when taken by surprise or touched at
heart.</p>
<p>‘The affair is concluded,’ said my lady;
‘concluded. You will find the duties very light, Mr.
Silverman. Charming house; charming little garden, orchard,
and all that. You will be able to take pupils. By the
bye! No: I will return to the word afterwards. What
was I going to mention, when it put me out?’</p>
<p>My lady stared at me, as if I knew. And I didn’t
know. And that perplexed me afresh.</p>
<p>Said my lady, after some consideration, ‘O, of course,
how very dull of me! The last incumbent,—least
mercenary man I ever saw,—in consideration of the duties
being so light and the house so delicious, couldn’t rest,
he said, unless I permitted him to help me with my
correspondence, accounts, and various little things of that kind;
nothing in themselves, but which it worries a lady to cope
with. Would Mr. Silverman also like to—? Or
shall I—?’</p>
<p>I hastened to say that my poor help would be always at her
ladyship’s service.</p>
<p>‘I am absolutely blessed,’ said my lady, casting
up her eyes (and so taking them off me for one moment), ‘in
having to do with gentlemen who cannot endure an approach to the
idea of being mercenary!’ She shivered at the
word. ‘And now as to the pupil.’</p>
<p>‘The—?’ I was quite at a loss.</p>
<p>‘Mr. Silverman, you have no idea what she is. She
is,’ said my lady, laying her touch upon my coat-sleeve,
‘I do verily believe, the most extraordinary girl in this
world. Already knows more Greek and Latin than Lady Jane
Grey. And taught herself! Has not yet, remember,
derived a moment’s advantage from Mr. Silverman’s
classical acquirements. To say nothing of mathematics,
which she is bent upon becoming versed in, and in which (as I
hear from my son and others) Mr. Silverman’s reputation is
so deservedly high!’</p>
<p>Under my lady’s eyes I must have lost the clue, I felt
persuaded; and yet I did not know where I could have dropped
it.</p>
<p>‘Adelina,’ said my lady, ‘is my only
daughter. If I did not feel quite convinced that I am not
blinded by a mother’s partiality; unless I was absolutely
sure that when you know her, Mr. Silverman, you will esteem it a
high and unusual privilege to direct her studies,—I should
introduce a mercenary element into this conversation, and ask you
on what terms—’</p>
<p>I entreated my lady to go no further. My lady saw that I
was troubled, and did me the honour to comply with my
request.</p>
<h2>EIGHTH CHAPTER</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">Everything</span> in mental acquisition
that her brother might have been, if he would, and everything in
all gracious charms and admirable qualities that no one but
herself could be,—this was Adelina.</p>
<p>I will not expatiate upon her beauty; I will not expatiate
upon her intelligence, her quickness of perception, her powers of
memory, her sweet consideration, from the first moment, for the
slow-paced tutor who ministered to her wonderful gifts. I
was thirty then; I am over sixty now: she is ever present to me
in these hours as she was in those, bright and beautiful and
young, wise and fanciful and good.</p>
<p>When I discovered that I loved her, how can I say? In
the first day? in the first week? in the first month?
Impossible to trace. If I be (as I am) unable to represent
to myself any previous period of my life as quite separable from
her attracting power, how can I answer for this one detail?</p>
<p>Whensoever I made the discovery, it laid a heavy burden on
me. And yet, comparing it with the far heavier burden that
I afterwards took up, it does not seem to me now to have been
very hard to bear. In the knowledge that I did love her,
and that I should love her while my life lasted, and that I was
ever to hide my secret deep in my own breast, and she was never
to find it, there was a kind of sustaining joy or pride, or
comfort, mingled with my pain.</p>
<p>But later on,—say, a year later on,—when I made
another discovery, then indeed my suffering and my struggle were
strong. That other discovery was—</p>
<p>These words will never see the light, if ever, until my heart
is dust; until her bright spirit has returned to the regions of
which, when imprisoned here, it surely retained some unusual
glimpse of remembrance; until all the pulses that ever beat
around us shall have long been quiet; until all the fruits of all
the tiny victories and defeats achieved in our little breasts
shall have withered away. That discovery was that she loved
me.</p>
<p>She may have enhanced my knowledge, and loved me for that; she
may have over-valued my discharge of duty to her, and loved me
for that; she may have refined upon a playful compassion which
she would sometimes show for what she called my want of wisdom,
according to the light of the world’s dark lanterns, and
loved me for that; she may—she must—have confused the
borrowed light of what I had only learned, with its brightness in
its pure, original rays; but she loved me at that time, and she
made me know it.</p>
<p>Pride of family and pride of wealth put me as far off from her
in my lady’s eyes as if I had been some domesticated
creature of another kind. But they could not put me farther
from her than I put myself when I set my merits against
hers. More than that. They could not put me, by
millions of fathoms, half so low beneath her as I put myself when
in imagination I took advantage of her noble trustfulness, took
the fortune that I knew she must possess in her own right, and
left her to find herself, in the zenith of her beauty and genius,
bound to poor rusty, plodding me.</p>
<p>No! Worldliness should not enter here at any cost.
