Thomas Hawkins

“ HAWKINS, WILLIAM (1722–1801) , theologian and poet, was eldest son of William Hawkins, serjeant-at-law [q. v.] , by his first wife, a daughter of Sir Robert Jenyns and sister of Soame Jenyns. Through his grandmother he was descended from Thomas Tesdale, one of the founders of Pembroke College, Oxford, and, to avail himself of the advantages of founder's kin, he matriculated there on 12 Nov. ”

“ Wrong sways the sceptre and Justice must yield.
A number of Mr. Hawkins’s productions reveal possibilities of beauty and effectiveness, which he had not the patience or the skill to realize. One imagines that he has never been able to bring his spirit to a submissive study of the minutiæ of metrical composition. A poet in esse—or in posse—is all that nature ever makes. And even the most free spirit must know well the traditions. ”

“ Thomas died a young man.
John Hawkins, the present representative of the family, celebrated throughout Europe for his general knowledge on all subjects, his science, literature, and travels, especially through Greece, the most interesting portion of the ancient world, married the only daughter of Mr. Sibthorpe, Member for Lincoln, and has two sons and four daughters; the eldest, Mr. John Heywood Hawkins, is a distinguished Member of the present Parliament. His sister is the widow of Mr. Trelawney Brereton.
The house at Trewinnard has been so much altered and improved since Mr. ”

“ Only more thorough excavation will clear up this point. In any case the tabby to the south would be the remains of a building on South Ward Lot 19, belonging to Thomas Sumner, or to South Ward Lot 20, belonging to Daniel Prevost. The southwest corner of South Ward Lot 2, Samuel Davison, was located with some accuracy. Measuring north ninety feet, along the line of the party wall, the northwest corner was found to be three feet north of the northwest corner of the Davison house. The front stairwell of the Hawkins house extended out into the street alignment a matter of six inches. ”

“ This is a faithful self-characterization—such a man in reality is Walter Everette Hawkins. A fearless and independent and challenging spirit. He is the rare kind of man that must put everything to the severe test of absolute principles. ”

“ Alexander Smollett, master; David Livesey, ship's doctor; Abraham Gray, carpenter's mate; John Trelawney, owner; John Hunter and Richard Joyce, owner's servants, landsmen—being all that is left faithful of the ship's company—with stores for ten days at short rations, came ashore this day and flew British colours on the log-house in Treasure Island. Thomas Redruth, owner's servant, landsman, shot by the mutineers; James Hawkins, cabin-boy—
And at the same time, I was wondering over poor Jim Hawkins' fate. ”

“ Hawkins had now crossed many a broad acre of the weary moorlands, fatigued and thirsty, his heart beating in his ears, and not a drop of water that he could see to sprinkle the dry pulses of his bosom, when he came to a long morass, which barred his straightforward path. ”

“ The cook seemed to be feeling for a new grip.
“Here! What are you doing?” cried the inventor. “Don't touch any of those handles.”
“It is that I seek a place for ze hand,” murmured the cook apologetically.
“Well, find it and let her down. Got your grip?”
“Aha! I have eet!” announced the Frenchman, clutching one of the brass knobs.
“All right. Down!”
Down went the Gasowashine. And a very small fraction of one second later things began to happen.
Each of Hawkins' inventions possesses a latent devil. ”

“ The inventor snatched it impolitely and turned his back, while the youth gazed after him for a moment and then returned to the office.
“Set of confounded idiots!” Hawkins remarked wrathfully.
Then, ere I could disappear, he spied me.
“Aha, Griggs, you here?”
“No, I'm not,” I said flatly. “If there's any trouble brewing, Hawkins, consider me back in New York. What has excited you?”
“Excited me? Those fool railroad officials are enough to drive a man to the asylum. ”

“ At length a tall, powerful-looking man came stepping through the moss, and as he passed near the poor youth, asked, in slow speech, who he was. In the reaction of nature, Hawkins was, in a moment, anxious about his situation, and replied to him that he had fallen sick on his way, and was unable to go in quest of a resting-place for the night. ”

“ But—whoever could have designed that frieze, Mr. Hawkins?”
“Er—that frieze?” repeated the inventor, a little uncomfortably, indicating the insane-looking strip of painting a foot or so wide which ran along under the ceiling.
“Yes, it's so funny. Nothing but dots and dots and dots. Whoever could have conceived such an idea?”
“Well, I did, Miss Mather,” Hawkins replied. “I designed that myself.”
“Oh, did you?” murmured the inquisitive one, going red.
Hawkins turned to me, and the girl subsided; but old Mr. Blodgett had overheard. ”

