im 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
nn »«»- Corneir University Library 
 PR 6035.0 1294N5 
 
 Nicholas the weaver and other Quaker sto 
 
 3 1924 006 843 290 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924006843290 
 
NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE TIME OF HER LIFE 
 
 " A dozen delightfully told stories," — The Times. 
 
 " An interesting and illuminative book coming straight from 
 the Quaker atmosphere, illustrates abundantly the intellectual 
 tone of much of the adult life, founded upon the educational culti- 
 vation of sense-observation, particularly in early botany and nature 
 study. The absence of fairy tales among the Quakers has not led 
 to lack of imagination." — Times Educational Supplement. 
 
 " In The Time of Her Life Maude Robinson has written a book 
 that possesses a fragrance all its own. . . . They are pictures of 
 a life of which not much is known, and are drawn with much 
 charm and insight. There are four coloured pictures by Percy 
 Bigland, which are thoroughly in keeping with this truly delightful 
 book." — The Lady. 
 
 " Vitally interesting." — Birmingham Daily Post. 
 
 " We do not know which story of the twelve is the greatest 
 favourite. They concern all the most unregarded people of the 
 day in which they lived, doing just the routine drudgery of life, 
 but sufiusing that with the human attributes of faith, of hope, 
 of sweet endeavour, which have never failed man or woman yet 
 where they have been loyally obeyed. The world becomes beautiful 
 in their company. . . . That there is humour and gaiety in the 
 stories readers will find for themselves." — West Sussex Gazette. 
 
 " The book is hardly one to be quoted from, it is worth reading 
 through all of its 260 pages." — East Grinstead Observer. 
 
 " Unique in the sense that books of such placid, strong, sincere 
 tenderness are almost unknown in these days. . . . There is no 
 fever, not a trace of intentional excitement in its rich, calm literary 
 blood. If, with its rare qualities of head and heart, we find it 
 tame, the loss is surely ours." — Sussex Daily News. 
 
 " With a homely fragrance like that of dried lavender." — Daily 
 ffewsi 
 
" NOW TRY AGAIN," HE SAID 
 
NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 
 
 AND OTHER QUAKER STORIES 
 
 By MAUDE ROBINSON 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATION BY 
 
 J. WALTER WEST, 
 R.W.S. 
 
 LONDON : THE SWARTHMORE PRESS LTD. 
 +0 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. i 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: FRIENDS BOOK STORE 
 30Z ARCH STREET 
 
First published in 1922. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The warm reception which has been given to 
 my former book of Quaker stories has encour- 
 aged me to write a fresh series of sketches of 
 life and character among the Society of Friends 
 in its first two centuries. 
 
 As before, all are more or less founded on 
 fact. The Yorkshire weaver who left the 
 Roundhead army, and threw his uniform on 
 to the bed canopy, is a tradition in my own 
 family, and the little farmer's boy who put 
 his spelling-book into the churn, and in maturer 
 years labelled the elderly goose, was my grand- 
 father, although the rest of his life was cer- 
 tainly not that of " Stephen Grey." 
 
 Some touching Minutes in the ancient records 
 of the Sussex Quarterly Meeting of Friends 
 suggested " Apprenticed by the Meeting " and 
 " Poor Timatha," and in the latter case it 
 seems right that the history of William Tuke's 
 noble experiment in the humane treatment of 
 the insane should be more widely known than 
 it is. 
 
 " Transported " is founded on an incident 
 in the life of Elizabeth Dudley, who, when 
 visiting Newgate with EUzabeth Fry, found 
 an old servant of her own among the prisoners. 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 The truest story of the series is the Irish 
 one, " Harmless as Doves." Every incident 
 told of Friends' suffering and bravery in that 
 terrible time is recorded in contemporary 
 accounts by a number of eye-witnesses. I 
 have merely linked them together. This tale 
 has been most kindly revised by several Irish 
 Friends, as the one about " Poor Timatha " 
 was by Dr. Bedford Pierce, the present head 
 of the Retreat at York. 
 
 " A Poor Quaker Rabbit-Catcher " appears 
 in the life of Hannah More, as the only 
 person who showed the least sympathy in the 
 desire of William Wilberforce and herself to 
 Christianise heathen Cheddar. The dairymaid 
 teachers. Flower and Patience, were also real 
 characters at Shipham. 
 
 If these ten sketches of homely country 
 lives in bygone days are not merely pleasant 
 reading, but give to the present generation a 
 fresh appreciation of things that are lovely, 
 honest and of good report, a fresh hunger 
 and thirst after practical righteousness, peace 
 and goodwill to all, they will not have been 
 written in vain. 
 
 MAUDE ROBINSON. 
 Saddlescombe, 
 Hassocks, Sussex. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PASS 
 
 NICHOLAS THE WEAVER. 1660- - - 9 
 
 APPRENTICED BY THE MEETING. 1710 - 38 
 
 THE STORY OF A SAMPLER. 1755 - - 57 
 
 A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER. 1789 - 63 
 
 THE GOOSE THAT WAS NOT VERY 
 
 YOUNG. 1785 85 
 
 HARMLESS AS DOVES. 1798 - - 104 
 
 POOR TIMATHA. 1800 - - - - 127 
 
 TRANSPORTED. 1817 - - - -168 
 
 THE BEE MISTRESS. 1830 - - i8o 
 
 NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE. 1863 to 1875 - 195 
 
NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 
 
 1660 
 
 " CooM on, Nick, laad ! " The accent was of 
 the broadest Yorkshire, although the narrow 
 lane through which three soldiers in the uniform 
 of the Roundhead army were travelling led 
 through the dense forest district of North 
 Sussex. They had missed their way, and 
 twilight was falling as the two foremost 
 reined in their horses to wait for their com- 
 panion. 
 
 " T'owd mare is dead lame ! " he shouted 
 back. " I doubt if she will go much farther 
 to-night." 
 
 " Then we must e'en camp in the forest 
 and whistle for our suppers — eh, but there's 
 a hut, we will ask if there is any inn 
 near." 
 
 An old man was chopping firewood near the 
 door, and after a few misunderstandings caused 
 by the varied dialects, he informed them 
 they were but a couple of miles from the 
 village of Crawley, where at the " George and 
 Dragon " they would find good cheer for man 
 
10 NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 
 
 and beast. It was a perfectly straight road, 
 which they could not miss. 
 
 " We'll fare on then, Nick, and order supper, 
 if you have to walk," said the better mounted 
 men, perhaps glad to get away from a 
 companion whose countenance showed the 
 gloom of a man under a cloud. Left alone to 
 plod on by his limping steed, he drew from 
 his pocket a letter, which, after many weeks 
 of wandering from his native town of Thirsk, 
 had finally reached him just as he was leav- 
 ing the garrison at Arundel. Laboriously he 
 spelled out the crabbed writing. 
 
 Dear Brother Nicholas, 
 
 So I must call you, having wedded your half- 
 sister, my cousin Abigail. Since your mother died, she 
 has been lonely and ailing, and as you did not seem 
 inclined to return, my mother went to keep her company 
 till I could make her my wife. So if you desire to stay 
 in the army you had better do so, as the farm, as you 
 know, belonged to her own mother, Ann Lambert, and 
 is her rightful inheritance. 
 
 There were many expenses during your mother's 
 long illness, so we have sold the two looms to a family 
 who came from Bradford, and are weaving for all the 
 country side. 
 
 Your sister sends her greetings. 
 
 Jonas Lambert. 
 
 " Poor Abbie 1 " muttered Nicholas, " 'tis 
 a hard fate to be at the beck and call of a sour. 
 
NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 11 
 
 avaricious lout like Jonas and his tyrannical 
 old mother. ' Not seem inclined to return,' 
 indeed ! When I've been trying for years to 
 escape from the army to look after her and 
 mother ! Poor mother ! it was hard for her 
 to die without her only child, but the sweet 
 soul is at rest." 
 
 Over and over Nicholas read each item of 
 the letter with ever increasing bitterness. 
 
 His stepsister, Abbie, was a plain, quiet 
 woman of thirty-five, very simple, confiding, 
 and easily influenced. To her stepmother she 
 had always been loving and dutiful ; her 
 cousin Jonas, who was ten years her junior, 
 had never given her a thought until the pro- 
 longed absence of her brother made it possible 
 to seize on the whole of the small Pennifold 
 inheritance on her behalf. The land certainly 
 had belonged to the Lamberts, but with 
 only a ruinous cottage, and it was the little 
 fortune in ready money which Mary Postle- 
 thwaite brought to her husband which paid 
 for the present comfortable dwelling and farm 
 buildings ; the father, John Pennifold, a 
 skilful and successful weaver, had laid out all 
 his savings in fencing and draining the little 
 farm, buying cows and sheep to stock it and 
 planting the excellent orchard. Abbie and 
 Nick, with only three years between them. 
 
12 NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 
 
 had grown up in absolute harmony, with no 
 thought of any difference from the fact that 
 they were bom of different mothers — ^for 
 good Mary Pennifold loved Abbie as her 
 own child. 
 
 When the parson had written a year ago 
 of her death, Nicholas had no thought but to 
 return and share with his sister the farm and 
 the weaving industry. She had never seemed 
 likely to marry, and now Jonas had beguiled 
 her and taken it all ! Keenly Nicholas felt the 
 injustice ; the letter had reached him as he 
 was starting for Yorkshire, released at last by 
 the breaking up of the Roundhead army at 
 the return of the banished Stuart king. He 
 would hasten northward now. Abbie he could 
 not rescue from the bondage into which she 
 had been betrayed, but Jonas should not grab 
 all his father's hard-earned goods — ^he would 
 have his share, calling in the help of lawyers 
 to claim what was his own. So he brooded 
 bitterly during his slow progress through the 
 darkening woods. He had even taken the 
 saddle-bags on to his own stalwart shoulders 
 to relieve the suffering horse, and was glad 
 to see the cheerful lights of the inn, standing 
 in the middle of the village green surrounded 
 by picturesque cottages. 
 
 The horse was stabled and fed, and the 
 
NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 13 
 
 three weary men went to rest, after consider- 
 ably puzzling the host and hostess by the 
 outlandish tongue in which they addressed 
 each other, although Nicholas, who had seen 
 service in many parts, could speak 'the more 
 correct EngUsh with ease. The only son of a 
 thoughtful Puritan father, he had, when almost 
 a boy, espoused the cause which both believed 
 would free England from kingly tyranny and 
 Popery. Several times when hostilities ceased 
 he had returned to Thirsk and worked at 
 weaving and farming with steady industry. 
 
 The last time his leave had extended to a 
 year, during which his father had died suddenly, 
 so that it was a bitter trial to him, as well 
 as his mother and sister, when the peremptory 
 mihtary order came that he must join the 
 garrison at Arundel, in Sussex. He had been 
 there before, as a mere lad, when Sir William 
 Waller had battered the castle, which was 
 held by the Royalists, with cannon placed 
 on the tower of the parish church. 
 
 In the quiet months which had followed 
 the surrender, Nick was fortunate enough to 
 come under the influence of the fine character 
 of the young Puritan officer. Sir WiUiam 
 Springett. He, hating the enforced idleness 
 of garrison life, occupied his clever mind and 
 fingers by making models of useful machines. 
 
14 NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 
 
 trying various original plans for their improve- 
 ment. A better and more easily-worked 
 hand-loom was one of his plans, but being 
 baffled as to its mechanism he had enquired 
 if there were any practical weaver among the 
 soldiers of the garrison, and Nicholas Pennifold, 
 the intelligent young Yorkshireman, was sent 
 to him. Together they worked, first at the 
 loom, and afterwards at many more mechanical 
 problems, and Nick soon felt the most enthusi- 
 astic admiration, not only of Sir William's skill 
 in handicraft, but of his pure and enlightened 
 Christian character. 
 
 Nick became his body-servant and constant 
 companion, and chief nurse when the fatal 
 spotted fever with which war revenges itself 
 on its votaries seized him. A messenger was 
 despatched to London for Lady Springett, 
 and through winter storms and floods the 
 brave young wife made her way to Arundel, in 
 time to solace his last hours with her devoted 
 love. 
 
 When about to return to London with her 
 friend the doctor, she sent for Nicholas, who 
 stood hat in hand before the fair girl, a mother 
 and a widow before she was twenty. 
 
 " Sir WiUiam has often written to me of 
 you," she said, " and told me what a help 
 and comfort you have been to him. I wish 
 
NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 15 
 
 you to take all his tools, and when you use 
 them, remember to be like him, industrious, 
 kind and God-fearing. And now I want you 
 to do one thing more — to see his body laid 
 with his fathers at Ringmer Church. Your 
 commanding officer has given leave for you 
 to go." 
 
 Nicholas kissed the hand that was extended 
 to him, and with tears promised to see that all 
 due respect was shown to Sir William's memory. 
 After Lady Springett had left Arundel, he 
 rode beside the waggon which conveyed the 
 coffin over the rough Sussex roads to the 
 village church near Lewes, where Sir William's 
 monument can be seen to this day. 
 
 That friendship had been a great uphft to 
 the young Yorkshireman. The tools were 
 his constant companions, and during the last 
 three tedious years of garrison life they had 
 helped to keep him from the vices which seem 
 almost inevitable in military life — the alehouse, 
 the gambling, and still worse temptations, 
 which assail every idle soldier. He had fitted 
 up a little workshop in a corner of the castle 
 ruins, and filled his leisure hours with turning 
 out many useful articles, from spinning-wheels 
 to wooden and horn spoons and cups, which 
 the townsfolk were glad to buy of him. His 
 fellow-travellers would have been surprised to 
 
16 NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 
 
 know how many gold pieces were sewn into the 
 belt concealed beneath his military uniform. 
 He had planned to stop in York and buy 
 the best of red cloaks for Abbie, and to lay 
 out some of his savings in a new pillion and 
 a really strong horse, on which they two 
 would jog about together ; but his sister would 
 ride behind her husband now, and none of 
 Nick's hard-earned gold should go to buy 
 finery for Jonas Lambert's wife ! 
 
 Next morning, to the dismay of Nicholas, 
 his white mare's near hind leg was swollen so 
 much that she could hardly put her foot to the 
 ground. She was a sorry jade at the hest of 
 times. The gay young officer who was oflE to 
 join General Monk with such of his troop as 
 were willing to accept the new regime had 
 naturally kept the best horses for them, and 
 had given the three Yorkshire Puritans, who 
 insisted on their discharge, three steeds which 
 were most unfit to start on a long journey. 
 Delay was inevitable, while Nicholas burned 
 to reach Thirsk and tell Jonas, whose character 
 he knew too well, what he thought of him. 
 
 Would either of his companions change 
 horses with him ? But no — Thomas had a 
 little son whom he had never seen, and for 
 Humphrey a patient Grizel had been waiting 
 for years until he could leave the army and 
 
NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 17 
 
 settle down in the Wolds ; these were prior 
 claims to beginning a lawsuit. 
 
 Nicholas resolved to stay at Crawley a few 
 days, and his not very congenial companions 
 rode off northward. He attended to poor 
 Poppet assiduously, bathing the swollen leg 
 with cold water from the town well several 
 times daily, and doing many a useful hand's 
 turn for the busy host and hostess of the 
 "George" between whiles. 
 
 Of an evening the more thoughtful men of 
 Crawley were eager to hear all the soldier 
 could tell them of the rapid changes which 
 were taking place. Since the death of Oliver 
 Cromwell there had been much unrest, and 
 now the reins had fallen from his son Richard's 
 weak hands. Would the new king keep to his 
 plausible promises ? Or would the weary civil 
 strife, which for twenty years had blighted 
 the nation, break out again ? Nicholas could 
 not tell. He himself was oppressed with a 
 bitter sense of failure. He had given his best 
 years of early manhood fighting for a cause he 
 had fondly imagined would bring liberty and 
 prosperity to England, but the pendulum of a 
 fickle public had swung back to kingly rule, 
 and Nicholas felt deeply the downfall of his 
 hopes, and was at thirty-two a soured and 
 disappointed man. 
 
 2 
 
18 NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 
 
 In the enforced idleness which was so irksome 
 to him he wandered in the fields and woodlands 
 about Crawley, with his solitary book — ^his 
 father's Bible — and read much in the prophets, 
 relishing their denunciations as applying 
 alternately to Charles Stuart and Jonas 
 Lambert. 
 
 On Sunday, as his mother had taught him, 
 he attended the parish church, and found the 
 pulpit occupied by one of the dreariest of 
 Puritan preachers. No liturgy was used, but 
 the service commenced with half an hour of 
 extempore prayer, if such it could be called, 
 when the minister seemed to think the Almighty 
 much in need of enlightenment as to the 
 condition and doctrines of the whole kingdom, 
 with many long-winded denunciations of 
 Antichrist and the Scarlet Woman. An equally 
 dreary Psalm was sung while the preacher 
 took breath, and then Nicholas braced himself 
 to endurance of an hour and a half's discourse. 
 It was all so utterly alien to his simple, straight- 
 forward nature, that he soon ceased to listen, 
 and sat with his head thrown back staring at 
 the church roof, still brooding bitterly on the 
 injustice he had received. 
 
 It was a day of sudden storm and sunshine, 
 and just then a gleam of unusual brightness 
 shot through the south window and lit up some 
 
NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 19 
 
 quaint lettering on a cross-beam above him, 
 where Nicholas read : 
 
 " Man yn wele bewar ; for warldly good makyth man 
 
 blynde, 
 Bewar for whate comyth behynde." 
 
 The answer to his thought was startling. Was 
 it really justice he was craving for, or the 
 possession of property ? What would be the 
 result if half the farm were proved by law to 
 be his ? Jonas and Abbie would have no 
 ready money to pay his share, and the obliga- 
 tion would be a never ending source of bitter- 
 ness between them. And how would it affect 
 Abbie ? If husband and brother were rivals 
 in a lawsuit, she could not be equally loyal to 
 both. Unsatisfactory as Jonas was, she was 
 tied to him irrevocably, and with her meek 
 and confiding nature would make the best of 
 a bad bargain. After all, Abbie's happiness 
 was more to him than money and abstract 
 justice — he could always fend for himself — 
 would it not be better to stay away and leave 
 her in peace ? It was a sore disappointment 
 to Nick, for ever since he had heard of kis 
 mother's death the Thirsk homestead and 
 Abbie's companionship had been his goal. In 
 his years of miUtaxy life he had seen no woman 
 whom he cared to make his wife, and now he 
 
20 NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 
 
 felt homeless and desolate. The old animosity 
 to Jonas kept cropping up, but as Nicholas 
 left the church he repeated over and over : 
 " Bewar for what comyth behynde." 
 