If I had tried to keep it out of other ground, how much harder
was I bound to try to keep it out from this sacred place!</p>
<p>But there was something daring in her broad, generous
character, that demanded at so delicate a crisis to be delicately
and patiently addressed. And many and many a bitter night
(O, I found I could cry for reasons not purely physical, at this
pass of my life!) I took my course.</p>
<p>My lady had, in our first interview, unconsciously overstated
the accommodation of my pretty house. There was room in it
for only one pupil. He was a young gentleman near coming of
age, very well connected, but what is called a poor
relation. His parents were dead. The charges of his
living and reading with me were defrayed by an uncle; and he and
I were to do our utmost together for three years towards
qualifying him to make his way. At this time he had entered
into his second year with me. He was well-looking, clever,
energetic, enthusiastic; bold; in the best sense of the term, a
thorough young Anglo-Saxon.</p>
<p>I resolved to bring these two together.</p>
<h2>NINTH CHAPTER</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">Said</span> I, one night, when I had
conquered myself, ‘Mr. Granville,’—Mr.
Granville Wharton his name was,—‘I doubt if you have
ever yet so much as seen Miss Fareway.’</p>
<p>‘Well, sir,’ returned he, laughing, ‘you see
her so much yourself, that you hardly leave another fellow a
chance of seeing her.’</p>
<p>‘I am her tutor, you know,’ said I.</p>
<p>And there the subject dropped for that time. But I so
contrived as that they should come together shortly
afterwards. I had previously so contrived as to keep them
asunder; for while I loved her,—I mean before I had
determined on my sacrifice,—a lurking jealousy of Mr.
Granville lay within my unworthy breast.</p>
<p>It was quite an ordinary interview in the Fareway Park but
they talked easily together for some time: like takes to like,
and they had many points of resemblance. Said Mr. Granville
to me, when he and I sat at our supper that night, ‘Miss
Fareway is remarkably beautiful, sir, remarkably engaging.
Don’t you think so?’ ‘I think so,’
said I. And I stole a glance at him, and saw that he had
reddened and was thoughtful. I remember it most vividly,
because the mixed feeling of grave pleasure and acute pain that
the slight circumstance caused me was the first of a long, long
series of such mixed impressions under which my hair turned
slowly gray.</p>
<p>I had not much need to feign to be subdued; but I
counterfeited to be older than I was in all respects (Heaven
knows! my heart being all too young the while), and feigned to be
more of a recluse and bookworm than I had really become, and
gradually set up more and more of a fatherly manner towards
Adelina. Likewise I made my tuition less imaginative than
before; separated myself from my poets and philosophers; was
careful to present them in their own light, and me, their lowly
servant, in my own shade. Moreover, in the matter of
apparel I was equally mindful; not that I had ever been dapper
that way; but that I was slovenly now.</p>
<p>As I depressed myself with one hand, so did I labour to raise
Mr. Granville with the other; directing his attention to such
subjects as I too well knew interested her, and fashioning him
(do not deride or misconstrue the expression, unknown reader of
this writing; for I have suffered!) into a greater resemblance to
myself in my solitary one strong aspect. And gradually,
gradually, as I saw him take more and more to these thrown-out
lures of mine, then did I come to know better and better that
love was drawing him on, and was drawing her from me.</p>
<p>So passed more than another year; every day a year in its
number of my mixed impressions of grave pleasure and acute pain;
and then these two, being of age and free to act legally for
themselves, came before me hand in hand (my hair being now quite
white), and entreated me that I would unite them together.
