Thomas Savery

“ They spoke of him as a man who was his own worst enemy, sadly too fond of his glass, and always quarrelling with his neighbours. Only William Savery refused to believe that any man could be altogether evil, and he kept a ray of hope in his heart for John Smith, even when his valuable bundle of hides mysteriously disappeared. ”

“ We have changed our mind. We shall not offer that plea." [Then to the clerk:] "Call Thomas Sawyer!"
A puzzled amazement awoke in every face in the house, not even excepting Potter's. Every eye fastened itself with wondering interest upon Tom as he rose and took his place upon the stand. The boy looked wild enough, for he was badly scared. The oath was administered.
"Thomas Sawyer, where were you on the seventeenth of June, about the hour of midnight?"
Tom glanced at Injun Joe's iron face and his tongue failed him. The audience listened breathless, but the words refused to come. ”

“ Savaury was saying, waving his eyeglasses and turning to stare, as only he could stare, at the people behind. “It’s astonishing how we all turn up at these tiresome old things,—almost as if we couldn’t help it. I suppose we get into the habit, like standing up for the National Anthem, and ordering the usual Christmas dinner even if everybody in the house has dyspepsia. Of course, Verity is quite clever and all that kind of thing, but she’s not very good at taking suggestions. It’s so tiresome when people won’t follow really valuable advice. ”

“ We think it right to add that the language used by Savery in his ‘Miner’s Friend,’ in treating of the advantages, whether ascertained or prospective, of his invention, presents a strong contrast, in point of plainness, simplicity, and modesty, to the more high-flown phrases in which the Marquis of Worcester magnifies the performances of his ‘semi-omnipotent’ engine. Savery was evidently a practical man, possessed of great [1] common sense as well as of [2] ingenuity ”

“ Savery examined on a charge of ‘spreading Popish Books.’ ‘Savery pretends to be a doctor, but is probably a conjurer.’ And again under the same date he is interrogated as to his relations with Mrs. Turner and Forman. Under Oct. 24 he replies to Coke. ‘Oct. ?’ we find Dr. Savery questioned as to his ‘predictions of troubles and alterations in Court.’ This is the last mention of him.
Just what connection Gresham and Savory had with the Overbury plot is a difficult matter to determine. ”

“ But you've another one I daresay, and you'll tell it to me, won't you?"
"Tell the gentleman your other name, Thomas," said Walters, "and say sir.—You mustn't forget your manners."
"Thomas Sawyer—sir."
"That's it! That's a good boy. Fine boy. Fine, manly little fellow. Two thousand verses is a great many—very, very great many. And you never can be sorry for the trouble you took to learn them; for knowledge is worth more than anything there is in the world; it's what makes great men and good men ”

“ Such was the beginning of the life of Richard Savage. Born with a legal claim to honour and to affluence, he was in two months illegitimated by the parliament, and disowned by his mother, doomed to poverty and obscurity, and launched upon the ocean of life, only that he might be swallowed by its quicksands, or dashed upon its rocks.
His mother could not indeed infect others with the same cruelty. As it was impossible to avoid the inquiries which the curiosity or tenderness of her relations made after her child, she was obliged to give some account of the measures she had taken ”

“ Old Hundred swelled up with a triumphant burst, and while it shook the rafters Tom Sawyer the Pirate looked around upon the envying juveniles about him and confessed in his heart that this was the proudest moment of his life.
As the “sold” congregation trooped out they said they would almost be willing to be made ridiculous again to hear Old Hundred sung like that once more.
Tom got more cuffs and kisses that day—according to Aunt Polly’s varying moods—than he had earned before in a year; and he hardly knew which expressed the most gratefulness to God and affection for himself. ”

“ He was dismissed from the attorney-generalship in 1687, and in the following year he appeared as leading counsel for the defence of the seven bishops, whose acquittal he secured. On the flight of James II., Sawyer maintained that the throne had thereby been abdicated, and took a prominent part in the debates on the constitutional questions then brought to the front. Owing to an attack upon him in 1690 in relation to his conduct in the case of Sir Thomas Armstrong in 1684, Sawyer was expelled from the House of Commons, but was returned again for Cambridge University shortly afterwards. ”