 That evening he wandered into the forest, 
 and under a giant beech he pulled out his 
 Bible to change his thoughts. It opened not 
 at his favourite prophets, but at the First 
 Epistle to the Corinthians, and his eye fell on 
 the words : " Brother goeth to law with 
 brother. . . . There is utterly a fault among 
 you, because ye go to law one with another. 
 Why do ye not rather take wrong ? " Well, 
 for Abbie's sake he would take it ; and return- 
 ing to the inn he procured paper and quill and 
 resolved to write the letter before he could 
 change his mind. He could not bring himself 
 to address Jonas, and although Abbie could 
 not read writing, the letter should be to her. 
 
 My DEAR Sister, 
 
 The news of your marriage reached me just 
 when I was released from the army, and about to return 
 to Thirsk, but as you have now another protector, 
 I shall not come. 
 
 You know, if Jonas does not, that my own mothers, 
 portion and our father's savings built the house and 
 improved the farm, but you are my dear and only sister, 
 and I freely give to you my share as a marriage 
 portion. I only ask that you shall reserve for me my 
 grandfather Postlethwaite's oak chest, his silver porringer 
 
NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 21 
 
 and the string of gold beads my mother had worn 
 from a child. 
 
 I cannot tell you where I shall settle ; if I live, you 
 shall hear from me again. 
 
 That was as much as the trooper's un- 
 accustomed fingers could accompUsh, and with 
 a groan he addressed it to : 
 
 Mistress Abigail Lambert, Thirsk. 
 
 Then he put it by to await one of the rare 
 opportunities of sending letters northward. 
 
 Next morning he woke feeling like a ship 
 which has slipped her anchor, as if he were 
 drifting he knew not whither. Mechanically 
 he went to attend to his horse, and found in 
 the stable a shrewd-looking old countryman 
 whom mine host of the " George " introduced 
 as Master TuUet, from Charlwood, the most 
 knowledgeable man about beasties' ailments 
 in all the district. With the air of an oracle 
 he stroked Poppet's swollen leg and pronounced 
 that standing on the hard floor of a stable 
 was the worst thing possible. A week or two 
 on soft grass and the leg would be as sound as 
 ever. He went on : " And I know who would 
 like to take her in. Master Wilkinson up to 
 th' old Manor House haven't half enough 
 stock to bite down his good pastures, and the 
 poor old chap has a broken arm. His horse 
 
22 NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 
 
 fell with him — stepped in a rabbit hole, he 
 says — but he had been down to Slaugham 
 Place, and Madam Covert's October ale is 
 heady." 
 
 " Aye," said the host ; " he hasn't been 
 half the man since his only son fell in the 
 Battle of Worcester, and his wife never held 
 up her head after she heard the news, but 
 faded away like." 
 
 " Hasn't he any daughters ? " asked Nicholas, 
 for he had been in the Battle of Worcester 
 himself, and knew how many hopeful sons had 
 been done to death there. 
 
 " Oh lor, yes ! such as they are. One 
 they call Henrietta after the French-born 
 queen, and she tries to look like her, with her 
 curls and her ear-droppers, the foolish troUope. 
 T'other, Margery, is a good maid enough, but 
 got her head turned with they mad Quakers. 
 Why, I heard she would tramp all the way 
 to Capil and Ryegate when their great preacher, 
 George Fox, was in these parts. But you'd 
 better take the mare to Manor House ; Master 
 Wilkinson won't charge you much for her 
 keep." 
 
 " So I will, when I have finished the hen- 
 coop I promised to make for the missus. She 
 has got a fine brood hatching out, and nowhere 
 to put 'em." 
 
NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 23 
 
 In the afternoon Nicholas led the limping 
 Poppet along the broad grass side of the road 
 that led northward from Crawley, until he 
 saw, standing in a little paddock, an old house, 
 built long ago for some country squire, but 
 now fallen to decay. One wing was quite a 
 ruin, but the other half had been patched up 
 for an habitation. 
 
 Nicholas tied Poppet to a post, and made 
 his way to the steps of a large pretentious 
 hall door. It stood slightly ajar, and to his 
 surprise he heard the sound which had been 
 most familiar to him in his childhood — the 
 rhythmic beat of a hand loom. It ceased at 
 his rap at the great knocker, and a young 
 woman of twenty-five came forward, her face 
 crimson with exertion, her linen cap pushed 
 back and her soft brown hair clinging to her 
 brow, wet with perspiration. Quite breath- 
 lessly she asked his business. 
 
 " To see Master Wilkinson," he said. 
 
 " My father — he will be in for his supper 
 directly, if thou wilt take a seat on the settle ; " 
 and she seated herself at the loom again. 
 
 Nicholas looked round with interest ; the 
 room had been the hall of the old mansion, 
 and over the great open hearth was an elaborate 
 chimney-piece, with several coats of arms 
 painted in red and blue and gold on the dark 
 
24 NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 
 
 carved oak panels. It was now, evidently, 
 the combined living room and workshop of 
 the family, for on one side was a dresser, 
 with homely pewter and wooden trenchers, 
 and on the other two looms and quantities of 
 linen yarn hanging in bunches on the wall. 
 The girl was weaving with feverish haste, 
 evidently with great bodily exertion, and in 
 a few minutes she was startled by a strange 
 voice beside her. 
 
 " See here, Mistress, that loom is out of 
 gear ; the cords of the treadles are far too short. 
 Let me lengthen them, and you will not find 
 it such hard work." 
 
 Margery Wilkinson looked round with sur- 
 prise, but Nicholas had a trustworthy face 
 in spite of the strangeness of his accent. 
 
 " Art thou a weaver ? " she said. 
 
 " Aye, and the son of a weaver ; used to the 
 sound of looms in my Yorkshire home, I can 
 hear yours is not working as it should." 
 
 Margery, with a sigh of relief, sank on the 
 settle, while Nicholas with his big knife and 
 clever hands worked at the loom, lengthening 
 a cord here, tightening a brace there. 
 
 " Now try it again," he said ; and the girl 
 began throwing her shuttle industriously. 
 After a few minutes she looked up gratefully. 
 
 " How can I thank thee ? The loom does not 
 
NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 25 
 
 take half the strength to work it, and I was 
 feeling quite worn out and discouraged before. 
 My father has a large order for house linen ; 
 he was bringing home the yarn when his horse 
 fell. It is for Madam Covert of Slaugham 
 Place. With her daughters and her maids 
 she keeps half a dozen spinning wheels always 
 going. Father promised it should be done 
 by Lammas, and then he broke his arm, and 
 there is no one else in these parts who can 
 use a loom but me." 
 
 " What ! Gossiping there, girl ? " said a 
 harsh voice, as an old man, with his arm in a 
 sling, came in at the back door. " Who's 
 that a hindering you from getting on with your 
 weft ? " 
 
 "It is a weaver, father, who called to see 
 thee on business, and has made this loom work 
 better than it ever did before." 
 
 " Humph ! it worked well enough for 
 anyone but the lazybones," was the sour 
 reply. 
 
 Margery flushed at the injustice, but only 
 said cheerfully : "I shall get on with the 
 weaving much faster now." 
 
 Here Nicholas began to explain his errand. 
 The two men went out to look at Poppet, and 
 Wilkinson readily agreed for a small sum to give 
 her the run of a good pasture, to which they 
 
26 NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 
 
 led her; and left her indulging in a roll on the 
 luxuriously thick grass. 
 
 Like others, the old man was eager for news, 
 and as he and Nicholas walked back to the house 
 he questioned closely as to the state of the 
 country, then asked him to share their supper, 
 and they sat together on the oak settle, while 
 Margery still worked steadily at the loom. 
 
 Then in ran a girl — ^younger and prettier 
 than Margery — with ringlets, ear-drops and 
 cheap beads round her bare neck, copied from 
 the great ladies of the neighbourhood. 
 
 " See, father, all these mushrooms that I 
 have found in the Five Acres — and you are 
 so fond of mushrooms. Come, Margery, and 
 cook them for our supper." 
 
 " Leave Margery to her work — supper is 
 your business ! " growled the father. 
 
 " Oh, but I can't cook them — ^it gives 
 me the vapours leaning over the hot coals. 
 Come, Daddy, let her leave her loom for once." 
 
 " I will take the loom," said Nicholas, 
 stepping to Margery's side. " Let me weave 
 while you cook. Mistress." 
 
 Margery thanked him, and went to help her 
 sister, who was beginning to peel the fresh 
 white mushrooms. 
 
 Old Wilkinson stood by the loom, as the 
 strong, well-practised arms worked far more 
 
NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 27 
 
 expeditiously than Margery could ; then he 
 sighed deeply. 
 
 " Ah, young man ! I had a son who worked 
 like that, but the cruel war robbed us of 
 him, and now I have only the wenches, and 
 I doubt if my old bones will ever mend so 
 that I can throw a shuttle again, and I have 
 done all the weaving for the gentry round here 
 for many a long year." 
 
 " This is fine well-spun yarn," said Nicholas. 
 
 " Aye, 'tis so. Madam Covert is a rare 
 hand at the wheel herself, and teacheth her 
 maids. All grown on the place it is, and their 
 old bailiff knows just how to soak and heckle 
 flax. Do you know anything of damask 
 weaving ? " 
 
 " Oh aye — my father worked out some 
 main pretty patterns and he taught me." 
 
 " That special parcel of fine yarn hanging 
 there was to be made into table linen ; 'tis 
 what I have always prided myself on, and now 
 my right hand is useless, and the girl can 
 only do the plain sheeting, worse luck ! " and 
 the old man sat in moody silence till summoned 
 to supper. 
 
 The savoury smell of mushrooms and rashers, 
 fried by Margery in a pan with a yard long 
 handle over the glowing wood coals, was 
 appetising. The homely table was neatly 
 
28 NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 
 
 spread, the cloth and wooden trenchers were 
 spotless, the home-made bread and cider of 
 the best, and Etta had added a dish of honey- 
 comb. It was years since Nicholas had sat 
 at such a table. The coarse, ill-cooked garrison 
 food, the rough fare ' accorded to private 
 soldiers at the inns, had satisfied him, but the 
 change was pleasant. 
 
 " These mushrooms mind me of those my 
 sister used to cook for us," he said. " Many 
 a morning have I run barefoot over the 
 pastures after them, lest my shoes should 
 be soaked with the heavy dew. They grow 
 rarely in Yorkshire." 
 
 The meal passed pleasantly, and the shrewd 
 old host noted that Nicholas showed many 
 traits of a well brought up and honest man. 
 He kept him chatting until twilight fell, and 
 Nick rose to return to Crawley. Then he said 
 suddenly : 
 
 "Look here, young man, that mare of 
 yours will not be fit to travel for some time. 
 What say you to earning an honest penny 
 taking my place at the loom while you 
 wait ? " 
 
 " I'd like it well enough. Master. Idleness 
 don't suit me, and I think I could manage 
 that damask in a way you would like." 
 
 " Then come to-morrow and begin. We can 
 
NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 29 
 
 find you a bed, and you can take pot-luck 
 with us." 
 
 Nicholas walked back to the inn by the 
 light of the rising moon, lighter-hearted than 
 he could have thought possible when he came 
 to the village a week ago. The evil spirit of 
 revenge and covetousness had been conquered 
 by his letter to Abbie, and here was employ- 
 ment and a good home until he could decide 
 what to do next. Early the following day 
 he was back at the Manor House with his 
 saddle-bags, and Margery took him at once up 
 the broad oak staircase, and to his si^rprise 
 ushered him into a large panelled room with 
 a huge bedstead, the canopy, as well as the 
 posts, of heavy oak. 
 
 " But, Mistress, you cannot mean me to sleep 
 in so fine a room ? " 
 
 " It is the only one we have to spare. It 
 was my mother's; but since she died father 
 prefers our poor brother Jack's little sleeping 
 chamber. This bed is well aired. I have 
 just put the bed-waggon into it." 
 
 " Bed-waggon ? That is a new word to 
 me — ^what is it ? " 
 
 Margery Hfted the heavy, homespun bed- 
 clothes and revealed a wooden frame, in the 
 centre of which was a pan of glowing 
 charcoal. 
 
30 NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 
 
 " Every good house has one in Sussex," 
 she said. 
 
 "I never saw the like in Yorkshire — it looks 
 a bit dangerous, I must say ! " 
 
 " Oh, it has never set us on fire yet ! " said 
 Margery, laughing. 
 
 Coming down, Nicholas went at once to the 
 spare loom, and with the old man looking on 
 approvingly, he soon had it set up for some of 
 the damask patterns which he knew by heart. 
 Early and late he toiled, while Margery did 
 the same at the other loom, and old John 
 Wilkinson acted as taskmaster to both. Etta 
 attended to the housework and dairy, and 
 tried at meals to draw the quiet Yorkshire 
 man into chat ; but he did not fancy her, and 
 she soon pronounced him a dull oaf. 
 
 Of Margery he saw little. At the scanty 
 times of leisure she did not stay in the hall, 
 and on Sundays slipped away by herself before 
 anyone else thought of starting for church. 
 Etta and her father went to Crawley, as they 
 had always done, but Nick had had enough of 
 that preacher, and wandered across the great 
 heath to Charlwood, only to find a still more 
 dreary service. The second Sunday he tried 
 Ifield church with the same result — empty 
 words and long dissertations on doctrines 
 which made no appeal to his mind — and it 
 
NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 31 
 
 was with a feeling of discouraged impatience 
 that he took the short cut over the fields to 
 the Manor House. To his surprise he overtook 
 Margery. 
 
 " Why, I did not see you in Ifield church, 
 Mistress ! " 
 
 " No, I have not been there. Where there 
 is a priest who preacheth for gain I cannot go 
 to worship — the Gospel should be free." 
 
 " I never knew a parson who was not paid for 
 his job," said Nicholas ; " and a plenty of 
 words they give us for their hire." 
 
 " There are no hireling priests among the 
 Friends of Truth," said Margery. "They sit 
 down in silence together till some message 
 from the Lord is given to one or another." 
 
 " My word ! but that's a new sort of 
 Churching ; but I am sick of the long tongues, 
 and would fain find a better way. Where 
 does this service take place. Mistress Margery ? " 
 
 " In William Carton's great kitchen at 
 Bonwicks Place," she said ; " and I have 
 just heard that next week a London Friend 
 will be there who has a large gift in the 
 ministry. Isaac Penington is his name. Would 
 not thou like to be present ? " 
 
 " But perhaps he will not feel moved to 
 speak ? " 
 
 " I don't think the Lord will send him here 
 
32 NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 
 
 without a message; but he is one who has 
 suffered faithfully for the truth, and his very 
 presence will help the meeting." 
 
 " Can I go with you then ? " 
 
 Margery hesitated ; " The meetings are open 
 to all; but I generally walk with George and 
 Jane Hogg of County Oak Farm, who could 
 not come to-day ; but thou canst easily find 
 Bonwicks Place ; " and in a few clear words 
 she gave him directions. . 
 
 The next Sunday Nicholas started betimes. 
 Several people were standing near the garden 
 gate of the large farm-house, and seeing him 
 hesitate, a lady with a bright-eyed girl in her 
 early teens beside her said gently : " It is 
 not quite time for the meeting yet. William 
 Garton has taken my husband to see a sick 
 Friend near here." 
 
 A strange thrill of remembrance passed 
 through Nicholas's mind. Where had he heard 
 that sweet voice before ? He looked at the 
 lady earnestly, and she exclaimed : " Surely I 
 am not mistaken ? ' Yorkshire Nick,' I never 
 heard thy true name." 
 
 " Nicholas Pennifold, so please your Lady- 
 ship," said Nick, with uncovered head and 
 the lowest of bows. " Full well do I remember 
 you at Arundel when I lost my good master. 
 Sir WiUiam." 
 
NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 33 
 
 " Put on thy hat, my friend, and call me 
 plain Mary Penington. Here, Guli child, come 
 and shake hands with one who served thy 
 own dear father well. This maid was sent to 
 comfort me in my sorrow, for my boy soon 
 went to join the father who loved him. But 
 Guli has a second father in my dear husband, 
 Isaac Penington, and she is a kind elder sister 
 to our three little rogues at home." 
 
 Guli, with a pretty graciousness, laid her 
 little hand in the toilworn one of the weaver, 
 and he noted the bright brown eyes, so exactly 
 like those he remembered as Sir William 
 Springett's. 
 
 " Hast thou been much among the Friends 
 of Truth ? " asked the lady, noticing that he 
 still wore the threadbare but well-kept uniform 
 of the Roundhead army. 
 
 " I have never been at a meeting, my Lady 
 (Nick's tongue could not take the fearful 
 liberty of ' Mary Penington ' !) ; but I would 
 fain worship God on Sundays, and in all 
 the churches round here the ministers drone 
 their doctrines until I am weary and sick at 
 heart." 
 
 " Ah ! so my husband and I felt, until we 
 found liberty in waiting on the Lord in silence 
 for His own teaching. Come in with me now, 
 for I see our Friends returning." 
 
 3 
 
34 NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 
 
 The large kitchen, with its huge chimney 
 comer, furnished with its own tiny lattice 
 window, had evidently been fitted up for 
 meetings, for a fixed seat was round the oaken, 
 panelled wall. The centre was filled with 
 low forms without backs. Already some two 
 score of country folk were seated, and Nicholas 
 made for the darkest corner. Soon Margery 
 came in with the Hoggs, whom Nick knew by 
 sight, followed by William Garton, a sturdy 
 yeoman in homespun garb, and the refined, 
 frail-looking Isaac Penington, in the plain 
 though handsome suit befitting the son of a 
 London Alderman. 
 
 To Nicholas, the absolute silence into which 
 the assembly fell was almost fearful. A thrush, 
 singing loudly on a cherry-tree without, was 
 the only sound. He glanced at Margery. 
 Her eyes were closed, and an expression of 
 deepest peace and rest made her look very 
 unlike the weary, harassed weaver whom he 
 had first seen. Other faces, including Mary 
 Penington's, bore the same stamp, and slowly 
 Nicholas realised that to them there was a 
 Presence in the midst unknown to him. 
 
 Awestruck, he bent his head, and hardly 
 knew how time passed till Susanna Garton, a 
 silver-haired, motherly farm- wife, knelt and 
 prayed in a few quiet words for God's blessing 
 
NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 35 
 
 on their meeting together. Here was some- 
 thing new ! A woman praying in public ! 
 It gave Nick a shock as something almost 
 indecorous — yet his own Puritan mother used 
 occasionally to pray with him and Abbie. 
 Why not when more were gathered as one family 
 before their Father's Mercy Seat ? 
 
