Thomas Hammond

“ Hammond called after him, "is Mr. Thomas in?"
"I guess so," replied Bill, pausing directly in front of Hammond and gazing up at him with a calm, shrewd light in his half-shut eyes. "He seems to stick around pretty close."
"Well," said Hammond, with a heavy frown, "just be good enough to step up and tell him that Sheriff Blodgett and I would like to see him!"
"Step up yourself," said old Bill, quietly, without shifting either his gaze or his position. "You ain't crippled, be you? An' I don't think as your friend Thomas'll fall off'n his chair with surprise if you drop in on him unexpected." ”

“ There was triumph in Thomas's voice as he asked the question.
"His name is John Marvin."
"Since that time, you have had dealings with Mrs. Jones, have you not?"
"I have, and I have always found her to be an honest and splendid woman." Hammond smiled over at her.
"And Mr. Jones was a source of trouble and great embarrassment to her, wasn't he?"
This time Hammond made Bill the goal of his insulting focus. "Yes, sir, he was! He was shiftless and drinking, cruel and untruthful." With a malicious sneer he added, "Why, to my knowledge, he's the biggest liar in the county!" ”

“ He will soon recognize thee as a giver of good things, and thy gifts will lead him unto repentance. He will not steal from thee because thou givest, and there are none who prefer to steal, when they are supplied by gifts. None will fight, when they have what they desire without it. None will do wrong, when the wrong discloses no advantage. Study right, Thomas, and right will not wrong thee. ”

“ W. I would not have thee take others as they are not, Thomas; but I would have thee understand, that the wisdom of this sphere is peaceful, and not compulsory. Thou seest no collision of minds, or disturbance among spirits. The government, which controls minds here without force, [31] is a government more perfect than that thy mind justifieth. No spirit can be improved by evil. Evil is repugnant to its nature. Force against force is evil, because mind must harmonize with mind to be happy. ”

“ W. Hadst thou, Thomas, studied opinions less, and nature more, thou wouldst have seen that nature never contradicts its own wants. It does not deny itself. What nature wants, nature provides. Human opinions were objectionable to thee, because they conflicted with nature and each other; so with thy works. Thou wouldst battle with others, because their opinions were irreconcilable with nature, and yet thou didst offer thy own, though exposed to the same objection. They saw thy errors, as thou beheld theirs. ”

“ Jones!" There was banter in Hammond's voice, but there was concern in the wise direction of his eyes toward Thomas. "You're a mighty brave woman and I know you're going through with this, for it means that you'll be in a much better position to find your husband and look out for your old age after you get the money for the place." ”

“ Hammond stood holding the ends of the cord that bound the Invisible, twisted round his hand, while before him, self-supporting as it were, he beheld a rope laced and interlaced, and stretching tightly around a vacant space. I never saw a man look so thoroughly stricken with awe. Nevertheless his face expressed all the courage and determination which I knew him to possess. ”

“ The pavement was thronged with women on shopping bent. More than one of them shot an admiring glance at him, [12] for he had the face, the head, of a king among men. But he had no eyes for these chance admirers.
Tom Hammond was thirty years of age, a journalist, and an exceptionally clever one, at the time we make his acquaintance. He was a keen, shrewd man, was gifted with a foresight and general prescience that were almost remarkable, and hence was commonly regarded by his journalistic friends as “a coming man.” ”

“ We don’t see nearly enough of the—er—the other classes. When my husband was Master of the Deerhounds, I once gave a thing they called a Primrose Tea down at our place in Worcestershire, but I didn’t speak to any [46] of the creatures that came to it, except one dreadful person, who, they told me, was a justice of the peace. He called me ‘My lady,’ exactly like that delightful character who wants to murder everybody in one of somebody’s novels.”
“I expect the alderman will call you ‘ma’am,’” observed Hammond, reflectively. ”