“ At that moment a shadow fell on the page and Tom Sawyer stepped in at the door and caught a glimpse of the picture. Becky snatched at the book to close it, and had the hard luck to tear the pictured page half down the middle. She thrust the volume into the desk, turned the key, and burst out crying with shame and vexation.
"Tom Sawyer, you are just as mean as you can be, to sneak up on a person and look at what they're looking at." ”

“ Let us draw the curtain of charity over the rest of this scene!
"My — sore — toe's — mortified!"
"It seemed mortified. It hurt so I didn't mind my tooth at all!"
"Thomas Sawyer, why are you late?"
And the schoolmaster punishes bad boys by making them sit with the girls! ”

“ When the Distribution Office—like his Hepplewhite furniture, his colour-prints and his English glass—was with yesterday’s seven thousand years, it is more than possible that Theodore Savage, looking back on his youth, saw existence, till he neared the age of thirty, as a stream of scarcely ruffled content. Sitting crouched to the fire in the sweat-laden air of his cabin or humped idly on a hillside in the dusk of summer evening, it may well have seemed, when his thoughts strayed backwards, that the young man who once was impossibly himself was a being whom care did not touch. ”

“ And at the zenith of his fame, how he would suddenly appear at the old village and stalk into church, brown and weather-beaten, in his black velvet doublet and trunks, his great jack-boots, his crimson sash, his belt bristling with horse-pistols, his crime-rusted cutlass at his side, his slouch hat with waving plumes, his black flag unfurled, with the skull and crossbones on it, and hear with swelling ecstasy the whisperings, “It’s Tom Sawyer the Pirate!—the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main!” ”

“ Nobody could spread himself like Tom Sawyer in such a thing as that." Both boys have their full share of boyish imagination; and Tom Sawyer, being given to books, lets his imagination run on robbers and pirates, having a perfect understanding with himself that, if you want to get fun out of this life, you must never hesitate to make believe very hard; and, with Tom's youth and health, he never finds it hard to make believe and to be a pirate at will, or to summon an attendant spirit, or to rescue a prisoner from the deepest dungeon 'neath the castle moat. ”

“ It seemed to Becky, in her hot resentment, that she could hardly wait for school to “take in,” she was so impatient to see Tom flogged for the injured spelling-book. If she had had any lingering notion of exposing Alfred Temple, Tom’s offensive fling had driven it entirely away.
Poor girl, she did not know how fast she was nearing trouble herself. The master, Mr. Dobbins, had reached middle age with an unsatisfied ambition. The darling of his desires was, to be a doctor, but poverty had decreed that he should be nothing higher than a village schoolmaster. ”

“ In hearing William Savery preach, he seemed to me to overflow with true religion; to be humble, and yet a man of great abilities. Having been gay and disbelieving, only a few years ago, makes him better acquainted with the heart of one in the same condition. ”

“ O beautiful damsel, I swear by my own self that if I find any evil to have befallen my father and mother, I will not live. If thou hast any regard for virtue, if thou wishest me to live, if it is thy duty to do what is agreeable to me, proceed thou to the hermitage!" The beautiful Savitri then rose and tying up her hair, raised her husband in her arms. And Satyavan having risen, rubbed his limbs with his hands. And as he surveyed all around, his eyes fell upon his wallet. Then Savitri said unto him, "Tomorrow thou mayst gather fruits. ”

“ The discourse was resumed presently, but it went lame and halting, all possibility of impressiveness being at an end; for even the gravest sentiments were constantly being received with a smothered burst of unholy mirth, under cover of some remote pew-back, as if the poor parson had said a rarely facetious thing. It was a genuine relief to the whole congregation when the ordeal was over and the benediction pronounced.
Tom Sawyer went home quite cheerful, thinking to himself that there was some satisfaction about divine service when there was a bit of variety in it. ”