 Presently Isaac Penington arose, all listening 
 breathlessly, and although he spoke for nearly 
 an hour, Nick never thought of comparing it 
 with the wordy discourses which had tried 
 him at church. As water is to a thirsty soul, 
 his clear message of personal salvation through 
 Jesus Christ, of the promised Guide and 
 Comforter, of the privilege of a life in God's 
 service, came to the young weaver. He spoke 
 of the state of the country and of the utter 
 failure of the bloodshed and military rule of 
 the past twenty years to help to a better state 
 of things in the land, and of the more excellent 
 way of living in that spirit which takes away the 
 occasion of all wars. 
 
 When the preacher ceased, Nick's head was 
 bowed in his hands, and great tears fell on 
 the flagstones at his feet. Mary Penington 
 watched him with fervent prayer for one 
 who had been " tenderly reached," but when 
 the meeting closed he strode away, speaking 
 to no one. 
 
86 NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 
 
 All that summer afternoon he lay upon his 
 face in the thickest wood he knew, his very 
 soul stirred to its depths with his new-found 
 treasure of faith and hope. He was very quiet 
 at the supper table, and went early to bed. 
 Taking off the uniform of which he had once 
 been so proud, he looked at it grimly,- To 
 him now it seemed the symbol of cruelty, 
 violence, and ill-will to men. 
 
 " Thou and I must part company," he said, 
 and folding the clothes together, he threw them 
 on the tester of the bedstead out of sight. 
 
 That week was a very busy one. The year 
 before had been a good flax season, and all 
 the housewives were sending in their yarn, 
 particularly as the fame of the new damask 
 patterns spread abroad. Margery was more 
 shy than ever, and not a word passed about 
 the meeting ; but Nicholas sought out George 
 Hogg, and found from him that the Peningtons 
 would be at a meeting at George Bax's house 
 at Capel on the following Sunday. The grey 
 mare was quite sound now, and in his rough 
 working suit, which he had had no opportunity 
 to replace, Nicholas rode through the lanes 
 until he found the farm-house. 
 
 After another most refreshing meeting, he 
 opened his heart to Isaac and Mary Peningtoii, 
 who rejoiced greatly that the soldier of the 
 
NICHOLAS THE WEAVER 37 
 
 Commonwealth had become the soldier of the 
 Prince of Peace. The local Friends gave him 
 a warm welcome, lent him books (although 
 he never developed a taste for the religious 
 controversy so fashionable at that epoch), 
 and helped him in his new way of life with 
 brotherly kindness. 
 
 Nicholas soon decided to make Crawley his 
 home, for there was abundant work at his 
 trade, since, as John Wilkinson had foreseen, 
 his right arm was never again fit to throw 
 a shuttle. He learned to lean on the young 
 man as a son, and when Nicholas persuaded 
 Margery to allow him to become one in truth, 
 the old father rejoiced, and never complained 
 that they belonged to the persecuted and 
 despised Society of Friends. 
 
APPRENTICED BY THE MEETING 
 
 1710 
 
 " A London letter for you, Master King, 
 and one and ninepence to pay." The post- 
 man on a tired nag, laden with well-filled 
 saddle-bags, stopped at the gate of a farmyard, 
 into which a sturdy yeoman was driving a 
 dozen fine cows. 
 
 " That's a high price for a letter ; I hope 
 it will prove worth it. Here is the money, 
 and a gobd day to thee." 
 
 Farmer King carefully broke the seal, and 
 unfolded the large sheet of paper ; but although 
 reputed a good scholar, and Clerk of his 
 Monthly Meeting, his unpractised eyes were 
 slow to make out the meaning. 
 
 Just then there came along the road a 
 woman, tall and active, carrying a huge 
 basket full of wild herbs — horehound, cen- 
 taury, ground ivy and eyebright, tied into 
 neat bundles with green rushes. 
 
 " Ah, Friend Peggy, thou art come just 
 at the right time ; here is a London letter 
 on Meeting business, in such crabbed writing 
 
 38 
 
APPRENTICED BY THE MEETING 39 
 
 I can't make it out. Canst thou come in 
 to supper with us ? " 
 
 " Nay, Friend King, I have been out all day 
 herbing, and must get on home ; but give me 
 the letter and I'll sit on this log and rest my 
 arm while I read it — 'that basket is heavy." 
 
 Margaret Ord was of a studious nature, 
 and, living alone, had more time for reading 
 and writing than most of her neighbours. 
 She easily read aloud : 
 
 Respected Friend, 
 
 John and Catherine Crocombe removed from 
 your Monthly Meeting to London six years ago. They 
 have regularly attended meetings, and have been well 
 esteemed among us, but we find their certificates of 
 removal have never been sent, so they continued your 
 members. I grieve to tell thee that a month ago they 
 both died of fever within a few days, and were buried 
 in Bunhill Fields, and their two children have been 
 left quite unprovided for. Friends sold the little stock 
 in John's shop and the furniture to pay the funeral 
 expenses and the children's board with Ann Stokes, 
 who took care of them, but that is nearly gone, and 
 we propose to send them down by the carrier's waggon 
 next 7th day to Burgate for your Monthly Meeting to 
 take charge of. The girl is eleven — the boy seven years 
 of age. 
 
 Thy Friend in ye Truth, 
 
 Benjamin How. 
 
 As Margaret finished, the farmer's lips 
 pursed up into a long and un-Quakerly whistle, 
 and his face showed some consternation. 
 
40 APPRENTICED BY THE MEETING 
 
 " More orphans ! and at last Quarterly 
 Meeting Friends were complaining of the 
 great cost of keeping Ben Rickman's children 
 at the Workhouse at Clerkenwell. The 
 Treasurer can never find money to send these 
 poor little ones there for their education, 
 with so many aged and feeble to help as we 
 have just now. Thou knewest the Crocombes 
 better than I. Have they any relations who 
 could help ? " 
 
 " I think not. John Crocombe, thou knowest, 
 was a foreigner from Devonshire, and Kitty 
 Lee's folks did not quite like her marrying 
 him, although he was a good steady lad, 
 and her brothers were nothing to boast of. 
 Charles was a wild one, and he is dead, poor 
 fellow, and Edward has a large family, and 
 such a shrew of a wife, I should pity any 
 child sent to them. No, the only thing is 
 for Friends to apprentice them, as they kindly 
 did me, when my parents died twenty-five 
 years ago. They gave ;fio to Dame Ballard 
 to take me, and she was a good mistress, 
 although not one of our own people." 
 
 " Well, well ! we must do our best for 
 the poor children. My good missus, I am 
 sure, will take them in for a week or two. 
 She says one more don't make much differ- 
 ence at such a full table as ours, but with 
 
APPRENTICED BY THE MEETING 41 
 
 nine children of our own to do for we cannot 
 undertake more. I should not wonder if 
 James Hogg would take the boy ; he was 
 saying his Marcus is getting too big to spend 
 his time herding their cows, and must be 
 put steadily to weaving soon." 
 
 " Herding cows on the big common is a 
 rough, idle life," said Margaret doubtfully. 
 
 " Beggars can't be choosers, Peggy. There 
 are not many ways a little lad of seven can 
 earn his bread, and the Hoggs would be kind 
 to him. Dost thou know anyone who would 
 take the girl ? " 
 
 " No — o," said Margaret doubtfully, pick- 
 ing up her basket of herbs. " If thou finds 
 them at Bargate, we shall see them at Meeting 
 on First-day. Poor children ! they have 
 lost good parents in John and Kitty Crocombe. 
 Farewell, Friend King." She moved away, 
 while the farmer returned to his cows. 
 
 On the outskirts of a large village she turned 
 in at the gate of a substantial thatched 
 cottage. In front were gay flower beds, but 
 the garden, of over an acre in extent, which 
 surrounded it was laid out in an unusual 
 fashion. In addition to the vegetables were 
 large beds of blue lavender, mint, and sage ; 
 elecampane, with its broad green leaves and 
 sunflower-like blossom ; a perfect mass of 
 
42 APPRENTICED BY THE MEETING 
 
 low rose-bushes of the fragrant Damask and 
 Double Velvet kinds, and beyond a sheet 
 of sky-blue flax in full flower. 
 
 An elderly man was patiently weeding in 
 the herb beds, and Margaret, when she had 
 put down her basket, cut a substantial meal 
 of bread and cheese, and took it with a mug 
 of cider to her henchman, who silently smiled 
 and pulled his forelock as she gave it to him, 
 for he was deaf and dumb. In a remote 
 Sussex village in the eighteenth century there 
 was no education for such, and it was only 
 by old Job's native intelligence and Mar- 
 garet's patient kindness that she had trained 
 him to be an effectual helper in her herb garden. 
 
 She sat down to her solitary supper in a 
 little sunny parlour, the large kitchen being 
 full of drying herbs, and the still with which 
 she skilfully reduced their savours to essences. 
 The thought of her old friend Kitty Lee's 
 little daughter needing a home haunted her. 
 Ought she to offer to take her ? But Mar- 
 garet Ord had lived alone for so long, that 
 the thought of any human companionship 
 constantly in her house was distasteful to 
 her. Left an orphan at ten years old, she 
 had been apprenticed by Friends to Dame 
 ^allard, whose daughter had just married, 
 and who needed a helper in her herb business. 
 
APPRENTICED BY THE MEETING 43 
 
 The Dame had a great reputation for 
 medicine, salves, and ointments, and it was 
 even hinted that she was a " wise woman " 
 who dealt in " charms " as well as her more 
 legitimate calling. She had no need to repent 
 her bargain, for Peggy the 'prentice grew up 
 unusually active in mind and body, and 
 whatever she turned her hand to appeared 
 to flourish. Since Dame Ballard's death she 
 had saved enough to buy the holding of her 
 heirs, and was much respected in the village 
 as a kindly neighbour and a consistent Friend. 
 Many marvelled that so capable a woman 
 remained a spinster, but Margaret was faithful 
 to the love of her youth, Humphrey Williams, 
 who, soon after their betrothal, fell into 
 consumption, and after months of patient 
 suffering passed away. His had been a sweet, 
 spiritual mind in a frail body, and many 
 and precious were the lessons Margaret learned 
 from him, softening a character which might 
 have been too hard and business-like, and 
 giving her a firm belief in the greater impor- 
 tance of the unseen and eternal compared- 
 with the seen and temporal things of this 
 life. 
 
 She had nursed Dame Ballard tenderly to 
 her death, and since had lived alone, helped 
 only in her business by the silent old Job. 
 
44 APPRENTICED BY THE MEETING 
 
 As she moved about the garden in the 
 summer evening, gathering the fragrant petals 
 of the roses, which had bloomed during the 
 day, for her rose-water (which had quite a 
 local celebrity), the conviction pressed more 
 and more upon her that she ought to share 
 her pleasant home and prosperity with the 
 orphan. An industrious child would be a 
 great help in the lighter tasks of her trade, 
 and the little low room next her own could 
 easily be fitted up for her. But suppose she 
 were a pert city minx ? Or rough, careless 
 and noisy, among her dainty methodical plans 
 of life ? Tired as she was after her long day's 
 ramble after herbs, it was long before Margaret 
 could sleep that night. Earnestly she prayed 
 for guidance, and felt she must leave it until 
 she saw the child. 
 
 On the following Sunday she walked across 
 the fields to the old stone Meeting House, 
 taking her seat at once as her custom was, 
 and closing her eyes in devout meditation. 
 The congregation gathered around her, and 
 after a while she looked up suddenly and 
 met the eyes of a stranger child seated at 
 right angles to her — eyes so large, so dark, 
 so earnest in their gaze, that Margaret was 
 quite startled. As if convicted of staring, the 
 child's little pale face coloured crimson, and 
 
APPRENTICED BY THE MEETING 45 
 
 she drooped her head on the sleek dark one 
 of her little brother who leaned against her" 
 shoulder. 
 
 Among the group of rosy, flaxen-haired, 
 purely Saxon children of good John King, 
 these descendants of Phoenician immigrants 
 of the West Country looked strange indeed. 
 Both were thin and pale and timid-looking, 
 and Margaret's heart gave a motherly throb, 
 as in the silence of the meeting there came a 
 profound conviction that it was her duty to 
 take the orphan maiden and cherish her as 
 a daughter. 
 
 When meeting broke up she spoke kindly 
 to the child. " So thou art my old friend 
 Kitty's daughter ! Is thy name Kitty too, 
 my dear ? " 
 
 "No," said the child timidly ; " I am 
 Loveday Crocombe, and this is my little 
 brother, Josiah." 
 
 " Loveday ! That is a new name to me. 
 I suppose Josiah was called after thy mother's 
 father ? " 
 
 " Yes, and I was called after grandmother 
 Crocombe, down in Devonshire," said the 
 child. 
 
 " Well, you must come and see me some 
 time and taste some of my new honey," 
 said Margaret kindly ; " Patty King shall 
 
46 APPRENTICED BY THE MEETING 
 
 bring you, I will ask her mother to let you 
 come." 
 
 Walking on with John and Martha King, 
 she questioned them about the London chil- 
 dren. " The quietest little old-fashioned pair 
 I ever did see," said their hostess. " I fear 
 they have had rough times since their parents 
 died, they look so scared and daunted. They 
 only seem to want to sit in a corner close 
 together, and they hardly ate enough for a 
 couple of sparrows at supper last night. I 
 will keep them till after the Monthly Meeting, 
 and try and feed them up a bit." 
 
 " Send them with Patty to supper with 
 me to-morrow," said Margaret. " I should 
 like to know my friend Kitty's children." 
 
 In due time the guests arrived, very shy 
 and silent, but perfectly well-behaved. Mar- 
 garet took them round the garden and showed 
 them the long row of beehives, and was well 
 pleased to notice that Loveday stood en- 
 tranced with admiration in the middle of the 
 rose-bed, while Josiah ran off with Patty to 
 watch some lambs which were jumping and 
 racing in an adjoining field. 
 
 At supper the sweet fresh honeycomb was 
 a complete novelty, and Margaret spread it 
 liberally on slices of bread. When Josiah 
 had finished his, she offered a second slice. 
 
APPRENTICED BY THE MEETING 47 
 
 The boy coloured, and his eyes sought his 
 sister, who gave an almost imperceptible shake 
 of the head, and he docilely replied : " No, 
 I thank thee." 
 
 " Come, I think a little boy can eat another 
 slice," said the hostess cheerfully ; " or does 
 thy sister think honey is not good for thee ? 
 Dost thou have to be careful what thy little 
 brother eats ? " she added to Loveday. 
 
 The girl looked embarrassed. ' " No, thank 
 thee, Josiah is quite well — but I think we had 
 better not have any more." 
 
 " But why not ? Here is your friend 
 Patty quite ready for another slice. Canst 
 thou not tell me, my dear ? " 
 
 Loveday looked down, and said in a low 
 voice : " Ann Stokes said eating heartily is 
 a bad habit, and that orphans should take 
 as little as possible till they can earn their 
 own bread." 
 
 Margaret's heart swelled with indignation, 
 but she only said gently : " Things may be 
 different in London, but here all our friends 
 like to see growing children eat their fill of 
 plain, wholesome victuals, and it is a real 
 pleasure to me to share a meal with my old 
 friend's children." 
 
 After this, not only Josiah, but Loveday 
 herself, joyfully accepted another goodly 
 
48 APPRENTICED BY THE MEETING 
 
 portion of the honey and bread, and even 
 added to their prim thanks : " We never 
 tasted anything so nice ! " 
 
 John King lost no time in finding out if 
 James Hogg, the weaver, would take a seven- 
 year-old apprentice. " The little lad is sober 
 and biddable, and although he hardly knows 
 a cow's head from her tail, if he went out 
 with Marcus for a few weeks he would learn 
 his duty. He can already read, and you 
 would see that he does not forget it." 
 
 " Oh yes, my own children always read a 
 chapter on First-day, and on wet evenings. 
 If Friends would give ;fio just to pay for 
 his shoe-leather till he is worth more, I think 
 we could do well by him. But there is one 
 thing more: if he should have the small-pox 
 while with us, would Friends pay the charges ? " 
 
 "Oh yes, that was entered in the inden- 
 tures of the last lad the Quarterly Meeting 
 bound apprentice. I will arrange it- when 
 we meet at Steyning next week." 
 
 Margaret Ord also entrusted John King 
 with a letter, offering to take the girl, and 
 in the ancient book which has come down 
 from the early eighteenth century we find 
 this minute recorded : 
 
 " Loveday Crocombe is apprenticed to Margaret Ord. 
 She, having been herself apprenticed for £io, in grateful 
 
APPRENTICED BY THE MEETING 49 
 
 sense of Friends' love, and the blessing from God upon 
 her industry, took Loveday Crocombe free. This good 
 example is worthy of imitation of all good people." 
 
 This matter settled, the children were taken 
 to their respective new homes. It was a 
 trial to be separated, but it was only by a 
 single mile, and they knew that frequent 
 meetings were possible, Loveday was de- 
 lighted to find that her lot was to be cast 
 in the rose garden, and confided to her con- 
 temporary, Patty, that she had thought 
 Margaret Ord had such a kind face the first 
 time she saw her in meeting, that she had 
 prayed that Friend might be her future 
 mistress. " Father told me the Lord would 
 answer even a child's prayer, and you see 
 He did, Patty," she whispered reverently. 
 
 It must be confessed that to have a young 
 inmate in the thatched cottage was at first 
 a trial to its owner, but she laughed at herself 
 for having settled into such old-maidish ways, 
 and resolutely put aside her own likings. 
 At first she could not remember the " out- 
 landish name " of Loveday, and called her 
 apprentice " child," or sometimes " Kitty," 
 but this passed after two travelling ministers 
 had had a " Family sitting " with the mistress 
 and her little maid. One of them, after 
 kind encouragement to her who had made a 
 
 4 
 
50 APPRENTICED BY THE MEETING 
 
 home for the orphan, went on : " And thouj 
 little one, must always follow the Light, 
 and love it more than darkness. Thy name 
 is Loveday — see that thou in all things 
 loves and follows the Dayspring from on 
 high Who has visited us." 
 
 After this Margaret felt she was giving a 
 reminder whenever she used the name. 
 
 Happily, Loveday was naturally industrious, 
 and at first very quiet. She took kindly to 
 her easy task of picking rose-leaves and 
 lavender, and turning over the drying herbs, 
 and when, as years went by, good food and 
 country air developed her into a strong rosy 
 maiden, her mistress loved to hear her cheery 
 voice and quick movements about the house 
 and garden. She possessed a good share of 
 natural ability, and had soon mastered the 
 elements of the crafts which Margaret had 
 carried on successfully alone, and she readily 
 served the customers, when Dame Holden 
 came for peppermint essence for her spasms, 
 or Farmer Ford's gay young daughters for 
 elderfiower-water, which they fondly believed 
 would remove the tan of the summer sun 
 from their faces. 
 