“ The church clock was striking eight as Hammond came at a brisk pace down to the valley. There was still an hour before breakfast, so he took a circuitous path to Fellside, and descended upon the house from the Fell, as he had done that summer morning when he saw James Steadman sauntering about in his garden.
Within about a quarter of a mile of Lady Maulevrier's shrubberies Mr. Hammond encountered a pedestrian, who, like himself, was evidently taking a constitutional ramble in the morning air, but on a much less extended scale, for this person did not look capable of going far afield. ”

“ Many callers came in. Everyone noticed the strange placard. Some asked what it meant. Modestly, but with strong purpose, and with perfect frankness, Hammond told each and all who enquired, of his change of heart, and how possessed [188] with the fact that Christ’s return was imminent, he had had the placard done for his own, and for others quickening and reminder.
People smiled indulgently, but entered into no argument with him. He was too important a man for that, and, equally, they dare not pooh-pooh his testimony, wild as it appeared to most, if not all of them. ”

“ Nothing has been told me, and it is a matter about which I have conjectured little. But, sir, I have seen Mr. Hammond every day for four years, and I know what I say when I tell you that he loves you as well as if you were his own son. Moreover, he—"
"Hush! you talk of what you do not understand. Believe in him if you will, but be careful not to chant his praises in my presence; not to parade your credulity before my eyes, if you do not desire that I shall disenchant you. Just now you are duped—so was I at your age. Your judgment slumbers, experience is in its swaddling-clothes ”

“ Where there is fiction, there is no passion; he that describes himself as a shepherd, and his Neæra or Delia as a shepherdess, and talks of goats and lambs, feels no passion. He that courts his mistress with Roman imagery deserves to lose her; for she may with good reason suspect his sincerity. Hammond has few sentiments drawn from nature, and few images from modern life. He produces nothing but frigid pedantry. ”

“ Tom Hammond turned hot and cold. He trusted that no one had recognized him. He would be glad to get away unrecognized. Yet he was not offended by the speaker’s personal allusion to him. He felt that the major’s soul rang true.
“Before I close,” the major went on, “suffer me to read an extract from the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ of the year seventeen hundred and fifty-nine:
“‘Mr. Urban,—Reading over chapter eleven, verse two, of Revelation, a thought came to me that I had hit upon the meaning of it which I desire you’ll publish in one of your future magazines. ”

“ Judge Hammond was a selfish, worldly man. People never liked him much. His favoring, so strongly, the tavern of Slade, and his distillery operations, turned from him some of his best friends. The corruption and terrible fate of his son—and the insanity and death of his wife—all were charged upon him in people's minds, and every one seemed to turn from him instinctively after the fearful tragedy was completed. He never held tip his head afterward. Neighbors shunned him as they would a criminal. And here has come the end at last. He will be taken to the poorhouse, to die there—a pauper! ”

“ We're friends in a democracy of Americans. You're just as good a man as I am, and vice versa. Besides, aren't we fellow criminals?"
Hammond grinned at this. There was no lack of shrewd intelligence in his broad and powerful features, which were crowned by a rim of reddish hair.
"All that line o' bull sounds good, cap'n, only it's away off," he returned. "Trouble with you is, you ain't forgot the war yet."
"I never will," said Gramont, his face darkening.
"Sure you will! We all will. And you ain't as used to this country as I am, either. I've seen too much of it. You ain't seen enough." ”

“ Hammond cast on her a look which she had not seen in his eyes before.
“Do you know me well? Does any of us know another well? Don’t we, most of us, drift through life with our eyes half closed, ignorant of our aims, ignorant of our very natures, till some shock comes to awaken us, and in the moment of trial we find out for the first time who and what we really are?”
A subtle instinct told him, before he had finished speaking, that his words were being eagerly followed by the girl who sat on his right hand. On the marchioness they fell with something of the effect of a cold spray. ”

“ HAMMOND, WILLIAM (fl. 1655) , poet, born in 1614, was third son of Sir William Hammond, knt. (d. 1615) , of St. Alban's Court, East Kent, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Anthony Archer of Bishopsbourne, who was granddaughter of Edwin Sandys [q. v.] ”