‘And indeed, dear tutor,’ said Adelina, ‘it is
but consistent in you that you should do this thing for us,
seeing that we should never have spoken together that first time
but for you, and that but for you we could never have met so
often afterwards.’ The whole of which was literally
true; for I had availed myself of my many business attendances
on, and conferences with, my lady, to take Mr. Granville to the
house, and leave him in the outer room with Adelina.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p304b.jpg">
<img alt=
"And then these two came before me, hand in hand, and entreated
me that I would unite them"
title=
"And then these two came before me, hand in hand, and entreated
me that I would unite them"
src="images/p304s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<p>I knew that my lady would object to such a marriage for her
daughter, or to any marriage that was other than an exchange of
her for stipulated lands, goods, and moneys. But looking on
the two, and seeing with full eyes that they were both young and
beautiful; and knowing that they were alike in the tastes and
acquirements that will outlive youth and beauty; and considering
that Adelina had a fortune now, in her own keeping; and
considering further that Mr. Granville, though for the present
poor, was of a good family that had never lived in a cellar in
Preston; and believing that their love would endure, neither
having any great discrepancy to find out in the other,—I
told them of my readiness to do this thing which Adelina asked of
her dear tutor, and to send them forth, husband and wife, into
the shining world with golden gates that awaited them.</p>
<p>It was on a summer morning that I rose before the sun to
compose myself for the crowning of my work with this end; and my
dwelling being near to the sea, I walked down to the rocks on the
shore, in order that I might behold the sun in his majesty.</p>
<p>The tranquillity upon the deep, and on the firmament, the
orderly withdrawal of the stars, the calm promise of coming day,
the rosy suffusion of the sky and waters, the ineffable splendour
that then burst forth, attuned my mind afresh after the discords
of the night. Methought that all I looked on said to me,
and that all I heard in the sea and in the air said to me,
‘Be comforted, mortal, that thy life is so short. Our
preparation for what is to follow has endured, and shall endure,
for unimaginable ages.’</p>
<p>I married them. I knew that my hand was cold when I
placed it on their hands clasped together; but the words with
which I had to accompany the action I could say without
faltering, and I was at peace.</p>
<p>They being well away from my house and from the place after
our simple breakfast, the time was come when I must do what I had
pledged myself to them that I would do,—break the
intelligence to my lady.</p>
<p>I went up to the house, and found my lady in her ordinary
business-room. She happened to have an unusual amount of
commissions to intrust to me that day; and she had filled my
hands with papers before I could originate a word.</p>
<p>‘My lady,’ I then began, as I stood beside her
table.</p>
<p>‘Why, what’s the matter?’ she said quickly,
looking up.</p>
<p>‘Not much, I would fain hope, after you shall have
prepared yourself, and considered a little.’</p>
<p>‘Prepared myself; and considered a little! You
appear to have prepared <i>yourself</i> but indifferently,
anyhow, Mr. Silverman.’ This mighty scornfully, as I
experienced my usual embarrassment under her stare.</p>
<p>Said I, in self-extenuation once for all, ‘Lady Fareway,
I have but to say for myself that I have tried to do my
duty.’</p>
<p>‘For yourself?’ repeated my lady.
‘Then there are others concerned, I see. Who are
they?’</p>
<p>I was about to answer, when she made towards the bell with a
dart that stopped me, and said, ‘Why, where is
Adelina?’</p>
<p>‘Forbear! be calm, my lady. I married her this
morning to Mr. Granville Wharton.’</p>
<p>She set her lips, looked more intently at me than ever, raised
her right hand, and smote me hard upon the cheek.</p>
<p>‘Give me back those papers! give me back those
papers!’ She tore them out of my hands, and tossed
them on her table. Then seating herself defiantly in her
great chair, and folding her arms, she stabbed me to the heart
with the unlooked-for reproach, ‘You worldly
wretch!’</p>
<p>‘Worldly?’ I cried.