 Margaret had inherited from Dame Ballard 
 a parchment-covered book, in which were 
 some two hundred ■ elaborate recipes, written 
 
APPRENTICED BY THE MEETING 51 
 
 out in the neatest hands, with the quaintest 
 spelUng, by some wise women of long ago. 
 To her Dame Ballard's book was of the nature 
 of an oracle, and it had never occurred to 
 her to question the elaborate recipes which 
 she had worked out as a girl under her mis- 
 tress's guidance. But Loveday had a more 
 critical nature, and perhaps more common- 
 sense, and as she grew older she began to 
 question the wisdom of the ancient book. 
 
 "I don't know what I shall do, child," 
 said Margaret one day ; " here is Dame Kidd 
 wanting another bottle of Dr. Steven's Hister- 
 ical Water that cured her Lucy of the vapours 
 last year " ; and she read out : " ' Take a 
 gallon of Gascony wine, and of lavender, 
 pennyroyal, camomile, pellitory of the wall, 
 wild marjoram, wild thyme, and other thyme, 
 spearmint, wormwood, rosemary, sage, of each 
 of these a handful, and of grains, gallingale, 
 cardamom, nutmegs and cloves, mace, cinna- 
 mon, ginger, of each one dram. Bruise the 
 spices, and steep together twelve hours, and 
 then still it.' How can we make it," she 
 went on anxiously, " when the masons scraped 
 out every bit of pellitory when they repaired 
 the church wall last year ? And wild mar- 
 joram — even if we had time to go to the 
 chalk hills, I doubt if we should find wild 
 
52 APPRENTICED BY THE MEETING 
 
 marjoram so late in the year — and the 
 apothecary in the town told me he does not 
 know where to get a bit of gallingale now- 
 adays." 
 
 Loveday laughed merrily. " Why not use 
 tame marjoram, dear mistress ? There is 
 plenty of that in the garden ; it looks and 
 smells just the same, and make the medicine 
 without the other things. Surely seventeen 
 ingredients will do as well as nineteen ? " 
 
 "It does not seem honest to alter a proved 
 recipe," said Margaret doubtfully. 
 
 " Lucy Kidd got better, but how can we 
 know that it was the pellitory and gallingale 
 that cured her ? Very likely it was the 
 lavender and cinnamon ! I often think that 
 the physic we make is needlessly elaborate. 
 And why are folks so fond of physic ? I 
 believe if they were more careful of their 
 food and drink they would not have so many 
 pains. Thou said thyself when Farmer Steel's 
 spoilt boy would not take his physic that 
 a couple of roast apples taken fasting would 
 do him as much good. Thou and I don't 
 take the medicines we sell to other people ! " 
 
 Margaret laughed. " We are both strong 
 and hearty, Loveday my dear, but when 
 others are not so, they come for the physic 
 which they find does them good." 
 
APPRENTICED BY THE MEETING 53 
 
 " I believe that some things we make are 
 very good," said Loveday : " the peppermint 
 and camomile, and the horehound, for those 
 who have coughs ; but those queer old recipes 
 seem made up without common sense. When 
 thou paid the village boys to bring us all 
 those poor. little swallows from the nest to 
 make ointment last year, I felt sure that the 
 rosemary and lavender and May butter, 
 rubbed in warm, would have done Gaffer 
 Hobden's rheumatics just as much good 
 without sacrificing the poor little birds; and 
 there are other recipes in thy book that are 
 downright nasty, although thou may feel it 
 is treason to Dame Ballard's memory to 
 say so." 
 
 Margaret slowly turned over the leaves of 
 the cherished volume. " Well, child," she 
 said, " there are certainly some here that I 
 should never give to anyone. But most of 
 them I have made for many a year, and 
 customers were satisfied, and the Lord's 
 blessing seemed to rest on my industry. I 
 do not mind telling thee, Loveday, that I 
 never could bring myself to try some of 
 Dame Ballard's remedies. She used to pro- 
 fess to cure warts by saying words over a 
 certain number of peas, which the sufferer 
 from warts was to throw down the well, with 
 
54 APPRENTICED BY THE MEETING 
 
 great secrecy ; that was a ' charm,' not a 
 remedy, and too much of a witch's way for 
 me. I have always found that elder-leaves 
 rubbed on fresh night and morning will cure 
 warts in time." 
 
 " Dame Gander has had bottle after bottle 
 of the Greater Palsey water," went on Loveday. 
 " The hours I have spent in collecting the 
 ten kinds of flowers for thee to distil ! But 
 the poor old lady lieth as helpless as ever, 
 it has done her no real good." 
 
 " Dost thou think, then, my dear, that 
 it is our duty to give up making medicines 
 in which our neighbours heartily believe and 
 are willing to pay f or ? " 
 
 "Is it not making gain out of their ignor- 
 ance ? Now it is a comfort to Dame Gander 
 to have something to take. Should we not 
 make her some simple, comforting drink, 
 instead of this recipe, which promises so 
 much and does so little ? " 
 
 " Could we make a living without these 
 medicines ? " said Margaret anxiously, for 
 she had come to have the greatest confidence 
 in the judgment of Loveday, who was now 
 a sensible young woman of twenty. 
 
 " Oh dear yes," said she, laughing. 
 " Think of the hours and days I have spent 
 finding wild herbs and preparing these 
 
APPRENTICED BY THE MEETING 55 
 
 ingredients. I will never, never pound dried 
 toads in the old stone mortar again ! I'm 
 sure wounds would mend better with clean 
 wet rags, or plain hogs' lard. Instead, we 
 will make lots of horehound candy, and that 
 roseleaf conserve that old Squire Daintree 
 liked so much. We will still plenty of pepper- 
 mint and lavender water, and dry sage and 
 thyme for winter cookery. Never fear, mis- 
 tress, if this is the honest path to take, we 
 shall not lack bread or butter either. There 
 is always the flax field and the spinning to 
 fall back on." 
 
 Hardly convinced, Margaret put away her 
 cherished book with a sigh; but Loveday set 
 to work on the new lines with energ\% and 
 soon proved that honest trade was better 
 than the manufacture of medicines with a 
 score of doubtful ingredients. 
 
 Loveday's scanty leisure was spent in 
 mending and making for her brother Josiah. 
 She spun and knitted excellent stockings for 
 him of the locks of wool he collected from the 
 brambles during his long days on the common, 
 dyeing the yarn with some simple herb dye 
 known to Margaret Ord. 
 
 He became in time one of those useful 
 villagers of the olden time, half weaver, half 
 husbandman, of excellent character and a 
 
56 APPRENTICED BY THE MEETING 
 
 credit to the teaching of those who were 
 wiUing to take an apprentice of seven years 
 old. 
 
 Margaret Ord lived to be called " Grannie " 
 by Loveday's children, and in her old age 
 often spoke with thankfulness of the day 
 that she pnt aside her own inclination and 
 made a home for the orphan child. 
 
THE STORY OF A SAMPLER 
 
 1755 
 
 It was a tremendous event in eleven-year-old 
 MoUie's life when Uncle and Aunt Rickman 
 not only invited her for a month's visit, but 
 fetched her themselves in a wonderful, new- 
 fashioned, one-horse chaise. 
 
 At her farm-house home MoUie was used 
 to a drab-painted spring cart, in which the 
 family jogged to Meeting, drawn by an old 
 white horse, who spent six days of the week 
 before the plough. But Uncle Rickman's 
 chaise was drawn by a handsome young, 
 high-strung mare, named Brown Dinah, whose 
 plunges at starting fairly brought the little 
 visitor's heart into her mouth. But Aunt 
 Becky's kind arm was round her, and once 
 on the high road they bowled along at a sur- 
 prising pace — full ten miles an hour — which 
 was most exhilarating. 
 
 Mollie had never been six miles from home 
 before, and to go twenty-five at once, through 
 shady Surrey and Sussex lanes, over wide 
 commons with tall windmills, and by many 
 
 S7 
 
58 THE STORY OF A SAMPLER 
 
 farms and cottages, where the orchards were 
 full, of rosy apples and yellow quinces, was a 
 wonderful new experience. 
 
 When they reached their destination at 
 Barcombe Mill, the river looked tremendous 
 to her childish eyes, and she was never tired 
 of watching the broad, mossy, wooden wheel, 
 which went creaking round and round as 
 the clear water poured on it from above, 
 while within the mill the grinding-stones were 
 surrounded by a cloud of sweet-smelling dust, 
 as the golden wheat was converted into fine 
 white Hour. To buy this wheat, and sell the 
 flour. Uncle Rickman had to make journeys 
 to country markets, and his way of showing 
 kindness to his young guest was to take 
 MoUie with him for the long drives. He did 
 not know much about little girls, and never 
 having felt fear in his life, had no idea of her 
 terror when Dinah reared and plunged, or shied 
 at ugly objects in the road. If Aunt Becky 
 was in the chaise, MoUie did not mind, but she 
 could not always go, and the child was too shy 
 to decline the dreaded kindness of a drive. 
 
 One day Uncle Rickman had offered to 
 take her to Lewes. The chaise was brought 
 round, uncle took the reins, and the groom 
 returned to the stable out of sight, when 
 uncle exclaimed in a vexed tone : " There, 
 
THE STORY OF A SAMPLER 59 
 
 I have forgotten my pocket-book ! Just stand 
 by Dinah's head, MoUie, while I find it." 
 
 " Oh, uncle, I am afraid ! " 
 
 " Thou little goose ! surely thou art used 
 to hold father's horse ? Just catch hold of 
 the bridle, and she will stand for a minute 
 quite well." 
 
 Unwillingly MoUie took the bridle, and stood 
 timidly patting the horse's glossy neck, in- 
 wardly quaking as she snorted and fidgetted. 
 Then, oh, horror ! — a great black dog suddenly 
 bounded into sight, barking loudly ! Startled 
 Dinah pranced and backed till the wheel of 
 the chaise was within a foot of the edge of 
 the wharf where the barges were unloaded, 
 and where MoUie knew the water was deep 
 enough to drown the horse. With one des- 
 perate prayer — " Help me to save Dinah ! " 
 — MoUie threw her whole weight on the bit 
 with a sudden jerk, turning the wheel away 
 from the dangerous edge ; but as Dinah 
 plunged and reared she was thrown down, 
 the cruel iron-shod hoof descended on her 
 leg, and the poor child screamed and fainted 
 away just as the strong hand of Squire Pelham, 
 the owner of the dog, seized the horse, and 
 drew her into a safe place close to the mill 
 wall, sternly silencing his noisy dog. 
 
 Out rushed Uncle Rickman and raised the 
 
60 THE STORY OF A SAMPLER 
 
 unconscious child, bitterly reproaching himself 
 for having left her. 
 
 " I don't know who that little maid is, 
 Rickman," said the Squire, " but she is a 
 heroine. Your fine mare would have been 
 in the river, chaise and all, if she had not 
 done the only thing possible — ^jerked her sharp 
 to the left. I blame myself, for I ought to 
 haye kept that noisy pup of mine in better 
 order — ^it was he that did the mischief." 
 
 Here the groom appeared, and the two 
 men carried MoUie to her aunt, who applied 
 remedies which soon brought her round, with 
 a sobbing moan, " Oh, mj^ leg, my leg ! " 
 
 Tenderly the Squire felt it. " The bone is 
 broken," he said. " Keep her quite still 
 while you drive that fast mare to Lewes for 
 the doctor to set it properly." 
 
 Poor MoUie! the setting of the leg was a 
 painful business, for the hands of the country 
 doctor in the eighteenth century were rough 
 and untrained. But young bones soon join, 
 and in a couple of weeks she was carried down 
 to sit in the great armchair, with the lame 
 leg carefully propped on another. It was a 
 dull time for the active child, and amuse- 
 ments were few. She read and re-read Aunt 
 Becky's favourite book, " The History of Thomas 
 Ellwood," and did some plain sewing ; but 
 
THE STORY OF A SAMPLER 61 
 
 uncle's wristbands to stitch were not very 
 interesting, and she was sitting pale and 
 languid when one day Squire Pelham appeared 
 with a parcel. 
 
 " Here, little woman, I asked my own little 
 maid what she would like if she had a broken leg, 
 and she said, ' A sampler and silks,' so I drove 
 her to Lewes, and she chose these for you." 
 
 MoUie's pale cheeks became rosy with 
 delight. She had often longed for just such 
 things, but mother could not spare the money, 
 and here was a square of fine woollen canvas, 
 and many skeins of bright silks : pink, green, 
 yellow, purple, and a paper pattern with 
 different letters printed on squares that she 
 could count. She launched at once into 
 copying Thomas EUwood's poem : 
 
 " Oh, that mine eyes might closed be 
 To what becomes me not to see," 
 
 and worked straight on, letter by letter, quite 
 regardless of " spacing " or arrangement, until 
 the eighteen lines were finished,,. 
 
 Then followed a verse which her mother, 
 Mary Martin, had worked on her own sampler 
 in 1719, beginning, " Count what's more sweet 
 and fairer than a flower," 
 
 " There is still room for two more lines, 
 Aunt Becky, before I put my name and the 
 
62 THE STORY OF A SAMPLER 
 
 date. Dost thou know something really good 
 for me to work there ? " 
 
 " Yes, dear little one," said the gentle 
 aunt, " I would have thee work this : 
 
 "The loss of health is much. 
 The loss of life is more ; 
 But the loss of Jesus Christ is such 
 That no man can restore." 
 
 Carefully in neat small letters the addition 
 was made, and then " Mary Dann ended this 
 work, Sep. 29th, 1755," was worked below, 
 and by way of ornament some rows of grieen 
 and red objects intended for flowers finished 
 it off — a work of art which afforded both 
 pleasure and profit to the little lame girl. 
 
 By the time the leg was strong enough for 
 MoUie to go home, Brown Dinah was sold, 
 and a steady roan horse, not so swift, but 
 much more comfortable to ride behind, made 
 the journey back to the Surrey farm, where 
 a warm welcome drew MoUie back into the 
 home nest. 
 
 It all happened so many years ago, and 
 yet the great, great, great granddaughters of 
 Mary Dann can look at the carefully worked 
 letters (quite distinct still, although some of 
 the gayer colours have faded with time) and 
 imagine the patient little worker from whom 
 they inherited the old sampler. 
 
A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER 
 
 1789 
 
 Down by the side of a broad hedgerow, which 
 separated two cultivated fields on the southern 
 slope of the Mendip Hills, came a heavily- 
 laden figure, in smock frock and leathern 
 gaiters. Over one shoulder he balanced a 
 stout stake, on which a dozen dead rabbits 
 were threaded by their crossed legs, and in 
 the other hand he carried a great bunch of 
 nets and a small cage, through the bars of 
 which could be seen the lithe, yellowish-white 
 body and jewel-like pink eyes of a ferret, 
 while a sharp terrier, very rough and muddy, 
 followed him closely. 
 
 He was just opening the gate leading to 
 the high road when a gay voice greeted him 
 from a bonny, rosy girl of twenty, in charge of 
 an old black horse with large wicker panniers. 
 
 " Daddy Hancock ! Dear Daddy ! I am 
 pleased to meet you ! I have got something 
 so nice to show you ! And how is Mammy 
 Hancock ? I have not seen her for weeks — 
 we have been so busy." 
 
 " Ah, Flower, my dear, it's the same with 
 
 63 
 
64 A POOR QUAKER [RABBIT-CATCHER 
 
 us. The good Mammy is well, but though 
 it is six years since thou left us, she still 
 misses the little feet that saved her so many 
 steps, and loves to see thee when way opens 
 for thee to come to Cheddar." 
 
 " The cheese season will soon be over now, 
 and then I shall have more time. You see, 
 on Sundays, now we have so many cows, I 
 have to begin milking directly my children 
 go home. Since Patience went to service I 
 have so much more to do. Dear Patience ! 
 I do miss her ; she was such a good helper 
 with the Sunday School. Now, Daddy, do 
 put those rabbits on the gate-post for a few 
 minutes while I show you something. 
 
 David Hancock laughed, shifted the weight 
 of the stake on to the stone post, which was 
 just the height of his stalwart shoulder, and 
 put down nets and cage. 
 
 " What a fine lot you have caught to-day ! " 
 said the girl. 
 
 " Ay ! and they Eire a good riddance. Farmer 
 Lewis means to grow wheat on one side of 
 that bank, and early vegetables for Bristol 
 market on the other. The bank is fair riddled 
 with their holes, and they rabbits would have 
 cleared off every green thing like locusts. I 
 must give 'em three or four days more to make a 
 good job of it. But what is there to show me ? " 
 
 Flower Waite took from one of the panniers 
 
A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER 65 
 
 a blue checked handhejrchief, and, unfolding it, 
 displayed a neat Testament and two paper- 
 covered primers. 
 
 " There, that is what I have been wanting 
 for a long time. I knew I was to take some 
 small cheeses and three pairs of ducks to 
 Axbridge market to-day, so I got up before 
 it was light, and went up the hill pastures 
 and picked nigh two pecks of mushrooms 
 before milking time. I sold them all, and 
 bought not only those, but flour and sugar 
 and ginger to make enough gingerbread to 
 treat all my good children next Sunday. The 
 Testament is for Talitha Tripp. She is my 
 best scholar, and helps me to teach the others. 
 She will be delighted to have a book of her 
 very own ! She said her father had a Bible 
 and chose her name out of it, but after he 
 died her mother sold it for a groat. I can't 
 let those dirty little hands touch the nice 
 Bible you and Mammy gave me, but I lay 
 it on the table, and the ten older ones, who 
 can read, stand with their hands behind them 
 and read in turn. Then we only had three 
 primers, but now four or even six more children 
 can read them at once." 
 
 " Thou spent thy mushroom money well, 
 dear maid," said the rabbit-catcher, looking 
 at the bright girl with proud affection. " And 
 what else dost thou teach them ? " 
 
 5 
 
66 A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER 
 
 "Oh, all of them can Say the Lord's Prayer 
 and some the Ten Commandments, and all 
 can sing the evening hymn and ' O God, our 
 help in ages past.' They love the Sunday- 
 school; but oh. Daddy! Shipham does need 
 some more teaching dreadfully. Mr. Jones 
 does his best at the church, but no one seems 
 to heed him, and the drunkenness and fighting 
 among the miners is dreadful — and the big 
 girls are shocking ! It grieves me to think 
 that my Talitha and Joan White and Sexa 
 Phippen in a few years may be like that." 
 
 " Nay, Flower, thy Bible teaching under 
 God's grace may keep them from evil." 
 
 " I hope so. Daddy, but I can do so little, 
 and one hour in the week seems nothing. 
 They want teaching every day to be industrious 
 and neat, as Mammy taught me. Many of 
 their mothers cannot use a needle, or spin or 
 knit, or anything decent. Yet Shipham people 
 are not poor. Jerry Day found such a lot 
 of calamine in his gruff last week that Uttle 
 Sally and Nancy came to school in fine red 
 cloaks and new shoes, but no stockings, and 
 only dirty rags under the cloaks. And the 
 houses are so dirty and miserable and neglected. 
 Mother says it is ordained for the poor to 
 be like that, and that it is our duty to keep 
 ourselves to ourselves, and father laughs at 
 my Sunday-school. Yet they are good people. 
 