“ Men that don't skeer don't holler. Why not put it to him right then and there, out in the yard, over a barrel?"
Before Sawyer could reply, the philosophic mind of Steve saw the practical sense of his brother's suggestion. "I reckon he's got the right idee, Mr. Sawyer. He's done so much of this sort of work lately that now it comes to him somewhat in the natur' of a trade. You can tell him a good deal about mules that I reckon he don't know, but he knows the fine p'ints in men like a hungry feller knows the fine p'ints of a fried chicken. Better let him have his way." ”

“ ITHIN a few minutes the news had spread, and a dozen skiff-loads of men were on their way to McDougal's cave, and the ferry-boat, well filled with passengers, soon followed. Tom Sawyer was in the skiff that bore Judge Thatcher.
When the cave door was unlocked, a sorrowful sight presented itself in the dim twilight of the place. Injun Joe lay stretched upon the ground, dead, with his face close to the crack of the door, as if his longing eyes had been fixed, to the latest moment, upon the light and the cheer of the free world outside. ”

“ Savarin was tireless,—a wolf that tracked hour after hour a wounded buck. When he should have eaten, he lighted a pipe and, holding it between his strong teeth, pushed on; when he must eat, because even determined energy must have food, there was a quick frying of pork, a minute for a smoke, the tea-pail emptied in great draughts, and then on again.
Crouched in the canoe, I cared not; it was his energy, his muscles, his way of going. Larue sat silent and heavy-faced, his fierce black eyes watching every rock, every eddy, every treacherous pool. ”

“ Clods were handy and the air was full of them in a twinkling. They raged around Sid like a hail-storm; and before Aunt Polly could collect her surprised faculties and sally to the rescue, six or seven clods had taken personal effect, and Tom was over the fence and gone. There was a gate, but as a general thing he was too crowded for time to make use of it. His soul was at peace, now that he had settled with Sid for calling attention to his black thread and getting him into trouble.
Tom skirted the block, and came round into a muddy alley that led by the back of his aunt's cow-stable. ”

“ His best poem, ‘The Wanderer,’ in which are some pathetic passages referring to himself, was published in 1729.” For the story of the life of this unhappy man the reader must be referred to Johnson’s “Lives.” Savage died in the debtors’ prison, Bristol, August 1st, 1743.
THOMAS OLIVERS, HYMN-WRITER, FRIEND AND COWORKER WITH JOHN WESLEY. It is a relief to turn from the thought of Savage to Thomas Olivers, one of John Wesley’s most intimate friends and zealous coworkers. We have seen already how prominent a part [232] another shoemaker played in the Methodist revival ”

“ If you only play fair, I may save him. It may bring me peace.
“If Hathorn will not be ruled, then my future life will be my own. I depend on you—on your honor, on your pledges made to me, at the Waldorf and the Savoy. I have come to you, here, fearlessly. What is your answer?”
They were facing each other, as Vreeland hoarsely whispered, “And, my reward?” The woman’s warring soul shone in her eyes.
“Let me know first that I can trust you,” she whispered with ashen lips. “Trust to me, and, remember a woman’s gratitude can overpay. Drive no hard bargain with me.” ”

“ Savaury passed the insinuation scornfully, though he moved the can, and put the question to which Larry had already grown so used. “How is Christian?” he asked.
“Oh, gettin’ a move on at last, thanks very much! I saw him this mornin’ for a few minutes. A bit gone to seed, of course, but they tell me they’ll soon have him bloomin’. Had a narrow shave of goin’ out—poor old Laker!”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Savaury was obviously relieved. “Very glad! It’s so tiresome when one’s friends are ill. One quivers every time the bell rings. And Petronilla’s always coming in with false reports. ”

“ Tom turned on me, then, and says:
“What do you say—is the sun standing still?”
“Tom Sawyer, what’s the use to ask such a jackass question? Anybody that ain’t blind can see it don’t stand still.”
“Well,” he says, “I’m lost in the sky with no company but a passel of low-down animals that don’t know no more than the head boss of a university did three or four hundred years ago.”
It warn’t fair play, and I let him know it. I says:
“Throwin’ mud ain’t arguin’, Tom Sawyer.”
“Oh, my goodness, oh, my goodness gracious, dah’s de lake agi’n!” yelled Jim, just then. ”