Thomas was undoubtedly an oddity, but his eccentricities were of a kind which did no one any harm, and only served to add force to his words and example. He was an earnest Christian, and as earnest an abstainer from all intoxicating drinks; and his family walked with him on the narrow gospel way, and in their adherence to temperance principles and practice. He was also superintendent of the church Sunday-school, and the very life of the Temperance Society and Band of Hope, of both which associations the vicar, who was himself an abstainer, was the president. Indeed, he was the clergyman’s right-hand in the carrying out of every good work in the place. He was something of a reader of such sterling and profitable works as came in his way, but his Bible was his chief study.
His special characteristics were a clear head, a large stock of shrewd common sense, and an invincible love of truth and straightforwardness, so that he could hold his ground against any man in the place, William Foster the styptic not excepted. Not that Bradly was at all fond of an argument; he avoided one when he could do so consistently, preferring to do good by just sowing seeds of truth in his own humble way, leaving it to God to deal with the tares and weeds.
One of his favourite modes of sowing was to carry along with him at all times a little bundle of religious and temperance tracts, and to offer these whenever he had an opportunity, commonly accompanying the offer with some quaint remark which would often overcome the reluctance to accept them, even in those who were opposed to his principles and practice. From this habit of his he was generally known among the working-classes of Crossbourne by the nickname of “Tommy Tracts,” or “Tracks,” as it was usually pronounced—an epithet first given in scorn, but afterwards generally used without any unkindly feeling. Indeed, he was rather proud of it than otherwise; nor could the taunts and gibes which not unfrequently accompanied it ever ruffle in the least his good-humoured self-possession.
His family, which consisted of himself, his wife, their two sons, and a daughter, all grown up, and an invalid sister of his own, lived in a comfortable house on the outskirts of the town.
This house he had built for himself out of the profits of his own industry. Like its owner, it was rather of an eccentric character, having been constructed on an original plan of his own, and, in consequence, differed from any other dwelling-house in the town. Of course, he was not left without abundance of comments on his architectural taste, many of them being anything but complimentary, and all of them outspoken. This moved him nothing. “Well, if the house pleases me,” he said to his critics, “I suppose it don’t matter much what fashion it’s of, so long as the chimney-pots is outside, and the fire-places in.” Not that there was anything grand or ambitious in its outward appearance, nor sufficiently peculiar to draw any special attention to it. It was rather wider in front than the ordinary working-men’s cottages, and had a stone parapet above the upper windows, running the whole length of the building, on which were painted, in large black letters, the words, “Bradly’s Temperance Hospital.”
As might have been expected, this inscription brought on him a storm of ridicule and reproach, which he took very quietly; but if any one asked him in a civil way what he meant by the words, his reply used to be, “Any confirmed drunkard’s welcome to come to my house for advice gratis, and I’ll warrant to make a perfect cure of him, if he’ll only follow my prescription.” And when further asked what that prescription might be, he would reply, “Just this: let the patient sign the pledge, and keep it.” And many a poor drunkard, whom he had lured up to his house, and then pleaded and prayed with earnestly, had already proved the efficacy of this remedy.
When blamed by foes or friends for misleading people by putting such words on his house, he would say—“Where’s the harm? Haven’t I as much right to call my house ‘Temperance Hospital’ as Ben Roberts has to call his public ‘The Staff of Life’? What has his ‘Staff of Life’ done? Why, to my certain knowledge, it has just proved a broken staff, and let down scores of working-men into the gutter. But my ‘Temperance Hospital’ has helped back many a poor fellow out of the gutter, and set him on his feet again. It’s a free hospital, too, and we’re never full; we takes all patients as comes.”
The inside of the house was as suggestive of Thomas’s principles and eccentricities of character as the outside.
The front door opened into a long and narrow hall, lighted by a fan-light. As you entered, your eyes would naturally fall on the words, “Picture Gallery,” facing you, on the farther wall, just over the entrance to the kitchen. This “picture gallery” was simply the hall itself, which had something of the appearance of a photographer’s studio, the walls being partly covered with portraits large and small, interspersed with texts of Scripture, pledge-cards bearing the names of himself and family, and large engravings from the British Workman, coloured by one of his sons to give them greater effect. The photographs were chiefly likenesses of those who had been his own converts to total abstinence, with here and there the portrait of some well-known temperance advocate.
To the left of the hall was the parlour or company sitting-room, which was adorned with portraits, or what were designed to be such, of the Queen and other members of the royal family. Over the fire-place was a handsome mirror, on either side of which were photographs of the vicar and his wife; and on the opposite side of the room stood a bookcase with glass doors, containing a small but judicious selection of volumes, religious, historical, biographical, and scientific: for Thomas Bradly was a reader in a humble way, and had a memory tenacious of anything that struck him. But the pride of this choice apartment was an enormous illustrated Bible, sumptuously bound, which lay on the middle of a round table that occupied the centre of the room.