A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER 67 
 
 and go to church, and mother took almost 
 as much pains with Patience as Mammy- 
 Hancock did with me." 
 
 " Many good people like thy father and 
 stepmother do not seem to feel that it is our 
 duty and privilege to spread God's good 
 tidings to those around. It's little enough 
 we poor folk can do, Flower, but we can help 
 just a few to higher things, and thou hast 
 done well in gathering those little children 
 around thee." 
 
 " But, Daddy, the gentry could do so much 
 more if they only cared ! Those children 
 were perfect heathens when they came to me, 
 and the village people never think of God 
 but to take His name in vain. It could not 
 always have been so in Mendip. Look at 
 the beautiful churches — Cheddar and Axbridge 
 and Winscombe and Rowbarrow — somebody 
 must have cared for Christianity when those 
 were built. Why did the faith die out 
 here ? " 
 
 " May God Almighty send better times for 
 poor Mendip ! " said David Hancock solemnly. 
 
 " Well, Daddy, I must be getting home. 
 It always does me good to see you." And 
 with a hearty kiss on the weather-beaten 
 cheek the farmer's daughter took the bridle- 
 path which led towards her home at Shipham. 
 
 When she was but a year old her mother 
 
68 A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER 
 
 had died, and Farmer Waite was thankful 
 when the childless Quaker couple, David and 
 Mary Hancock, who had a tiny holding in 
 a hamlet near Cheddar, offered to take charge 
 of the little one. Here Flower grew up 
 a happy, well-trained little maiden, until, 
 when she was fourteen, her father married a 
 widow with one daughter of twelve years 
 old, a sweet-tempered, hard-working girl, who 
 speedily became as a sister to Flower. 
 
 When they grew up to be capable dairy- 
 maids, it was her own daughter. Patience 
 Seward, whom Mrs. Waite decreed should 
 go to service, and she was now working on 
 a cheese farm at Cheddar, too far off to help 
 in the little Sunday-school in which she 
 delighted as much as Flower, and which the 
 parents allowed them to hold in the back 
 kitchen, with amused but perfectly uncom- 
 prehending indulgence. But in the Hancock 
 home Flower had been trained to a larger 
 heartedness, and the neglected ignorance of 
 the Shipham children had roused a deep 
 desire in the young girl's heart to feed Christ's 
 lambs in however simple a way. 
 
 David Hancock watched the girl out of 
 sight, with an inward prayer for a blessing on 
 her efforts ; but as he shouldered his rabbits 
 and walked on her questions haunted him. 
 Why was the Mendip country given over to 
 
A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER 69 
 
 heathenism ? He knew far better than Flower 
 of the unspeakable degradation and wickedness 
 of the villages among those beautiful hills. 
 Cheddar especially, the large, populous village 
 at the entrance to the magnificent gorge, 
 which even in those days was visited by many 
 a party of gentry from Bristol in coaches- 
 and-four, who looked at the cliffs and the 
 caves, and carelessly threw halfpence to the 
 many whining beggars who congregated there. 
 For forty years Cheddar had had no resident 
 clergyman. A curate rode over from Wells, 
 seven miles away, for one service in the fine 
 old church on Sunday, and christenings, mar- 
 riages and funerals might then be crowded 
 in. What wonder that the two first were 
 frequently omitted, and burials perforce took 
 place without one word being spoken of a 
 hope beyond the grave. 
 
 There were some rich farmers, but they 
 were as ignorant, as drunken and dissolute 
 as the poorest villagers. 
 
 During the laborious days that followed 
 Flower's question constantly returned to her 
 foster-father's mind. There were plenty of 
 gentry and high church dignitaries in Somerset, 
 yet none seemed to care for the welfare of the 
 miners and labourers. How could they be so 
 callous — so content to be ignorant of the state 
 of things ? 
 
70 A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER 
 
 One fine autumn morning David took his 
 loaded donkey-cart to the hamlet of Cross, 
 which lay on the great coach road from Bristol 
 to Exeter. Here was a large inn, where 
 many travellers halted for a meal. It was 
 quite celebrated for its rabbit pies, and was 
 the best market for David's game as well 
 as his wife's little stores of butter and eggs. 
 
 As he came out of the courtyard a Bristol 
 postchaise stood before the door, and the 
 postillion was superintending the change to 
 fresh horses. Two ladies had alighted, and 
 were talking to the inn-keeper — slight, middle- 
 aged women, nicely dressed in silk skirts, 
 one violet, the other green, cashmere shawls 
 and large straw bonnets. He heard the reply, 
 " Cheddar, ma'am ? Really, I know very 
 little of the people. But here is a man who 
 lives near there, honest Quaker Hancock, the 
 rabbit-catcher. He will tell you all you want 
 to know." And he bustled off. 
 
 The ladies came forward to the donkey- 
 cart with a courteous greeting, and the shrewd 
 dark eyes of the elder lady noted the pleasant 
 refinement of the strong, weather-beaten face. 
 
 " We were wanting to know, my good man, 
 a little about the inhabitants of Cheddar. 
 Who are the leading people there ? " 
 
 " I hardly know ; but there is one who 
 thinks he is — Farmer Hemmens. He keeps 
 
A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER 71 
 
 most cows and employs most labourers ; they 
 call him churchwarden too, but I believe he 
 never darkens the door of the church building." 
 
 " We have a plan to benefit the children of 
 the place — to start a little school for them." 
 
 " A school for Cheddar ! That is sorely 
 needed. And what do you mean to teach ? " 
 
 " Chiefly — ^for we hear there is great ignor- 
 ance — to fear God and keep His Command- 
 ments ; to read the Bible and learn the way 
 of salvation." 
 
 The rabbit-catcher's face lighted up with 
 almost incredulous joy. His blue eyes filled, 
 and tears fell on his rugged brown cheeks. 
 
 " God bless you, ladies ! " he said solemnly. 
 " If you only knew the terrible need there 
 is, and how some few poor folk have prayed 
 for a concern to be laid on the minds of 
 those able to help ! " 
 
 Hannah More, the popular authoress of her 
 day, the friend of bishops and statesmen, felt 
 that here was one of the salt of the earth, 
 and was thankful that one man in that dark 
 region was in true sympathy with her plans. 
 
 " Thanks for that word, my friend," she 
 said. " And now tell us if there is an empty 
 house in the village that would be fit for a 
 school ? " 
 
 " There is one, but it's quite a place — and 
 there would be the rent. I'm afraid Farmer 
 
72 A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER 
 
 Hemmens and the likes of he will never pay 
 to have the poor taught." 
 
 " There will be no need to ask for that kind 
 of help. We must tell you that lately a good 
 friend of ours, Mr. William Wilberforce, who 
 is a great man up in London, and desires to 
 use his wealth in his Master's service, went 
 to Cheddar to see the cliffs. He came back 
 so shocked at the ignorance and depravity of 
 the young people in the village that he offered 
 to provide money, not only for a Sunday- 
 school, but for a day-school, where habits of 
 industry and thrift can be taught. But we 
 must have the consent of the chief employers of 
 the village, or they may set the people against 
 the school. Now to whom shall we go first ? " 
 
 " Farmer Hemmens, certainly," said David. 
 " But you will find him a rough one, and he 
 is generally drunk after dinner. He lives out 
 at the Rye Farm — a pretty bad road for a 
 post-chay." 
 
 Taking out her notebook, Hannah More 
 took down his name, and also those of a dozen 
 other farmers and shopkeepers, David earnestly 
 giving every assistance he could to these good 
 friends. His last words to them were : " You 
 •will have much difficulty, but let not the 
 enemy tempt you to go back, and God bless 
 the work." Then he watched the chaise as 
 it rolled away in the direction of Rye Farm. 
 
A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER 73 
 
 It happened that this was the very place 
 where Patience Seward was dairymaid. It 
 might seem strange that a careful mother 
 should place a girl of eighteen in such a house- 
 hold, but it was considered a privilege to get 
 a footing in the leading dairy of the district. 
 Mrs. Hemmens' cheeses never swelled or 
 cracked, or did anything they should not, 
 and rough though she was, she appreciated 
 a girl trained in cleanliness and industry. 
 
 Few strangers came to the remote Rye Farm, 
 and it was with astonishment that Patience 
 heard a gentle woman's voice, and then her 
 master's, roughly protesting that the poor of 
 Cheddar were very well off as they were, and 
 as for teaching religion it was a very dangerous 
 thing, and had done nought but mischief 
 since the old monks of Glastonbury brought 
 it in ; for the poor to hear more of it would 
 be the ruin of farming." 
 
 Here a pleasant voice was heard praising 
 the currant wine as extraordinarily good, and 
 thanking Mrs. Hemmens for providing it and 
 such excellent pork pie for strangers, who had 
 come all the way from Bristol because a good 
 friend wished to give some money yearly for 
 the good of the parish. 
 
 At the word money the farmer pricked his 
 ears, and Hannah More went on to explain 
 that the school would be no expense to the 
 
74 A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER 
 
 place. The children would be better under 
 control — ^rather than getting into mischief and 
 robbing orchards. To make people more in- 
 dustrious would reduce the Poor Rates. The 
 girls would be trained to be good servants, 
 to sew, and knit, and spin. 
 
 "And the spinning-wheel, you know, ma'am," 
 said Hannah More, turning to Mrs. Hemmens, 
 " is work that can never go out of fashion." ' 
 
 The farmer's wife agreed, and with more of 
 this bland diplomacy the ladies departed. 
 
 The same scene was repeated with little 
 variation in a dozen houses around Cheddar. 
 In each they were assured that it was dan- 
 gerous to teach the poor, in each they were 
 offered wine or brandy and water, and in 
 each they wrung a reluctant consent that the 
 children of labourers should be encouraged to 
 attend. 
 
 Late in the evening the post-chaise with its 
 weary occupants rolled away to Bristol, and 
 few in the villages even heard the ladies' names. 
 They little knew the tumult of hope and joy 
 they had awakened in the mind of the quiet 
 dairymaid at the Rye Farm. The new-fangled 
 plans were freely discussed and grumbled over 
 before her, and it seemed as if the visions of 
 many a talk with her stepsister, Flower 
 Waite, was really coming in very truth — 
 Sunday and day schools in a Mendip village ! 
 
A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER 75 
 
 Perhaps those good ladies would start similar 
 work in Shipham ! 
 
 When sent to Cheddar on an errand. Patience 
 was delighted to see a house which had been 
 standing empty for years in a large garden 
 being repaired and whitewashed, and new 
 floor and windows put in a large ox-shed 
 adjoining. She told Flower all she heard, 
 and obtained leave to meet her at Cheddar 
 Church on the Sunday in October when the 
 schools were to be opened. 
 
 In their neat Sunday gowns of pink-checked 
 homespun linen and black beaver hats over 
 their mob caps, the two girls stood watching 
 as the one hundred and forty rough, ragged 
 children walked in procession from school to 
 church, marshalled by the two Misses More, 
 bright and animated, and with the authority 
 of experienced school teachers, and Mrs. Baber, 
 the new governess, and her daughter Betsey, 
 both born gentle discipUnarians. 
 
 The novelty was so great that the church, 
 which often had had only a dozen attendants, 
 was crowded by hundreds ; but the curate 
 from Wells " was so judicious as to give a 
 discourse upon good Tory principles on the 
 divine right of kings, but the divine right of 
 the King of kings seemed a subject above his 
 comprehension," as Hannah More wrote to 
 WiUiam Wilberforce. 
 
76 A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER 
 
 But there were hearts present in that church, 
 including the two young dairymaids, who were 
 full of thankfulness, and five miles away, in 
 the little Friends' Meeting House at Sidcot, 
 where he had jogged slowly in the donkey- 
 cart with his good wife, sat David Hancock, 
 his soul full of adoration and thanksgiving, 
 that at last some light of Christian instruction 
 was dawning in Mendip. 
 
 All through that winter, seldom as the 
 girls were able to visit Cheddar, they eagerly 
 sought for every scrap of information they 
 could pick up about Mrs. Baber and her 
 wonderful work. The spinning mistress who 
 helped her kept a dozen of the older girls busy 
 at the wheels which had been provided. The 
 boys washed, picked and carded the fleeces 
 bought of the hill farmers, and soon enormous 
 skeins of well-spun worsted were sent to 
 Axbridge, where the inhabitants had a great 
 reputation for knitted stockings for the Bristol 
 shops. 
 
 This industry and the small earnings was 
 more talked of in the village than the religious 
 knowledge ; but when the Misses More returned 
 in the spring they were delighted at the pro- 
 gress made towards turning young savages 
 into Christian children. 
 
 Further financial aid was offered by William 
 Wilberforce and his friend the banker, Henry 
 
A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER 77 
 
 Thornton, and the ladies began to look about 
 for fresh fields to conquer. The mining villages 
 of Shipham and Rowbarrow were reported as 
 the most ignorant and lawless ; not a constable 
 dared arrest a man there, lest he should be 
 thrown down one of the deep disused shafts 
 of the calamine pits and never heard of more. 
 
 The Misses More, at a tea-party of some of 
 the gentry near their Wrington summer home 
 of Cowslip Green, ventured to make enquiries. 
 
 " A school at Shipham ! You might as well 
 teach the natives of Central Africa ! " was 
 the cry. But one gentleman said : 
 
 " You are forestalled there. I heard that 
 a silly maid, the daughter of my tenant. Farmer 
 Waite, gets a score of little ragamuJQ&ns together 
 and teaches them to sing Psalms, forsooth ! 
 She had better save her breath for her curd- 
 cutting ! " 
 
 Here was news indeed ! The very next 
 afternoon the ladies mounted their horses, 
 Hannah on a pillion behind the elderly groom 
 and Patty riding single, and made their way 
 to the Waite's farm. The door was opened 
 to them by a girl of twelve, very scantily 
 clothed, but at least clean, who dropped an 
 awkward curtsey. The master and mistress 
 were out — gone to a sheep fair ; Miss Flower 
 was milking — she would take them to her. 
 
 " Tell me, my dear," said Miss Patty, who 
 
78 A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER 
 
 had a way with children which always won 
 their confidence, " is it true that there is a 
 little Sunday-school at this farm ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, ma'am ; Miss Flower had thirty of 
 us last Sunday." 
 
 " Oh, you are one of her pupils ! And what 
 is your name ? " 
 
 " Talitha Tripp, please, ma'am." 
 
 " Tabitha, I suppose you mean." 
 
 " No, ma'am, I was christened TaUtha Cumi. 
 My father, who is dead, was a scholar and 
 chose it ; and now I can read and have a 
 Testament, I find it was the name of Jairus' 
 daughter, as was raised from the dead." 
 
 The muscles around Miss Patty's mouth 
 twitched, but she only said sweetly : " It is 
 nice for you to be reminded that the Lord 
 called a little girl of your own age. And how 
 did you get your Testament ? " 
 
 " Miss Flower gave it to me for being the 
 first to learn to read, and now I can help her 
 with the little ones," said TaKtha importantly, 
 as she ushered the ladies into an orchard, 
 where Flower was just rising from her milking- 
 stool by the side of a great brindled cow, 
 with her clean-scrubbed bucket full of foaming 
 milk. The ladies greeted her kindly and 
 apologised for hindering her work. 
 
 " Oh, I have just finished milking, thank 
 
A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER 79 
 
 you, ma'am. Talitha, you can drive the cows 
 back to the Six Acres. If I may just take 
 this milk to the dairy, I am quite at Uberty." 
 
 In a few minutes she stood before them, 
 having discarded her rough apron and sun- 
 bonnet, looking the picture of a buxom dairy- 
 maid. She led the way to the best parlour, 
 with sanded floor, white linen curtains, and 
 scanty furniture of well-polished oak. 
 
 Flower recognised her visitors as the Cheddar 
 benefactresses, and her heart was beating with 
 high hopes. With their usual gentle tact they 
 drew from her the story of her unselfish labours 
 for the Shipham children, 
 
 " And how did you get books ? " they 
 asked. 
 
 " I have not many, ma'am. We started 
 with three little twopenny primers — ^you can 
 get them at a shop in Axbridge. A few of 
 the children can read from my own Bible. 
 Then I have " Watis's Hymns," which a dear 
 old Quaker lady gave me when I was a little 
 girl. Most of the teaching my sister Patience 
 and I have done by voice. Several can say 
 the Ten Commandments and three Psalms, 
 and know the words of the hymns they love 
 to sing." 
 
 " And the Church Catechism — I suppose you 
 teach that ? " 
 
 David Hancock's pupil looked surprised. 
 
80 A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER 
 
 " No, ma'am, I never thought of it," she said 
 simply. 
 
 " But you attend the church ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, ma'am, father and mother always 
 keep to their church, and we have a rare 
 good curate now — Mr. Jones. But they say 
 the rector gives him so little salary that he 
 is obliged to teach weekdays. He goes over 
 to Mr. Benwell's Quaker school at Sidcot to 
 give French lessons." 
 
 " Is the rector never in Shipham ? " 
 
 " Oh no. No one has seen him for many 
 years. He is ninety-four years old. He sends 
 to collect the tithes, but the rectory house has 
 stood empty, they say, for a hundred years." 
 
 "Is it that shut-up house we passed just 
 opposite your field gate ? " 
 
 " Yes, ma'am. Father being churchwarden 
 keeps the key. Many a game have my sister 
 and I had there, pretending it was ours, and 
 that we were going to open a school for the 
 village girls." 
 
 " Well, my young friend, that is exactly 
 what we are intending to do. Your Sunday- 
 school is very good indeed. We thank God 
 that someone tries to teach these poor children. 
 But do not you think a school on weekdays 
 to train them in industry as weU as to read 
 their Bibles would be a blessing to Shipham ? " 
 
 Flower's honest face glowed with joy — a 
 
A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER 81 
 
 day-school ! Perhaps a teacher like Mrs. Baber 
 at Cheddar ! It seemed too good to be true. 
 
 " Oh, ma'am, indeed it would ! And the 
 Rectory would make a fine school. There 
 hangs the key. Would you like to look over 
 it?" 
 
 " Perhaps we had better, although we cannot 
 be sure it would be let to us for such a pur- 
 pose." 
 
 Joyfully Flower guided the ladies to the 
 empty house. Grim and neglected as it was, 
 the walls and roof were sound, and the prac- 
 tical Miss Patty saw its possibilities. How a 
 partition could be removed and a window 
 enlarged, and that a coat of whitewash and 
 clean floors would make a marvellous difference. 
 
