The Measure of a Man

There are few episodes in life which break off finally.  Life is now so variable, travel so easy, there are no continuing cities and no lasting interests, and we ask ourselves involuntarily, “What will the sequence be?” When I left Yorkshire, I was too young and too ignorant of the ever-changing film of daily existence to think or to care much about sequences; and the Hattons were a family of the soil; they appeared to be as much a part of it as the mountains and elms, the blue bells and the heather.  I never expected to see them again and the absence of this expectation made me neither sorry nor glad.

One day, however, a quarter of a century after the apparent close of my story, I was in St. Andrews, the sacred, solemn-looking old city that is the essence of all the antiquity of Scotland.  But it was neither its academic air nor its ecclesiastical forlornness, its famous links nor venerable ruins of cloister and cathedral that attracted me at that time.  It was the promise of a sermon by Dean Stanley which detained me on my southward journey.  I had heard Dean Stanley once, and naturally I could not but wish to hear him again.

He was to preach in the beautiful little chapel of St. Salvator’s College and I went with the crowd that followed the University faculty there.  One of the incidents of this walk was seeing an old woman in a large white-linen cap, carrying an umbrella, innocently join the gowned and hooded procession of the University faculty.  I was told afterwards that Stanley was greatly delighted at her intrusion.  He wore a black silk gown and bands, the Oxford D.D. hood, a broad scarf of what looked like crêpe, and the order of the Bath, and his text was, “Ye have need of patience.”  The singing was extraordinarily beautiful, beginning with that grand canticle, “Lord of All Power and Might,” as he entered the pulpit.  His beautiful beaming face and the singular way in which he looked up with closed eyes was very attractive and must be well remembered.  But I did not notice it with the interest I might have done, if other faces had not awakened in my memory a still keener interest.  For in a pew among those reserved for the professors and officials of the city, I saw one in which there was certainly seated John Hatton and his wife.  There were some young men with them, who had a remarkable resemblance to the couple, and I immediately began to speculate on the probabilities which could have brought a Yorkshire spinner to the ecclesiastical capital of Scotland.

After the service was over I found them at the Royal Hotel.  Then I began to learn the sequence.  The landlord of the Royal introduced it by informing me that Mr. and Mrs. John Hatton were not there, but that Sir John Hatton and Lady Hatton were staying at the Royal.  They were delighted to see me again and for three days I was almost constantly in Lady Hatton’s company.  During these days I learned in an easy conversational way all that had followed “the peace that God made.”  No trouble was in its sequence—­only that blessing which maketh rich and addeth no sorrow therewith.

“Yes,” Lady Hatton answered to my question concerning the youths I had seen in the church with them, “they were my boys.  I have four sons.  The eldest, called John, is attending to his father’s business while my husband takes a little holiday.  Stephen is studying law, and George is preparing for the Navy; my youngest boy, Elbert, is still at Rugby.”

“And your daughters?” I asked.

She smiled divinely.  “Oh!” she replied.  “They are such darlings!  Alice is married and Jane is married and Clara is staying with her grandmother.  She is only sixteen.  She is very beautiful and Mrs. Hatton will hardly let her leave the Hall.”

“Then Mrs. Hatton is still alive?” I said.

“Yes, indeed, very much so.  She will live to her last moment, and likely ‘pass out of it,’ as our people say, busy with heart and head and hands.”

“And what of Mrs. Harry?” I asked.

“Ah, she left us some years ago!  Just faded away.  For nearly two years she knew she was dying, and was preparing her household for her loss, yet joining as best she could in all the careless mirth of her children.  But she talked to me of what was approaching and said she often whispered to herself, ‘Another hour gone.’  Dear Lucy, we all loved her.  Her children are doing well, the boys are all in Sir John’s employ.”

“And Mr. Harry?  Does he still sing?”

“Not much since Lucy’s death.  But he looks after the land, and paints and reads a great deal, and we are all very fond of Harry.  His mother must see him every day, and Sir John is nearly as foolish.  Harry was born to be loved and everyone loves him.  He has gone lately to the Church of England, but Sir John, though a member of Parliament, stands loyally by the Methodist church.”

“And you?”

“I go with Sir John in everything.  I try to walk in his steps, and so keep middling straight.  Sir John lives four square, careless of outward shows.  It is years and years since I followed my own way.  Sir John’s ways are wiser and better.  He is always ready for the duty of the hour and never restless as to what will come after it.  Is not that a good rule?”

“Are you on your way home now?” I asked.

“Oh, no!  We are going as far as the Shetlands.  John had a happy holiday there before we were married.  He is taking Stephen and George to see the lonely isles.”

“You have had a very happy life, Lady Hatton?”

“Yes,” she answered.  “The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places.”

“And you have beautiful children.”

“Thank God!  His blessing and peace came to me from the cradle.  One day I found my Bible open at II Esdras, second chapter, and my eyes fell on the fifteenth verse:  ’Mother, embrace thy children and bring them up with gladness.’  I knew a poor woman who had ten children, and instead of complaining, she was proud and happy because she said God must have thought her a rare good mother to trust her with ten of His sons and daughters.”

“I have not seen much of Sir John.”

“He is on the yacht with the boys most of the time.  They are visiting every day some one or other of the little storied towns of Fife.  Sometimes it is black night when they get back to St. Andrews.  But they have always had a good time even if it turned stormy.  John finds, or makes, good come from every event.  Greenwood—­you remember Greenwood?”

“Oh, yes!”

“He used to say Sir John Hatton is the full measure of a man.  He was very proud of Sir John’s title, and never omitted, if it was possible to get it in, the M.P. after it.  Greenwood died a year ago as he was sitting in his chair and picking out the hymns to be sung at his funeral.  They were all of a joyful character.”

So we talked, and of course only the best in everyone came up for discussion, but then in fine healthy natures the best does generally come to the top—­and this was undoubtedly one reason that conversation on any subject always drifted in some way or other to John Hatton.  His faith in God, his love for his fellowmen, his noble charity, his inflexible justice, his domestic virtues, his confidence in himself, and his ready-handed use of all the means at his command—­yea, even his beautiful manliness, what were they but the outcome of one thousand years of Christian faith transmitted through a royally religious ancestry?

When a good man is prosperous in all his ways they say in the North “God smiled on him before he was born,” and John Hatton gave to this blessing a date beyond limitation, for a little illuminated roll hanging above the desk in his private room bore the following golden-lettered inscription: 

    ...God smiled as He has always smiled,
    Ere suns and moons could wax and wane,
    God thought on me His child.

THE END