“ Hawkins turned again.
“Mein lieber Herr,” said Von Moltz, “es macht mich sehr traurig dieses zu sagen, aber”—he caught himself—“I mean, it is necessary that I shall be in Washington this evening.”
“Well, I told you that you would be there, didn't I?” demanded the inventor.
“You did, but it seems to me not that way,” smiled the count. “Always goes the ship to the westward. For Washington shall it eastward be.”
“Well, we're going straight east now, count,” Hawkins lied crisply. “We have turned around, and we're going straight home.”
“Den who hass mofed der sun, Mr. Hawkins?” ”

“ Hawkins was wild with joy, but Sellers was calm. Small matters could not disturb his serenity. He said— "That's just the way things go. A man invents a thing which could revolutionize the arts, produce mountains of money, and bless the earth, and who will bother with it or show any interest in it?—and so you are just as poor as you were before. But you invent some worthless thing to amuse yourself with, and would throw it away if let alone, and all of a sudden the whole world makes a snatch for it and out crops a fortune. Hunt up that Yankee and collect, Hawkins—half is yours, you know. ”

“ Hawkins said to himself, "How can a man ever lose faith? When the blackest hour comes, Providence always comes with it—ah, this is the very timeliest help that ever poor harried devil had; if this blessed man offers but a thousand I'll embrace him like a brother!"
The stranger said:
"I am aware that you own 75,000 acres, of land in East Tennessee, and without sacrificing your time, I will come to the point at once. I am agent of an iron manufacturing company, and they empower me to offer you ten thousand dollars for that land." ”

“ The huge wing was precisely in line to deal my unoffending cranium a terrific whack, which would probably stun me, and certainly brush me from my perch.
“There's a big wind coming!” I cried. “Look at those trees.”
“By Jimminy! You're right!” gasped the inventor, recklessly hurling himself upon the ladder. “Quick, Griggs. Come down after me. Quick!”
When one of Hawkins' inventions gets you in its toils, you have to make rapid decisions as to the manner of death you would prefer. In the twinkling of an eye, I decided to cast my fate with Hawkins on the ladder. ”

“ The crook that attempts a nocturnal entrance here has my sincere and heartfelt sympathy.”
“Hawkins' Patent Automatic Burglar Alarm?” I suggested.
“What the deuce are you sneering at?” snapped the inventor. “No, there's no patent burglar alarm in this house.”
“Hawkins' Steel Dynamite-Proof Shutters?”
Hawkins ignored the remark and busied himself lighting a cigar.
“Hawkins' Triple-Expansion Spring-Gun?” I hazarded once more.
“Oh, drop it! Drop it!” cried Hawkins. “Positively, Griggs, your efforts at humor disgust one. In some ways, you are as bad as a woman. ”

“ The inventor's mouth opened with a squeak.
“Griggs, stand by me!” he gasped.
And just then I became a hero. It feels nice to be a hero. I dodged past Mink and took up a determined stand at Hawkins's right-hand side—and if I backed, even more quickly than he did, it was merely a tactical move.
To be sure, a trifle of cold sweat sprang from my forehead, and my pulse ran up to something like three hundred; and there was a peculiar feeling in my knees, as if somebody had removed the hinge-pin; but little things like that are pardonable when a man is a hero for the first time, I think. ”

“ I took the latter alternative, threw myself upon the ladder, and clung there, gasping with astonishment at the suddenness of the thing.
“Well, Hawkins?” I said, getting breath as my head sank below the level of the beautiful earth.
“Well, Griggs,” said the inventor defiantly, from the second rung below, “the gear must have slipped—that's all.”
“Isn't it lucky that this is a tiled well?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why,” I said, “a tiled well is absolutely safe, you see. Nothing can happen in a tiled well, Hawkins.” ”

“ Hawkins is the dapper, fluent, old English gentleman, who meets all callers upon the house. He appears to be the very life of the firm, and sells the counters and shelves as clean as his own smoothly shaved, fair little face. He is fond of boasting that he never kept a piece of goods through two whole seasons. ”