 The largest upstairs room would do for 
 spinning, of which they made a great point. 
 They found that Flower had been well trained 
 in this and in sewing, and could write prettily 
 and keep accounts enough to make necessary 
 records, for no writing was to be taught, as 
 Hannah More considered it quite superfluous 
 for the poor. 
 
 At last, as they walked back to the farm, 
 a look was exchanged between the sisters, 
 and then Hannah asked Flower if her father 
 would be willing for her to leave the dairy 
 work and be a schoolmistress, naming a wage 
 
 6 
 
82 A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER 
 
 absurdly small to modern ideas, but enough 
 to pay a dairymaid twice over to take her 
 place. 
 
 Flower thankfully accepted, provided her 
 father would consent ; and when an assistant 
 was spoken of, begged that the ladies would 
 engage her stepsister, Patience Seward, who 
 loved children as much as she did. 
 
 The Misses More did not let the grass grow 
 under their feet. The very next day they 
 rode again to Shipham, secured Farmer Waite's 
 consent, and found from him the address of 
 the absent rector. He, at the age of ninety-, 
 four, insisted on the ladies taking a lease, 
 and was as rigorous about the rent as if they 
 were taking the house for an assembly room ! 
 
 Through the summer months repairs went 
 on, and as Flower and Patience laboured at 
 cheese-making their minds were full of their 
 prospects, and they strove in their scanty 
 leisure to prepare themselves to carry out 
 Miss More's well-considered plans. 
 
 In September 1790 the Shipham school 
 was opened, with one hundred and forty 
 pupils, and Hannah More wrote : " If ever 
 the blessing of Heaven was implored by two 
 young hearts to protect and direct them, it 
 proceeded, I believe, from these two young 
 creatures, whom we took some pains to in- 
 struct in our method and manner of teaching." 
 
A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER 83 
 
 It was a great advantage that in Talitha 
 Tripp and other of their old pupils the young 
 mistresses had a nucleus of loyal and loving 
 children who could take the lead among the 
 little Shipham savages, accustomed to run 
 wild among the fields and calamine pits all 
 their time. 
 
 To this work was soon added a Sunday 
 evening meeting for the parents, who came to 
 hear a printed sermon and prayer read by 
 the ex-dairymaids, and what would now be 
 called a Bible class on a weekday for the 
 wild, older girls, whose conduct was a terrible 
 drawback to the good work in Shipham for 
 many a year. 
 
 Shipham was the first place where Hannah 
 More established a sick benefit club for women, 
 which continues to this day. The club day, 
 with its procession to church, its rare luxury 
 of a dish of tea, the extremely plain-spoken 
 address from one of the Misses More, and the 
 public presentation to brides of good character 
 of "a Bible, five shillings, and a pair of white 
 stockings of our own knitting," was a great 
 help in civilising the rough women of the 
 village. 
 
 On a day of glorious sunshine in August 
 1792 David Hancock and his wife took that 
 almost unprecedented thing in their lives — 
 a holiday ! Ascending the grand height of 
 
84 A POOR QUAKER RABBIT-CATCHER 
 
 Callow Hill, they found there preparations 
 for a school feast, perhaps the very first ever 
 held in England. Some tents had been reared, 
 busy hands were cutting beef and bread and 
 cold plum-pudding, and with cords and stakes 
 preparing places for the five hundred school- 
 children to regale themselves. 
 
 Then appeared the procession. First the 
 Misses More, then Mrs. Baber and her Cheddar 
 children, and then what the Hancocks had 
 come to see — their much-loved foster-child. 
 Flower Waite, in charge of nearly two hundred 
 Shiphamites, marvellously clean and tidy, and 
 all carrying flowers tied to white wands. 
 
 All sang as they walked — ^the same simple 
 hymns that were taught in all the schools ; 
 and when, after the feast, a Uttle examination 
 of attainments and giving of Bibles and Prayer 
 Books to those who merited rewards was held, 
 the dairymaids' pupils took a very creditable 
 place. 
 
 The Mendip feast became a great institu- 
 tion, attracting thousands of spectators ; and 
 although Flower and Patience soon married 
 and gave up teaching, we may be sure that 
 their hearts and that of David Hancock never 
 ceased to be thankful for the enlightenment 
 brought to the Mendip villages by WilUam 
 Wilberforce and Hannah and Patty More, 
 
THE GOOSE THAT WAS NOT 
 VERY YOUNG 
 
 1785 
 
 " Well, farewell, neighbour Thornton, and I 
 hope the eggs will hatch out well." 
 
 " Good-night to you, Deborah ; it was 
 kind to bring them, for I have long wanted 
 some Dorkings like yours, and though 'tis 
 late in the year to set hens, I'll manage some 
 way. It always cheers me up to see you 
 and the lads, bless their little hearts ! " And 
 the elder woman patted the dimpled cheek 
 of the baby her visitor held as they stood 
 together on the threshold of a small Sussex 
 farm-house. 
 
 A great contrast they were: Mrs. Thornton 
 Stout and grey-haired, with a bright green 
 ribbon round her mob-cap, and a chintz gown 
 with gorgeous tulips on a chocolate ground ; 
 while Deborah was young and active, with the 
 neatest of white sun-bonnets and aprons and 
 a drab cotton gown. 
 
 " They boys will be a handful for ye by 
 and by, my dear ; but they may be better 
 
 85 
 
86 THE GOOSE THAT WAS 
 
 sons to you than mine have been to me." 
 And the poor woman sighed heavily. " I 
 never saw a sturdier lad than your Stevie, 
 bless the boy ! Where has he got to ? " 
 
 " He took the empty basket while we were 
 talking. Ste-e-vie ! Mother is ready to go 
 home." 
 
 Out of the orchard close by came a bonny 
 boy of four and a half, still in petticoats, his 
 fat arms bare and brown, with a clean home- 
 spun pinafore and a home-made straw hat 
 on his flaxen curls. Rather unwillingly he 
 endured the kiss neighbour Thornton insisted 
 on giving him, and started up the road towards 
 home in front of his mother. 
 
 It was less than a mile to the Grey's farm, 
 and about a third of the distance had been 
 traversed when the energetic little fellow 
 tripped on a stone and fell full length. He 
 was not hurt, and scrambled up before his 
 mother reached him, but out of the flat straw 
 basket, which had jerked from his hand, rolled 
 four or five small crimson apples.. 
 
 " Oh, my Stevie ! didst thou pick them 
 up in neighbour Thornton's orchard ? " 
 
 " 'Es, I did," said Stevie defiantly ; " there 
 were lots. She'd let me have 'em." 
 
 " Perhaps she would, but she did not give 
 them to thee, and my little boy knows it is 
 
NOT VERY YOUNG 87 
 
 not right to take other people's things. Sup- 
 pose some other boy took the mustard and 
 cress from thy garden, thou wouldst not Uke 
 that." 
 
 " 'Es I should," was the sullen answer, for 
 Stevie knew well he was in the wrong, and felt 
 thoroughly naughty. 
 
 " Put the apples in the basket again ; we must 
 take them back to neighbour Thornton." 
 
 Stevie stood stock still. The gentle mother 
 glanced at him, then picked them up herself, 
 and, taking the unwilling hand, started on 
 the return journey. But not many yards 
 were accomplished when Stevie suddenly 
 plumped down in the dust of the road as if 
 all the stiffness was gone out of his lower 
 limbs. His mother lifted him once, but in 
 vain — down he went again. 
 
 " Oh, Stevie ! Why is mother's little man 
 so naughty ? " 
 
 " Got bad legs," said Stevie sulkily. 
 
 But Deborah was not the woman to be 
 frustrated by a four-year-old. Her left arm 
 was fully engaged with the baby and basket 
 of apples, but the capable right arm swooped 
 up her sulky son by the middle, where he 
 hung limp, head and heels, until, flushed and 
 breathless, she arrived at the garden gate. 
 
 " Lawk a massy, Deborah ! What's come 
 
88 THE GOOSE THAT WAS 
 
 to Stevie ? Has he hurt himself ? " said old 
 Mrs. Thornton, waddling out in hot haste. 
 
 The mother dropped the heavy boy on the 
 grass-plat. " No, neighbour, but I am sorry 
 to say he is naughty. He was taking home 
 some of thy early apples in the empty egg- 
 basket." 
 
 " Didn't I give him any ? Bless the boy, 
 he is welcome ! I suppose he picked them 
 up in the orchard ? " 
 
 " Yes, and instead of asking thee for them 
 prettily, he took them, though he knows it 
 is wrong to steal." 
 
 " Steal ! That's a hard word for a four- 
 year-old and an apple, Deborah Grey." 
 
 " Yes, steal," said the mother firmly. " My 
 lads shall learn from the very first not to 
 take what does not belong to them ; I want 
 them to grow up honest men." 
 
 " Well, you do have the singularest notions ! 
 I suppose it is your Quaker ways. I liked 
 my children to be happy while they were 
 little, and never crossed them in trifles." 
 
 " Stevie will be happier when he has learnt 
 this lesson — to do as he would be done by. 
 Come, my boy, we must trot home and get 
 father's supper." 
 
 " Mayn't I give him the apples now, then ? " 
 
 " No, thank thee kindly, neighbour, he must 
 
NOT VERY YOUNG 89 
 
 not have them. It will help him to remem- 
 ber." 
 
 The stiffness had come back into Stevie's 
 legs, and he trotted home beside his mother 
 in silence. She talked to him cheerfully and 
 made no further allusion to the apples ; but 
 when father remarked that she looked tired 
 — Baby James was growing such a heavy 
 boy — Stevie crept to her side and whispered 
 penitently : " My legs shan't never go bad 
 again, mother," and nobly kept his promise.^ 
 
 The following winter, when snow was on 
 the ground, Deborah Grey was making her 
 butter under difficulties. The dairy was far 
 too cold to work in, and the great red crock 
 of cream stood near the wood fire burning 
 on the kitchen hearth, carefully stirred round 
 and round whenever the busy housewife passed 
 near it. She felt it was approaching the 
 right temperature, and taking the handle of 
 the chimney crane in a stout holder, she 
 tilted up the great black kettle until a copiou s 
 stream of boiling water fell into the tall roun d 
 wooden churn, which she tipped towards it 
 with her left hand. Carefully she rinsed the 
 scalding water round and round to prevent 
 the butter from sticking, and had just poure d 
 
90 THE GOOSE THAT WAS 
 
 it into a pail when, from the large wicker 
 cradle, came unmistakable sounds that that 
 young autocrat, the baby, had awakened 
 and required his luncheon at that very instant. 
 She spoke to him soothingly, but at eight 
 months old hunger has greater power than 
 reasoning, and the screams became so piercing 
 .that she turned to lift him up. 
 
 At that moment in pranced Stevie, astride 
 of a stick, taking an imaginary ride " to 
 market like father." 
 
 " Ah, Stevie, just in time for thy tasks. 
 Get the spelling-book from the side table while 
 I attend to baby." 
 
 Stevie had just been promoted to the old 
 primer, with a cover of coarse grey paper, 
 in which his mother had learned to read 
 twenty years before, and he cordially hated 
 it, in spite of his mother's gentle teaching. 
 In a moment the book was jerked into the 
 steaming churn, and as his mother sat down 
 in a low chair with the baby on her lap he 
 said innocently : " Spelling-book isn't on the 
 table, mother." 
 
 " Where can it have been put ? We must 
 ask Betsy. Ah, here she is ! Betsy, didst 
 thou see a little grey book when dusting the 
 kitchen this morning ? " 
 
 To Betsy all books were equal enigmas, 
 
NOT VERY YOUNG 91 
 
 and she denied all knowledge of it. " Ah 
 well, the horn-book must do for to-day. Bring 
 it here, Stevie. Betsy, just pour the cream 
 into the churn — carefully, and then thou canst 
 begin to beat while I hear the boy's tasks. 
 Now, Stevie." 
 
 Stevie had brought a quaint wooden frame 
 with a handle, where under a thin sheet of 
 yellowish horn was a printed alphabet and a 
 few syllables. Stevie knew the horn-book by 
 heart, and he rattled them off from " a, b, ab," 
 to " o, X, ox," which last meant something real 
 and tangible to the little country boy — an 
 advantage which was shared by the next 
 task — the repetition of Dr. Watts' " Let dogs 
 delight to bark and bite." But " Twice one 
 are two " had not the same advantage and 
 was uninteresting, and the teacher had some 
 difficulty in fixing the attention of the small 
 pupil ; but at last it was stumbled through, 
 and Stevie was allowed to rush off to the 
 barn, where his father's flail could be heard 
 threshing out the wheat. 
 
 Deborah propped up the baby in the cradle, 
 and gave him a wooden spoon to play with, 
 while she quickly made a long roll of plain 
 pudding, dropping it into the great black pot 
 where a large joint of home-cured bacon was 
 simmering. Just at that moment a rap came 
 
92 THE GOOSE THAT WAS 
 
 on- the door, and a prim elderly woman in a 
 warm cloak and hood entered. She was the 
 housekeeper of the bachelor rector of the 
 parish, come for fresh butter. Dame Batten 
 did not approve of Dissenters, but when the 
 butter of the orthodox was streaky and rancid, 
 and adorned with a profusion of red cow's 
 hairs, what could be done but resort to the 
 Quakeress whose butter had the best of repu- 
 tations ? 
 
 " Ah ! I see I am too early," she said acidly, 
 as the rhythmic thump of the churn-beater in 
 Betsy's hands fell on her ear. 
 
 " The cream had to be warmed before we 
 could begin to-day," said Deborah ; " but I 
 can hear it just on the turn, and if thou wilt 
 sit by the fire a few minutes I will soon beat 
 up a pound for thee." 
 
 The visitor complied, and Deborah, assisted 
 by Betsy, poured off the butter-milk, and 
 rinsed the mass of butter in several cold waters 
 before lifting it on to her freshly scalded 
 wooden tray. But, alas ! what met the 
 astonished eyes of the three women ? Butter 
 indeed, but mixed up with innumerable frag- 
 ments of grey and printed paper, the columns 
 of words betraying that the novel ingredient 
 was Stevie's lost spelling-book ! 
 
 " How could it have got there ? I scalded 
 
NOT VERY YOUNG 93 
 
 the churn myself ! " exclaimed Deborah. Then 
 it flashed on her mind that her naughty son 
 had hidden the hated volume, and the most 
 convenient hiding-place was the depths of the 
 churn ! 
 
 " It's that book you was asking for — that 
 there mischieful young Stevie have been and 
 gone and dropped it in the churn ! " giggled 
 Betsy. 
 
 Five or six pounds of winter butter was 
 no small loss, although the price was only 
 eightpence a pound in those far-off days, and 
 it was with a grave, sad face that Deborah 
 turned to her customer. 
 
 " I grieve that none of this is fit to offer 
 thy master, but I have half a pound of last 
 week's left, if thou wilt take that, and I will 
 make some more as soon as I can collect the 
 cream." 
 
 Dame Batten sniffed. She was a rigid 
 spinster, who did not approve of small boys, 
 and thought all mothers failed egregiously to 
 keep them in order ; so she took herself off iii 
 high dudgeon. 
 
 " Betsy," said the mistress, " put this back 
 in the dairy and say nothing about it. 
 The men will be coming in to dinner soon, 
 and I must talk to Stevie about it by 
 himself. 
 
94 THE GOOSE THAT WAS 
 
 With the irresponsibihty of early childhood, 
 Stevie had entirely forgotten his disposal of 
 the spelling-book, and came in gaily, hungry 
 for his meal. His mother filled his pewter 
 plate with bacon and pudding, and neither 
 he nor his father noticed how grave and silent 
 she was. 
 
 " Don't go out again now, Stephen, I have 
 something to show thee in the dairy," she 
 said, as they rose from the table, and, taking 
 the chubby hand, she led him away. The 
 unlucky mass of butter stood on a low shelf. 
 " Look, Stephen, all mother's nice butter 
 spoilt because a naughty little boy was too 
 idle to learn his tasks. Didst thou not know 
 that the book would do mischief in the churn 
 when thou dropped it in ? " 
 
 " I didn't think," murmured the culprit. 
 
 " No, thou didn't think, so the butter was 
 spoilt, and the money this week was to have 
 bought father the new leather leggings which he 
 needs so badly, and now he must wait. And 
 I shall have to find money for a new spelling- 
 book too, for our little boy must not grow up 
 a dunce." 
 
 " I'm sorry I put it in the churn," whim- 
 pered Stevie. 
 
 " So am I, Stephen ; but thou did worse than 
 that : thou told mother a lie about the book." 
 
NOT VERY YOUNG 95 
 
 " I only said it wasn't on the table ; I 
 didn't say I couldn't find it." 
 
 " Thou meant to deceive me, and it grieves 
 me that my boy's word cannot be trusted to 
 be true. Oh, Stevie! how can I teach thee 
 that the truth must always be spoken if thou 
 art to grow up a good man like father ? " 
 
 " Aunt Jane whips Robbie," was the un- 
 expected answer. 
 
 " Yes, and she gave me a little rod for 
 thee, but I hoped never to haye to use it. 
 But I must make thee remember, so come 
 upstairs." 
 
 The whipping was administered, gravely 
 and sorrowfully, and the sobbing child put 
 to bed after it. There the small mind did a 
 good deal of thinking, and when the good 
 mother brought him up a nice supper of hot 
 bread-and-milk he kissed the hand that gave 
 it and whispered, " I does love thee, mother ! " 
 
 Never again was the rod needed. Lively 
 and mischievous Stevie might be, but the 
 lesson in truth-telling had taken firm hold of 
 his mind. The lost spelling-book was replaced 
 in a very unexpected way. Dame Batten 
 told the rector of the misdeed of the boy 
 and the loss of the butter ; but to her surprise 
 it was greeted with a roar of laughter, as the 
 rector declared there was some spirit in the 
 
96 THE GOOSE THAT WAS 
 
 little Quaker lad. His father might be a 
 nuisance with his scruples about tithes and 
 church rates, but for Deborah the parson 
 had a hearty respect, as in many a poverty-, 
 stricken sick room he found she had supplied 
 the nice broth or milk, or clean linen rag that 
 was needed, and which Dame Batten was 
 unwilling to produce. 
 
 So on his next visit to the town the rector 
 bought a really good lesson-book, with readings 
 as well as the detested columns of spelling, 
 and actually " cuts " of lions and elephants 
 and ships, things full of wonder to the little 
 country boy, who rapidly began to benefit 
 by his mother's teaching, and at eight years 
 old he could read fluently and write neatly. 
 
 Mf * * :ti 
 
 That winter sore trouble came to the Gray's 
 farm. Matthew Grey had taken, out of kind- 
 ness, an orphan lad. Bill Stent, because he 
 was starving, but he proved surly and un- 
 manageable, and was too fond of skulking off 
 to the town on every opportunity. 
 