‘Worldly?’</p>
<p>‘This, if you please,’—she went on with
supreme scorn, pointing me out as if there were some one there to
see,—‘this, if you please, is the disinterested
scholar, with not a design beyond his books! This, if you
please, is the simple creature whom any one could overreach in a
bargain! This, if you please, is Mr. Silverman! Not
of this world; not he! He has too much simplicity for this
world’s cunning. He has too much singleness of
purpose to be a match for this world’s
double-dealing. What did he give you for it?’</p>
<p>‘For what? And who?’</p>
<p>‘How much,’ she asked, bending forward in her
great chair, and insultingly tapping the fingers of her right
hand on the palm of her left,—‘how much does Mr.
Granville Wharton pay you for getting him Adelina’s
money? What is the amount of your percentage upon
Adelina’s fortune? What were the terms of the
agreement that you proposed to this boy when you, the Rev. George
Silverman, licensed to marry, engaged to put him in possession of
this girl? You made good terms for yourself, whatever they
were. He would stand a poor chance against your
keenness.’</p>
<p>Bewildered, horrified, stunned by this cruel perversion, I
could not speak. But I trust that I looked innocent, being
so.</p>
<p>‘Listen to me, shrewd hypocrite,’ said my lady,
whose anger increased as she gave it utterance; ‘attend to
my words, you cunning schemer, who have carried this plot through
with such a practised double face that I have never suspected
you. I had my projects for my daughter; projects for family
connection; projects for fortune. You have thwarted them,
and overreached me; but I am not one to be thwarted and
overreached without retaliation. Do you mean to hold this
living another month?’</p>
<p>‘Do you deem it possible, Lady Fareway, that I can hold
it another hour, under your injurious words?’</p>
<p>‘Is it resigned, then?’</p>
<p>‘It was mentally resigned, my lady, some minutes
ago.’</p>
<p>Don’t equivocate, sir. <i>Is</i> it
resigned?’</p>
<p>‘Unconditionally and entirely; and I would that I had
never, never come near it!’</p>
<p>‘A cordial response from me to <i>that</i> wish, Mr.
Silverman! But take this with you, sir. If you had
not resigned it, I would have had you deprived of it. And
though you have resigned it, you will not get quit of me as
easily as you think for. I will pursue you with this
story. I will make this nefarious conspiracy of yours, for
money, known. You have made money by it, but you have at
the same time made an enemy by it. <i>You</i> will take
good care that the money sticks to you; I will take good care
that the enemy sticks to you.’</p>
<p>Then said I finally, ‘Lady Fareway, I think my heart is
broken. Until I came into this room just now, the
possibility of such mean wickedness as you have imputed to me
never dawned upon my thoughts. Your
suspicions—’</p>
<p>‘Suspicions! Pah!’ said she
indignantly. ‘Certainties.’</p>
<p>‘Your certainties, my lady, as you call them, your
suspicions as I call them, are cruel, unjust, wholly devoid of
foundation in fact. I can declare no more; except that I
have not acted for my own profit or my own pleasure. I have
not in this proceeding considered myself. Once again, I
think my heart is broken. If I have unwittingly done any
wrong with a righteous motive, that is some penalty to
pay.’</p>
<p>She received this with another and more indignant
‘Pah!’ and I made my way out of her room (I think I
felt my way out with my hands, although my eyes were open),
almost suspecting that my voice had a repulsive sound, and that I
was a repulsive object.</p>
<p>There was a great stir made, the bishop was appealed to, I
received a severe reprimand, and narrowly escaped
suspension. For years a cloud hung over me, and my name was
tarnished.</p>
<p>But my heart did not break, if a broken heart involves death;
for I lived through it.</p>
<p>They stood by me, Adelina and her husband, through it
all. Those who had known me at college, and even most of
those who had only known me there by reputation, stood by me
too. Little by little, the belief widened that I was not
capable of what was laid to my charge. At length I was
presented to a college-living in a sequestered place, and there I
now pen my explanation. I pen it at my open window in the
summer-time, before me, lying in the churchyard, equal
resting-place for sound hearts, wounded hearts, and broken
hearts. I pen it for the relief of my own mind, not
foreseeing whether or no it will ever have a reader.</p>
<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGE SILVERMAN'S EXPLANATION***</p>
<pre>
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