I wonder to myself sometimes whether I tried him as much as he tried me, and whether he managed to like me up to the last. This at least I found—that by the time he was five years old, whether I liked him or not, Mr. Trimblerigg liked me; and the reason for his liking was simple—he found me useful.
For one day, having done something which deserved, or was supposed to deserve punishment, he lied about it, and was discovered. The discovery came to his ears before he was actually taxed with it. The small world on which he stood became suddenly an abyss; lifting up his feet he fled for refuge to his own chamber, and was about to hide in the cupboard, when he heard the awful tread of judgment ascending the stairs. Being clever (for which I admit I was responsible) he realized how temporary a refuge the cupboard must necessarily be; what he needed was the eternal; and so, throwing himself on his knees he began praying to me—aloud. And in his prayer he told the truth, volubly, abundantly, and without making any excuse for himself. ‘I have told a lie,’ he cried, ‘O God, I have told a lie!’
The agony of his prayer was heard, not so much by me as by the elder for whose entry he had so accurately timed it. And who, looking upon that youthful and ingenuous countenance, could doubt the sincerity of his grief? His lips quivered, his eyes streamed tears, his nails dug into his tender flesh, leaving marks. At that sight, at those sounds, the paternal heart was deeply moved; the birch was laid aside; elder and younger knelt together and prayed for quite a long time, with great fervour, fixity, and unanimity of purpose, that henceforth young Mr. Trimblerigg should be a good boy, and never never again be caught telling a lie.
That prayer unfortunately was not entirely answered—though between us we did our best. In the years that followed Mr. Trimblerigg lied often and well, but was very seldom caught, and still more seldom punished.
The only really important outcome of that incident was that Mr. Trimblerigg found he liked me; I had been useful to him. And yet I had done, I protest, absolutely nothing—except making him clever. It was not through my providential intervention that he liked me, but through his own. The prayer of faith had saved him from a whipping; it was a lesson he never forgot.
And so, from that day on, he made me his general help and stay; and on every occasion of doubt, difficulty, or distress, was able, by coming to me, to convince himself that he meant well. Never in my whole world’s existence have I come upon anybody who was able to answer his own prayers about himself, and about other people, with such conviction, avidity, and enthusiasm as Mr. Trimblerigg. And why should I complain? It made him a great power in the world, without my having to lift a finger, or turn a hair, or do anything, in fact, except wink an eye, or seem to.
The virtuous incentives of family life, though only provided on a small scale, were not lacking for the development of Mr. Trimblerigg’s character. He had three uncles, two aunts, a great-uncle and a grandfather—all fairly contiguous, the family being of the indigenous not of the migratory kind—besides a father, a mother and a sister, with whom contact was continuous and unescapable. Even in their naming the children had been linked for lovely and pleasant relationship in after-life; for when the Trimblerigg first-born, whom its parents confidently expected to be a son, turned into a daughter—adapting the forechosen name to suit her sex, they called her Davidina; and when, nearly two years later, our own Mr. Trimblerigg struggled out into the world, nearly killing his mother in the process, the destined name Jonathan was there waiting for him.
And so, very early in his career, Mr. Trimblerigg’s sister Davidina became the whetstone of his virtues—its operation summed up in the word ‘emulation.’ Nature would perhaps have brought it about in any case, even if the parental plan had not inculcated and forced it home; but when it became clear to Mr. and Mrs. Trimblerigg senior that no more children were to be theirs, they conceived the idea of blending the business with the moral instincts, and in the training of their two offspring making virtue competitive.
No wonder then, that, as their moral sense dawned, the germ of mutual suspicion and hatred grew lodged in their souls. This, however, did not prevent them, when self-interest prompted, from being also allies, as the following may show.
The parental idea of making virtue competitive had taken one of its earlier forms—for economic reasons, I fancy—in the matter of pocket-money; and the weekly penny was tendered not as a right nor even as a reward for good average behaviour, but as a prize to be wrestled for, gain by the one involving loss by the other—a device that had the incidental advantage of halving the tax on the pocket which provided it.