“ Hawkins, with his cargo of slaves on board, crowded so close that fever began to rage among his crew, could hardly have comforted himself so complacently, in the midst of a terrible calm in the tropics, with the thought that 'God never suffers His elect to perish,' unless his whole thought had been occupied with what he was doing against those whom he believed to be ministers of darkness, while his relations and duties to his hapless fellow-creatures were dropped out of sight. ”

“ Some resistless force lifted me from the floor and propelled me toward the half shattered door. Dimly I noted that the same thing had happened to Hawkins. For the tiniest fraction of a second he seemed to be floating horizontally in the air. Then I felt my head collide with wood; the door parted, and I shot through the opening.
I saw the hallway before me; I remember observing with vague wonder that the gas-light went out just as it caught my eye. And then an awful flash blinded me, a roar of ten thousand cannon seemed to split my skull—and that was all. ”

“ Hawkins, sir,” interrupted Hawkins' butler at the door.
“Well, William?”
“Mrs. Hawkins, sir, she says as how your presence is desired down-stairs.”
“Oh, all right,” said the inventor wearily. “I'll be down directly.”
“No rest for the wicked,” he commented to me. “Come on, Griggs, we'll have to dance.”
The festivity was in full swing when we descended.
Mrs. Hawkins came over to us and remarked in low tones to her spouse:
“Now just try to make yourself agreeable, Herbert. It's not nice for you to steal away and smoke.”
“I'm not smoking.”
“Mr. Griggs is.” ”

“ Hawkins strode to the rear of the yard without turning. About us on every side were high wooden walls, the storage bins of the company.
Up the side of one wall ran a ladder, and Hawkins commenced the perpendicular ascent with the same matter-of-fact air that one would wear in walking up-stairs.
“What are you doing that for? Exercise?” I called, when he paused some twenty-five feet in the air.
“If you wish to see the Crano-Scale at work, follow me. If not, stay where you are,” replied Hawkins. ”

“ The lift of her head, and the splendid colour in her cheeks would have befitted any angry goddess, and it is not surprising that Hawkins did not take offence at the crudity of the expression, and thought less of the brogue in which it was uttered than of the quiver of the young voice that accused him.
“Look here,” he said, for the second time, but with a new and very different inflection, “don’t let us abuse each other any more. I couldn’t answer your letters. I didn’t know what to say, except to tell you that I was a cad and a beast, and I didn’t see much good in doing that. ”

“ You needn't look huffy, Griggs. It isn't your wife or my wife. It's the whole sex. They chatter and prattle and make silly jokes about things they're absolutely incapable of understanding.”
“My dear Hawkins,” I said soothingly, “you wrong the fair sex.”
“Oh, I wrong 'em, eh? Well, what woman knows the first thing about explosives?” demanded Hawkins heatedly. “Dynamite or rhexite or meganite or carbonite or stonite or vigorite or cordite or ballistite or thorite or maxamite——”
“Stop, Hawkins, stop!” I cried.
“Well, that's all, anyway,” said the inventor. ”

“ The wires are all mixed up in it, and they may smash and drag us down, or upset us, Hawkins.”
“Croak! Croak! Croak!” replied Hawkins, sourly. “Go on and croak till your dying day, Griggs. If any one ever offers a prize for a pessimistic alarmist, you take my advice and compete. You'll win. I'm going to start the engine and get out of this.”
He pulled the reverse lever, and the engine buzzed merrily. The auto indulged in a series of unwholesome convulsive shivers, but it didn't budge. ”

“ Hawkins was known as “a mean woman.” [13] Samuel Davison, with his wife, Susanna, their little daughter, Susanna (born in England) , and sons, John and Samuel (born at Frederica) , [14] who lived on lot number 2, were good citizens and well liked by the other settlers.
Dr. Hawkins was one of the important personages in the community. Not only was he the surgeon in Oglethorpe’s Regiment and the medical doctor for Frederica and the other settlements nearby, but he kept the apothecary shop, and was First Bailiff. His house on Broad Street was his residence as well as headquarters for his work. ”

“ Hawkins went straight to the telegraph office and disburdened his conscience. He said to himself, “She’s not going to give this galvanized cadaver up, that’s plain. Wild horses can’t pull her away from him. I’ve done my share; it’s for Sellers to take an innings, now.” So he sent this message to New York:
“Come back. Hire special train. She’s going to marry the materializee.”
Meantime a note came to Rossmore Towers to say that the Earl of Rossmore had just arrived from England, and would do himself the pleasure of calling in the evening. ”