Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/614

184 It was in these ways that I began to form a shy diposition; 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.

Brother Hawkyard (as he insisted on my calling him) put me to school, and told me to work my way: "You are all right, George," he said. "I have been the best servant the Lord has had in his service for this five-and-thirty year; (Oh I have!) and he knows the value of such a servant as I have been to him; (Oh, yes, he does!) and he'll prosper your schooling as a part of my reward. That's what he′ll do, George. He'll do it for me."

From the first I could not like this familiar knowledge of the ways of the sublime, inscrutable Almighty, on Brother Hawkyard's part. As I grew a little wiser, and still a little wiser, I liked it less and less. His manner, too, of confirming himself in a parenthesis—as if, knowing himself, he doubted his own word—I found distasteful. I cannot tell how much these dislikes cost me; for I had a dread that they were worldly.

As time went on, I became a Foundation-boy on a good foundation, and I cost Brother Hawkyard nothing. When I had worked my way so far, I worked yet harder, in the hope of ultimately getting a presentation to college and a fellowship. My health has never been strong (some vapor from the Preston cellar cleaves to me, I think); and what with much work and some weakness, I came again to be regarded—that is, by my fellow students—as unsocial.

All through my time as a Foundation-boy, I was within a few miles of Brother Hawkyard's congregation; and whenever I was what we called a leave-boy on a Sunday, I went over there at his desire. Before their knowledge became forced upon me that outside of 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