“ In 1740 Hammond wrote the prologue for Lillo's posthumous tragedy of ‘Elmerick,’ which was acted at Drury Lane Theatre, and some additional poems by him and references to his compositions are in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ for 1779, 1781, 1786, and 1787. Hammond's elegies are avowedly imitations of Tibullus, and Johnson condemned them as having ‘neither passion, nature, nor manners,’ nothing ‘but frigid pedantry.’ These strictures produced a quarto pamphlet of ‘Observations on Dr. Johnson's Life of Hammond,’ 1782, but time has given its verdict in favour of the critic. ”

“ The cab rattled over the cobbles of that wide East-end thoroughfare, past the throngs of moving pedestrians, though, to her consciousness, the whole wide world consisted of but one man—the man at her side.
He had secured her hand, he held it in his strong, hot clasp. She held her breath in a strange, expectant ecstasy. Then the inevitable came. She felt its coming.
Tom Hammond was drawing her closer to himself. She was yielding to that drawing. She caught her breath again, and as she did so a rush of strange tears filled her eyes.
“Zillah!” his voice was hoarse and deep. ”

“ Hammond?'
'Hammond knows that there is such a place, I daresay,' replied Maulevrier, replying for his friend.
'But you do not know Lord Hartfield, perhaps,' said her ladyship, not arrogantly, but still in a tone which implied her conviction that John Hammond would not be hand-in-glove with earls, in Scotland or elsewhere.
'Oh, yes! I know him by sight—every one in Argyleshire knows him by sight.'
'Naturally. A young man in his position must be widely known. Is he popular?'
'Fairly so.'
'His father and I were friends many years ago,' said Lady Maulevrier, with a faint sigh. ”

“ He had found an extremely well-written letter on his table, signed “George Hammond,” expressing a wish to accompany him abroad, and dated from our house, which he had at first imagined was a jest of mine. “But I find it is from your servant,” he continued, “and I have told him that I can say nothing until I have consulted you on the subject.”
“I am afraid I can allege nothing against it,”
I answered, “if he suits you, and wishes to go. A more trustworthy, excellent person you never can meet with.”
“And what are his connections?” inquired Mr. Jameson ”

“ In the afternoon shadows that small head and slim form contrasted curiously with the spacious brow of the tall and commanding figure at the other end of the mantelpiece, the imposing presence of Father Cyprian Hammond, at that time a famous personage in London society, the morals and manners whereof he had of late made it his chief business to satirise and denounce. But the people of pleasure and leisure, the butterflies and humming-birds of the world, the creatures of light and colour, have a keen relish for reproof and denunciation, though they may wince under the lash of irony. ”

“ It will not do him harm,—and you may take this half crown, and get what it will buy.”
The unfortunate man was worse. He had heard what they had said about his dying. In a half conscious state of mind, he said, “Mary, what did he want? He need not be vexed about rent—he will not ask again where I am.”
“No, no: He wanted to see you, and he gave me this half crown to get some tea and sugar for you, and besides he has sent for his doctor—all very kind. He is a kind man in sickness. It is not every landlord you know, who would even come to visit a servant in sickness, much less offer them aid ”

“ Hammond?”
“Could not be better, sir.”
“Settled, then, Mr. Hammond!” There were a few more words exchanged between master and man, and then they parted.
As Tom Hammond strode along the Embankment towards Waterloo Bridge, his heart was the heart of a boy again.
“Is life worth living!” he cried inwardly, answering his own question with the rapturous words: “In this hour I know nothing else that earth could give me to make life more joyous!”
People passing him saw his face radiant with a wondrous joy. It’s rare to see peace, even, in faces in our great cities. It is rarer still to see joy’s gleam. ”

“ Green instantly swept his hands over the table to secure the money and bills it contained; but, ere he had accomplished his purpose, young Hammond grappled three or four narrow strips of paper, and hastily tore them into shreds.
"You're a cheating scoundrel!" cried Green, fiercely, thrusting his hand into his bosom as if to draw from thence a weapon; but the words were scarcely uttered, ere Hammond sprung upon him with the fierceness of a tiger, bearing him down upon the floor. ”