 That winter such visits were strictly for- 
 bidden, as small-pox was known to be raging 
 there ; but the prospect of a specially exciting 
 cock-fight was too much for Bill, and he 
 sneaked off on a Sunday afternoon to his old 
 associates. 
 
NOT VERY YOUNG 97 
 
 A few days later old Isaac, who shared the 
 men's room over the brew-house with Bill, 
 reported that he was unwell, and the dreaded 
 sign of the horrible disease appeared. 
 
 Poor Deborah ! There were then no isola- 
 tion hospit&.ls, no nurses of any sort to be 
 had. She could not leave a friendless lad 
 to die alone. Betsy bore marks of having 
 had the disease, but she was a flighty young 
 girl, not fit for nursing ; so with a heavy heart 
 the mother sent her two boys to an aunt's 
 and faced the terrible task herself. Bill re- 
 covered, but the infection seized on the gentle 
 mistress, and after a few sad days she passed 
 away. Her heartbroken husband took her 
 coffin in a farm-cart to the Friends' burial 
 ground at dead of night, assisted by three 
 men of the village, who took the risk out of 
 kindness and pity for the neighbour so sorely 
 stricken. 
 
 It was to a desolate home that poor Stephen 
 and James came back when fear of infection 
 was over, and it was no wonder that Matthew 
 soon felt that a new mistress was iiecessary, 
 and married Susan Starley, who had recently 
 joined the Friends. She proved a kind step- 
 mother to the boys, easy-going to a fault, 
 and they soon came to love her ; but Stephen 
 never forgot the lessons of his own mother's 
 
 7 
 
98 THE GOOSE THAT WAS 
 
 stricter rule. He got little more schooling, 
 for his father needed his help on the farm. 
 Times were hard, and when Bill vanished as 
 soon as he was recovered from the small-pox, 
 and was charitably supposed to have been taken 
 by the Press Gang, he was never replaced. 
 
 Susan always declared she had " no luck 
 in a dairy," and wasted the small means with 
 her easy thriftlessness. She had one child, a 
 daughter, and when left a widow turned in 
 helpless dependence to her stepson, Stephen, 
 then just twenty-one. 
 
 That was a hard year, and when Michaelmas 
 was approaching the rent was not ready — a 
 point which Matthew Grey, in spite of poverty, 
 had never failed to accomplish. The wool 
 had not sold well, the harvest was a wet one, 
 and the corn so damp that it could not 
 profitably be threshed till Christmas, so the 
 little hoard was still six pounds short. 
 
 Stephen had raised on the common a fine 
 flock of geese that year, but had been dis- 
 appointed in his efforts to sell them. Old 
 Master Ticehurst, the higgler, who jogged 
 about the country in a cart collecting poultry 
 from the farms, shook his head. " Money 
 was so tight that year that not even the 
 gentlefolks were asking for geese ; he could 
 not buy them." 
 
NOT VERY YOUNG 99 
 
 Stephen tramped seven miles to a town 
 where a large market was held, but found 
 that there also was no demand for geese, and 
 he felt as if all his care in rearing the twenty- 
 three goslings was in vain. When he reached 
 home, weary and disheartened, he found the 
 house deserted, but hearing voices in the loft, 
 he climbed the ladder, where a most unex- 
 pected sight met his eyes. His stepmother, 
 her daughter Susie, and James, now a stalwart 
 lad of seventeen, were seated on low stools, 
 and each plucking a goose at lightning speed, 
 while the floor was covered with limp dead 
 birds awaiting their turn. 
 
 " Ha, Stevie, here's luck at last ! Just 
 after thee left old Ticehurst came to say he 
 had a pressing order for two dozen geese for 
 one of the Prince Regent's banquets. He will 
 give five and sixpence apiece for them if we 
 meet him and his crates in time for the carrier's 
 waggon at the cross-roads at five to-morrow 
 morning. So I killed them all. Now get a 
 mouthful of bread and cheese and come and 
 help pick, for we must get them done, if we 
 sit up all night." 
 
 " That's good news, Jem ; I'll come at 
 once. But there are only twenty-three geese ; 
 he must get one elsewhere." 
 
 " Oh, that's all right ! I killed the grey 
 
100 THE GOOSE THAT WAS 
 
 gander to make up the number ; he was only 
 a last year's bird." 
 
 " He is old enough to be tough," said 
 Stephen doubtfully^ and as he plucked the 
 geese until the feathers lay like a huge snow- 
 drift in the corner, and the more tedious process 
 of " stubbing " went on, he debated in his 
 mind whether it was quite honest to include 
 the gander. 
 
 It was past midnight when the weary party 
 went to bed, and at four Stevie and Jem 
 arose again to take the geese to the cross- 
 roads. While Jem fed and harnessed the 
 horse, Stevie took his rushlight into the best 
 parlour, found a bit of card and a quill, and 
 in large black letters wrote, " Not Very 
 Young." He was tying this ticket to the leg 
 of the defunct gander when Jem appeared to 
 help carry the heavy birds down to the cart. 
 
 " Steve ! How canst thou be so foolish ? 
 No one would notice that bird among the 
 others ! It's not business to be so absurdly 
 particular. Old Ticehurst would keep that 
 joke against us for years. Take that ticket 
 off, unless you want to be a laughing-stock ! " 
 
 "No, Jem, I'm not going to sell an old 
 gander for a young one. 'Taint honest, and 
 to be honest was what our own mother taught 
 me, if thou art not old enough to remember." 
 
NOT VERY YOUNG 101 
 
 Jem was silenced. The birds were packed 
 in the cart, and Stephen jolted away down 
 the rough road in the grey dawn. Ticehurst 
 was waiting for him. 
 
 " Ha, Stephen, you've got done in time ! 
 My missus and I have been up all night picking 
 fowls, but I have managed to fill the whole 
 order of the Prince's caterer. What a nice 
 lot of geese to be sure — so plump and clean- 
 picked. Why, what's this ? ' Not very 
 young ! ' What does that mean, hey ? " 
 
 " That gander was a last year's bird, neigh- 
 bour Ticehurst, and I could not sell him for a 
 green goose." 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha I " roared the old man. " Well, 
 never in my born days as a higgler have I 
 seen the like I ' Not Very young ! ' Ha, ha, ha ! 
 What possessed you to do that, Stephen Grey ? " 
 
 " I was brought up honest," said Stephen 
 sturdily. 
 
 " I should think you was ! Well, put it 
 in here, ticket and all. It will show the 
 Prince Regent's folk that there are honest 
 men in the world still, and there ain't many 
 such about the Brighton Pavilion, so I've 
 heard tell. Here comes the carrier. Help me 
 to lift in these crates, Steve, and I'll pay you 
 on the spot." 
 
 The gold and silver were soon in Stephen's 
 
102 THE GOOSE THAT WAS 
 
 pocket, and Ticehurst drove off chuckling : 
 " ' Not very young ! ' Ho, ho, ho ! I shall 
 never forget that gander ! " 
 
 He never did. Over and over again in 
 fairs and markets and private business inter- 
 views he told the tale of the labelled goose. 
 Many said openly that the young Quaker 
 was a fool ; but others took silent note, and 
 for very shame refrained from passing goods 
 they were selling as better than they were. 
 To Ticehurst himself it often acted as a check, 
 and ever after Stephen found him a ready 
 purchaser of small farm produce. 
 
 Year after year the honest man plodded 
 on. James left the farm for more remunera- 
 tive work ; but Stephen made a home for 
 his stepmother and Susie, who adored 
 " Brother," and turned out a bright, active 
 helper, who assisted him greatly in farming 
 matters. 
 
 No eight-hour day then if a living was to 
 be got off a small, barren farm. From dawn 
 to dusk Stephen toiled, his only breaks in the 
 week driving four miles to meeting on First 
 and Fourth days, where he sat in his linen 
 smock among other homely folk, worshipping 
 God in his simple way and striving all the 
 time after the ideals of right living learnt from 
 the young mother who died so long ago. 
 
NOT VERY YOUNG 103 
 
 He never married, and a nameless mound 
 in a remote Friends' burial-ground alone 
 shows outwardly that such a humble life was 
 ever lived ; but we may believe that the 
 spiritual influence of his faithful consistency 
 has been passed on, and helped not a few 
 who came after him in their struggles for 
 right against wrong. 
 
HARMLESS AS DOVES 
 
 1798 
 
 A RED winter sun was just rising, lighting up 
 the frozen valley of the little river Sow, in 
 County Wexford. Every pool was coated 
 with ice, every tree and grass-blade covered 
 deeply with rime, until they resembled white 
 coral. On the bridge were lounging a number 
 of men, not ill-fed, but ragged and sinister 
 looking, who stopped their eager conversation 
 as a sturdy figure in rough, but tidy, home- 
 spun frieze clothes, and with a ruddy, open 
 countenance, came towards them from the 
 path by the river side. He carried a fowling- 
 piece and was heavily laden with three fine 
 mallard, their metallic green heads gleaming 
 in the sunlight, a couple of teal and quite 
 a bunch of snipe, tied together by their necks, 
 with their long pliant bills sticking out in 
 all directions. 
 
 " Good-morning to you boys," he said 
 cheerily. 
 
 " Ah, Master Joe, it is yourself that always 
 has the luck with the shootin'," said one of 
 the men. 
 
 104 
 
HARMLESS AS DOVES 105 
 
 " It is just the morning for wild-fowl. I 
 was down at the far marsh before it was light, 
 and have got more than we can eat at home." 
 
 He laid down his gun on the low wall and 
 proceeded to untie his game. 
 
 " Here, Dan Nolan, would not thy mistress 
 like one of these ducks to stew up for the 
 taste of meat for all your hungry gossoons ? 
 And thy poor brother Mike, Morgan Burne — 
 would he fancy a couple of snipe ? They 
 are delicate little birds for the sick, though 
 hardly a mouthful for a hungry man." 
 
 Both offers were gladly accepted. Joe 
 Williams tied up the riemaining birds, and 
 turning to pick up his gun, found one of the 
 men was handling it admiringly. 
 
 " Sure, that's a fine gun," he said. 
 
 " Aye, 'tis a good one — I saved my six- 
 pences for many a long day before I could 
 afford to buy it ; but it has helped to clear 
 off the plague of rabbits on our farm and 
 provides many a tasty meal for us." 
 
 Larry O'Neil gave it back reluctantly. 
 
 " Sure, Master Joe, 'tis too good to be 
 wasted on rabbits entirely. 'Tis for more 
 sarious work we will be wantin' guns before 
 many weeks if things go on as they do now. 
 We may be comin' after it one of these days 
 to defend our rights." 
 
 Joe Williams's honest face flushed, and he 
 
106 HARMLESS AS DOVES 
 
 said firmly: "No gun of mine shall ever be 
 turned against my brother men, call them 
 what you will. Ah, Larry, there are better 
 ways than violence to get wrongs righted, if 
 you have patience." 
 
 " You Quakers are half Orangemen," said 
 Larry suspiciously. 
 
 " Nay, my friend, we take no sides in 
 matters that lead to violence. ' Peace and 
 goodwill to all ' is our motto, as all our neigh- 
 bours know well." 
 
 Joe walked on, but overheard a murmur 
 about " a good gun," which filled him with 
 consternation. Some months before advice had 
 come to all the Quakers of County Wexford, 
 from Leinster Quarterly Meeting, to get rid 
 of all weapons from their houses. Most had 
 complied. Joe's father had at once thrown 
 his ancient fowling-piece into the deepest 
 pool of the river, but Joe, a vigorous young 
 man of thirty, had clung to his new one. 
 He was a remarkably good shot, and found 
 keen delight in such expeditions as the present " 
 after wild-fowl. 
 
 He was popular with all parties among 
 their few neighbours, and could not bring 
 himself to believe in the danger of an uprising, 
 but Larry O'Neil's words had brought con- 
 viction that Friends' fears were well founded. 
 
 It was not far to the yard of the picturesque 
 
HARMLESS AS DOVES 107 
 
 building still known as " The Quakers' Meal," 
 among County Wexford folk, but in that short 
 space his resolve was taken. He knew he 
 was still watched by the idle group on the 
 bridge. Two large stones, some two feet 
 apart, lay near the mill door. He laid the 
 cherished fowling-piece across them, and sud- 
 denly lifting a third heavy stone in his strong 
 hands, he dashed it down upon the gun. 
 A crash, and the long barrel lay bent and 
 splintered, the well-polished stock falling by 
 the side of the stones. He picked it up sadly, 
 and as his Sister Jane appeared at the house 
 door he said ruefully : 
 
 " Here is a bit of firewood for thee to use 
 when these ducks are roasted, sisteri We 
 must make the most of them, for they are 
 the last wild-duck we are likely to taste." 
 
 " Oh, Joe ! thy beautiful gun ! What made 
 thee change thy mind ? " 
 
 " I have been hearing ugly rumours of an 
 uprising for some time past, and out Wexford 
 way the military have been burning houses 
 and haggards of those whom they suspect 
 to belong to the United Irishmen. There 
 was a desperate look on those men at the 
 bridge, such as I never saw among our neigh- 
 bours before. Had my gun been stolen to 
 take human life, I should never have forgiven 
 myself." 
 
108 HARMLESS AS DOVES 
 
 " I am sure thou acted under Best Wisdom, 
 but oh, Joe, how can our poor countrymen 
 be shown the wickedness of bloodshed to 
 those who profess to be the followers of the 
 Prince of Peace ? " 
 
 " There is strong provocation on both sides, 
 and the Protestant clergy believe in the force 
 of arms as much as Father Murphy, who, it 
 is reported, is the leader among the United 
 Irishmen in these parts. We Friends must 
 just go on, striving to be living examples of 
 goodwill to all, and of patience under provoca- 
 tion." 
 
 " Well, brother, here is thy bowl of hot 
 stirabout, for which I am sure thou art ready. 
 As thou says, we will make the most of the 
 wild-fowl. What fine, heavy ducks they are ! " 
 said Jane admiringly, as she carried them off 
 to the larder. 
 
 Old John Williams of Randall's Mill was 
 getting feeble and deaf, and most of the 
 business had fallen into the capable hands of 
 Joe. His wife was more active — a quiet 
 woman possessed of a sublime faith in the 
 Unseen, a mother among the several small 
 meetings of Friends in County Wexford, and 
 her son and daughter followed her lead with 
 reverence and love. 
 
 Not long after the destruction of the gun 
 the family were surprised by a call from the 
 
HARMLESS AS DOVES 109 
 
 local magistrate and a Protestant clergyman. 
 In the best parlour, with carefully closed 
 doors, they explained to the Williams family 
 that they were organising the loyalists to 
 resist the threatened uprising, and all young 
 men and weapons must be prepared. 
 
 " We hear that you have a good gun, Mr. 
 Joseph," began the magistrate. 
 
 " I have no gun at all," said Joe, smiling. 
 " When I heard that it might be claimed 
 for a sterner use than shooting wild-fowl I 
 destroyed it." 
 
 The magistrate flushed angrily. " You 
 young fool ! " he said. " Do you not know 
 there are plots on every side to murder all 
 the Protestants and take their goods ? " 
 
 " So I have heard," said Joe quietly ; " but 
 I do not see that it is laid upon me to do evil 
 that good may come. We iare Friends, and 
 desire to be friendly with ail." 
 
 " This young man evidently thinks he has 
 a special protection from the Almighty," said 
 the parson, with a sneer. 
 
 " And so he has, James Doran," said the 
 gentle mother firmly. " ' The Lord is a 
 stronghold in the day of trouble, and He 
 knoweth them that trust in Him.' These 
 are fearful times ; we know not what is 
 before us, but nothing can convince us that 
 we need the defence of carnal weapons. We 
 
110 HARMLESS AS DOVES 
 
 are in the Hands of One who has never failed 
 His trusting children, and He can protect us." 
 
 " Well, when you see your old parents 
 and pretty sister abused and murdered before 
 your eyes, you will wish that gun was in 
 your hands, Joe Williams ; but it is no use 
 wasting our time on fanatics." And the 
 visitors left, with contempt and anger in 
 their worn and anxious faces. 
 
 As the spring wore on, more and more 
 serious became the symptoms of mutual dis- 
 trust and unrest. The men idled and neglected 
 to till their land. 
 
 " Sure, we will have the best of everything 
 when we get our rights ! " they told Joe, 
 when he asked them why the crops were 
 not being set. 
 
 The Friends worked on steadily. Their 
 farms were tilled as usual ; the Williams's 
 small mill ground wheat and barley for all 
 the neighbourhood, and still the rumours of 
 a coming catastrophe came from all sides. 
 
 It was in April that an old woman, Mary 
 Kavanagh, who had a tiny farm a quarter 
 of a mile away, came one morning in deep 
 distress. 
 
 " Ah, Miss Jane, would you be lendin' us 
 a pair of scissors ? Those murtherin' military 
 have put a hot pitch cap on my poor boy 
 Mike's head, and the beautiful curls of him 
 
HARMLESS AS DOVES 111 
 
 are all plastered down, and it is in an agony 
 he is, and no tool of ours will cut it off." 
 
 " Why, what has Mike been doing to offend 
 the soldiers ? " 
 
 " Sorra a thing he did ; he was only coUo- 
 guin' with his cousin, Dan Milligan, at Ferns 
 bey ant, and down on them caniie the military, 
 and poor Dan, my own sister's son (her bed 
 has been in hiven these many years, thanks 
 be to the saints !) — he was taken and hanged 
 on the big tree by his own door. It was a 
 leader of sedition they said he was, and must 
 be made an example of, and the other poor 
 boys, 'nigh a dozen of them, they took to a 
 cauldron of scaldin' hot pitch, and dipped 
 linen in it, and bound a cap tight over the 
 heads of them, and when it was hard they 
 tould them to get away home before worse 
 happened." 
 
 Joe took the shining scissors from Jane's 
 hand. 
 
 " I'll come and help thee, Mary Kavanagh 
 (some soft rag and oil we shall want, sister, 
 please), and we will try and undo this cruel 
 torment." 
 
 Micky, a lively lad of eighteen, was lurking 
 in the cottage in desperate discomfort from 
 the horrible pitch cap, and many were his 
 groans as Joe, with skilful fingers, clipped 
 hair by hair, until he was released and stood 
 
112 HARMLESS AS DOVES 
 
 bald and ashamed, with sad scalds on his 
 forehead and neck where the thick dark curls 
 had not protected the skin. These were gently 
 bandaged with cool rags, and when Jane 
 appeared with a nice bowl of white bread- 
 and-milk, the boy ate eagerly, and was told 
 to lie down and get a good rest after his 
 long, painful walk home. 
 
 The mother continued to bewail " the 
 beautiful curls of him, and I that have every 
 day begged the blessed Saint Mogue to have 
 a care of my boy ! Our own saint seems to 
 have clean forgotten us, or else he is angry 
 that his holy bones lie beneath Ferns Cathay- 
 dral, that the Protestants stole from the 
 true Church." 
 
 " Danny said that will be righted soon, 
 and the Mass said in our own Cathaydral 
 again," said Mike. " But there's one thing 
 I must tell you. Master Joe — ^when the dark 
 day for the Protestants comes the Quakers 
 will be spared. At Ferns beyant the soldiers 
 had no ropes for the hangins or linen for 
 these cursed pitch caps, so they goes to Mr. 
 Haughton's shop, where there was plenty of 
 both. But he, good man — he up and refused 
 to sell for such cruel work. 
 
 '"I cannot prevint you from takin' them,' 
 says he, ' but with my consint no goods of 
 mine shall go to tormint my fellow-counthry- 
 
HARMLESS AS DOVES 113 
 
 min/ says he; and although they held out 
 the gould before his eyes, never a bit would 
 he take." 
 
 " There's a lesson for you all, Micky, that 
 mercy is better than violence. Now take a 
 good rest, my boy, and come to the mill 
 to-morrow morning and we will dress your 
 burns again." 
 
 At last, one beautiful calm Sunday at the 
 end of May, the dreaded news was told to 
 Joe, by one of their workmen in the early 
 morning, that the rebellion had broken out 
 several miles to the northward. It was the 
 custom of the family at Randall's Mill to start 
 for Cooladine Meeting at eight o'clock, and 
 they set off as usual on the car drawn by 
 good grey Dennis, their favourite harness- 
 horse. They had barely gone two miles when 
 a neighbour, in a state of abject terror, told 
 them that two men were being murdered at 
 the cross-roads of Ballymurrin, 
 
 Jane turned white to the lips ; Joe glanced 
 at his mother. " I think we shall feel best 
 satisfied to go on," she said composedly, 
 and they found the cross-roads deserted, 
 but did not dare to look behind the thick 
 bushes by the roadside. 
 
 Several groups of men, armed with pikes, 
 hurried by as they drove forward, and one 
 
 8 
 
114 HARMLESS AS DOVES 
 
 who knew Joe said civilly enough : " It has . 
 come to this with us at last." 
 
 But before they reached the Bridge of 
 Ballinkeale they were roughly bidden to stop 
 by a man on horseback, surrounded by forty 
 armed men. 
 
 " Hi ! there ! You must turn back. We 
 can have no spies taking news to Enniscorthy ! " 
 
 " 'Tis not to Enniscorthy we are going, 
 my friend, but to worship God in the Friends' 
 Meeting House at Cooladine, as all our neigh- 
 bours know that we constantly do," said 
 Rachel Williams quietly. 
 
 " Oh indeed, but we let none pass this 
 day; and let me advise you, ma'am, to go 
 to your home and keep out of sight, or I 
 won't be answerable for the consequences." 
 
 Finding remonstrance in vain, Joe turned 
 his horse, and they proceeded homeward, 
 meeting on the way another car-load of faith- 
 ful Friends. " Come and sit with us in the 
 parlour at the mill," said the mother ; " we 
 must not miss our united seeking for Best 
 guidance in these sad days, even if we are 
 prevented from meeting with Cooladine 
 Friends." 
 
 So when the horses were taken " from 
 under," as they say in County Wexford, and 
 Jane had given a drink of milk to the fright- 
 ened Barry children, ten quiet people seated 
 
HARMLESS AS DOVES 115 
 
 themselves in the parlour, where the only 
 sound was the rustle of the lilac bushes out- 
 side the casement window and the distant 
 ripple of the mill stream. During the hour 
 several voices offered fervent prayer for help 
 and guidance and strength to endure patiently, 
 and when timid Susan Barry collected her 
 flock to return to their farm, she felt a calm 
 uplift which lasted through many troublous 
 days. 
 
 After Joe had seen their friends drive off 
 and was standing in the yard, one of their 
 workmen ran up in great excitement. " The 
 United Irishmen are out, and say I must 
 be armed when the soldiers come upon us; 
 where is the long fork that we use at harvest. 
 Master Joe ? " 
 
 " Thou knows very well, Jim, that no fork 
 of mine shall be used against a brother man, 
 and if I gave it thee I should share thy guilt 
 as a murderer." 
 
 " We are only out against our oppressors," 
 said Jim sulkily ; but he lounged off, making 
 no search for the weapon. 
 
 After dinner Joe and his sister went to the 
 high ground behind the house, and were 
 shocked to see flames and smoke rising from 
 many places where had stood the pleasant 
 homes of their Protestant neighbours, and 
 passers-by brought fearful accounts of cruel 
 
116 HARMLESS AS DOVES 
 
 murders, robbery and destruction. Gunfire 
 in the distance told them that a battle was 
 going on, and in the evening a crowd of men 
 armed with guns as well as pikes, and some 
 wearing military coats with ominous stains, 
 trooped by, dragging with them a few sur- 
 vivors of the North Cork Mihtia, a hundred 
 of whom had been cut to pieces on Oulart 
 Hill. 
 
 They called for drink, and the Williams 
 family, taking it as the best policy to be civil 
 to all — even these savages, drunk with the 
 success of their butchery — brought out butter- 
 milk and barley bread and slices of the great 
 joint of bacon which had been cooked for 
 the workmen's meals. 
 
 The leader said threateningly that they 
 would find it to their interest to have plenty 
 of food and drink ready at demand, which 
 they did not fail to do. 
 
 When they had passed, Joe found to his 
 dismay that they had taken with them the 
 four fine horses that he used in his business, 
 leaving only some unbroken colts. News came 
 that the rebels had taken the town of Wexford 
 and were camped on Vinegar Hill, above 
 Enniscorthy. There they dragged scores of 
 innocent Protestants to be butchered by 
 executioners kept mad with drink. Several 
 Friends were taken up the hill and threatened 
 
HARMLESS AS DOVES 117 
 
 with instant death if they did not profess 
 the Roman Catholic religion, the priests being 
 prepared to baptise them on the spot; but 
 with steadfast faith they refused, and not 
 one Quaker life was lost during the ghastly 
 three weeks that chaos reigned in County 
 Wexford. 
 
 Joe Williams was taken by armed men in 
 one of his own fields and marched off towards 
 Vinegar Hill, but a neighbour spoke to him, 
 and was asked by the rebels if he knew any- 
 thing- against the young man. 
 
 " Sorra a bit ! " he said. " I know him 
 well; he's a Quaker and won't fight, and I'll 
 take my oath he is neither an Orangeman nor 
 a Protestant." 
 
 "I've heard the Quakers are a good quiet 
 set of people, and hurt none," said the man. 
 " There are none in my part of the country, 
 but I should be sorry to injure such," and 
 he shook hands with Joe when he released 
 him. His appearance at the mill was a cause 
 for unspeakable thankfulness to his parents 
 and sister, for a wild little gossoon had just 
 rushed in with the news that he was a prisoner 
 and on his way to the camp. 
 
 The same evening, when he was quietly 
 attending to his farm, two more men arrested 
 him, pointing a loaded gun at his breast, 
 but his steadfast fearlessness overcame their 
 
118 HARMLESS AS DOVES 
 
 evil intent, and they slunk off, doing him no 
 harm. 
 
 Some quieter days followed, only interrupted 
 by the driving oft of five young steers to 
 furnish meat for the camp on Vinegar Hill, 
 but to Jane's satisfaction the six dairy cows 
 were spared. She and Biddy the maid were 
 kept incessantly boiling great pieces from 
 their store of home-cured bacon and baking 
 barley bread, for constant were the demands 
 of passers-by for food and drink. The 
 Williams's little store of beer and mead was 
 soon exhausted, rather to their. relief, as the 
 cool buttermilk was less likely to inflame the 
 marauders to work further mischief. 
 
 When Sunday came again, anxiety for the 
 welfare of their dear friends the Thompsons 
 of Cooladine made the family very desirous 
 to get to meeting. The Barry family, whose 
 horses had also been taken, came over to 
 meeting at the mill, but Joe and Jane, being 
 young and strong, walked the long miles to 
 their usual place of worship. Once they were 
 roughly told that they might go to Mass, 
 and nowhere else, as all Ireland was now of 
 one religion; but someone who knew them 
 interceded, and they passed on safely for 
 the hour of worship with their friends, who, 
 they were relieved to find, had suffered only 
 the spoiling of their goods. 
 
HARMLESS AS DOVES 119 
 
 As the time of Enniscorthy Quarterly Meet- 
 ing drew on, many were the conjectures if it 
 would be possible to hold it — whether Friends 
 from Dublin and County Wicklow would be 
 allowed by the rebels to take their peaceful 
 way through the disturbed district. Joe had 
 quite intended to attempt to go, but he had, 
 in the absence of his workmen, been toiling 
 incessantly in the mill and on the farm, and 
 a neglected blister on his heel made the long 
 walk an impossibility. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, that Quarterly 
 Meeting was duly held. Friends from Dublin 
 arrived in their own carriages, and, as they 
 entered the streets of Enniscorthy, had fre- 
 quently to ahght to drag away from their 
 wheels the bodies of the victims of the cruel 
 uprising, which no one had dared to bury. 
 They had with them the brave and spiritually 
 minded American minister David Sands, who 
 they felt had been assuredly sent for their 
 help and strengthening at this terrible time. 
 
 The day after the meeting, a party of 
 Friends quietly set about burying the dead, 
 no one saying them nay ; so they laid in one 
 large pit the mortal remains of their neighbours 
 which had been torn by swine in the very 
 streets where they had lived as quiet and 
 respected citizens. 
 
 David Sands, driven by a courageous young 
 
120 HARMLESS AS DOVES 
 
 Dublin man in his own carriage, visited the 
 families of Friends all through the disturbed 
 district, and no one molested them. At 
 Randall's Mill his ministry was particularly 
 acceptable, and a poor Protestant widow who 
 had taken refuge there spoke of him as an 
 angel sent from heaven in their hour of need. 
 
 From Jane Williams he heard the history 
 of all they had suffered, and when she spoke 
 with horror of a gun having been pointed 
 at her brother's breast, David Sands turned 
 to Joe with a smile. " I had a similar ex- 
 perience once, and thou mayst like to know 
 that the man who held that gun now preaches 
 the gospel of peace as a Quaker minister." 
 
 " How could that be ? Have you had a 
 rebelUon like this in America ? " 
 
 " It was private greed that put us in 
 jeopardy. Some wild*young military students 
 at West Point, when mad with drink, came 
 to my store at night and stole all my money. 
 They were armed, and threatened us, but 
 the hand of the Lord restrained them, and 
 this one, who had been decently brought 
 up, became deeply convicted of the sinfulness 
 of his ways, left the Army and joined Friends. 
 Most of the dollars were returned to me 
 also," said David Sands ; and after kind 
 farewells he drove away on his errand of 
 hope and mercy. 
 
HARMLESS AS DOVES 121 
 
 At last came the news that the King's 
 troops had retaken Wexford, and had swept 
 the camp on Vinegar Hill with terrible 
 slaughter. Reprisals of the cruellest descrip- 
 tion were ruthlessly carried out. A whole 
 street in the town of Carlow was burnt, the 
 inhabitants, innocent and guilty, being driven 
 back into the flames by the soldiery. Through 
 the whole County of Wexford came the troops, 
 treating all alike as rebels. Joe Williams was 
 robbed of his watch, money, and penknife, 
 in his own fields, by two soldiers, who then 
 followed him to his home, took the watch 
 from his feeble old father and some money 
 from Jane. 
 
 Shortly after Joe was again accused of 
 being a rebel, and a pistol held to his head, 
 when one of the soldiers, who had been appren- 
 ticed to his uncle at Waterford, recognised 
 him, and called to his comrade not to fire, 
 for he knew he was a Quaker and would 
 never have been concerned in the rebellion. 
 
 The troops were quite as ready to com- 
 mandeer food and drink as the country 
 people. One day Jane had procured and 
 roasted a nice loin of veal for the family 
 dinner, when in came a party of arrogant 
 young officers and devoured it all, and also 
 the little^ ore of wheaten bread made especially 
 for the elderly parents. Their followers made 
 
122 HARMLESS AS DOVES 
 
 equal havoc on the bacon and barley bread 
 in the kitchen which had been prepared 
 for the many refugees who were hiding in 
 the woods and rocks about Edenvale and 
 crept out at night to beg for a morsel of food. 
 
 One day Jane was in the meal-room when 
 she was startled by a whisper from the trap- 
 door above her, 
 
 " Jane — Janie, avourneen — couldn't you give 
 us a drop of buttermilk ? It's perishing with 
 thirst we are." 
 
 " Who is up there ? " asked Jane. 
 
 " Only us — Bess and Norah Byrne and our 
 cousin, Peggie O'Brien. Our mother could 
 not leave poor Mike, who is dyin', and Morgan 
 is taken prisoner, and she wouldn't have us 
 girls at home to be insulted by the soldiers, 
 so she sent us here three days since, knowin' 
 the Quakers would not turn us out. We 
 brought bread and some blankets, and pulled 
 the ladder up after us ; but do give us some 
 drink." 
 
 Jane fetched a large pitcher of milk and 
 handed it up to the thirsty girls. 
 
 " That is good ! May your bed in heaven 
 be aisy, if you are a heretic. Miss Jane ! And 
 now can't you get us some yarn and needles, 
 and we'll knit you some fine stockin's ? Sure, 
 we've nearly worn out our beads with prayin', 
 and little the saints seem to heed — may I 
 
HARMLESS AS DOVES 123 
 
 be forgiven for sayin' so ! " said Bess, the 
 older of the two pretty Byrne girls, whom 
 Jane knew slightly, but, being Roman Catholics, 
 had never been intimate with. 
 
 " Try praying to God Himself — the Lord 
 and Master of all the saints," she said ; and 
 soon a basket was handed up with mighty 
 skeins of the yarn she had spun for winter 
 stockings for her father and brother. She 
 added two books. The Life oj William Ed- 
 mundson and The Pilgrim's Progress, her whole 
 library, except the Bible, which she did not 
 dare offer. 
 
 So in the dreary weeks that the poor girls 
 hid in the loft, often, when they heard the 
 military about, not daring even to whisper, 
 they had some employment to while away 
 the long hours, and no one but their faithful 
 friend had any suspicion of their whereabouts. 
 Other refugees came constantly for food. As 
 dear old Rachel Williams would say, it was 
 wonderful how the barrel of meal and the 
 cruse of oil held out. Joe ground the coarse 
 meal for cakes, and Jane, having no market 
 for her butter, could afford a little of that, 
 so no hungry body was sent away empty 
 from the mill. 
 
 Early one morning Joe was dealing out 
 food to a group of wild, unkempt men, whom 
 he well knew had been leaders in the rebellion. 
 
124 HARMLESS AS DOVES 
 
 when the sound of many horses' hoofs on 
 the road alarmed them, and in a moment 
 they dashed under the arch of the bridge, 
 standing knee-deep in the water that fed the 
 broad, mossy mill wheel. Grass and rushes 
 hid the entrance, and as the poor men cowered 
 together as much out of sight as possible, 
 they heard the horses clatter above them, 
 and a loud voice asking Joe if there were 
 any fugitives about. 
 
 " I daresay there may be," said Joe com- 
 posedly ; " but I am a Quaker, and go about 
 my business, taking no sides, and desire to 
 be at peace with all men." 
 
 " Well," said the officer, " if you see any 
 such tell them of the King's clemency. A 
 Protection will be given to all, who come to 
 the military headquarters to 4pply for it." 
 
 "That is good news," said Joe ; "I will 
 tell all it may concern." 
 
 Away clattered the troop, and when the 
 wet, scared men crawled out of their hidings 
 place, he earnestly advised them to avail 
 themselves of this offer, and go back to their 
 homes and their work in peace. 
 
 It was three Friends, Abraham Shackleton, 
 Ephraim Boaks and John Thomas, who under-- 
 took to be mediators between the King's 
 troops and the rebels in County KUdare. Dis- 
 approving of all violence, they were trusted 
 
HARMLESS AS DOVES 125 
 
 by both sides, and although for many months 
 there were robberies, and threats, and sore 
 anxiety, gradually the reign of terror died 
 away, and it became possible to live a normal 
 life again. 
 
 In spite of many moments of terrible 
 danger, when their Protestant neighbours were 
 being slaughtered all around them, not one 
 Friend lost his life except one young man, 
 who in a panic joined the King's army and 
 was almost immediately killed by the rebels, 
 but in worldly possessions they suffered sorely. 
 A few had their houses burnt as well as 
 rifled. Both sides of the combatants stripped 
 them again and again of foodstuffs, of cattle, 
 and of horses. Money was demanded by 
 desperate men at the pike's point, clothing 
 and bedding was stolen ; for the chance to 
 spoil their more thrifty neighbours was irre- 
 sistible to the greedy, ignorant, and idle 
 among the country folk. 
 
 Money to aid the Friends was freely supplied 
 by their fellow-members in Dublin and England, 
 and a considerable sum was put into the 
 capable hands of Joe and Jane Williams. 
 Their power to distribute was much helped 
 by a pleasant surprise. One night there was 
 a familiar whinny under their windows, and 
 there stood grey Dennis, the good horse that 
 had been stolen from them months before. 
 
126 HARMLESS AS DOVES 
 
 who had found his way home. He looked 
 starved and hard worked, but Joe soon pro- 
 vided him with the warm bran mash that 
 he loved, and in a few days he was fit to be 
 driven into Wexford, where cloth, linen, and 
 other necessaries of life were still to be bought. 
 
 The military in charge of the town told 
 Joe he must take out a " Protection," but 
 he stoutly refused, having had neither part 
 nor lot in the rebellion; so a free pass was 
 given to him, with which he went all about 
 the country on his errands of mercy and 
 healing. 
 
 He lived at Randall's Mill all his life, for 
 neither he nor his sister ever married, and 
 at the age of ninety he dictated to a relative 
 the story of his experience of the protection 
 of God for His trusting people during the 
 terrible days of 1798. 
 
POOR TIMATHA 
 
 1800 
 
 Lydia Bates looked up from her ironing at 
 the kitchen casement, against which sheets 
 of rain were driving. 
 
 " Oh, poor father ! how wet he will be ! 
 Put his list shoes down by the fire, Bessie 
 love. It was threatening when he started, 
 but he had promised to take Squire Long 
 in the forest his three new wheelbarrows 
 to-day." 
 
 " If father is gone to the forest, will he 
 see Auntie Timmie ? " said eight-year-old 
 Bessie^ eagerly. 
 
 " Yes, I hope so. Poor Auntie Tim ! I 
 wish we could go to the farm oftener." 
 
 A shade of anxiety crossed the gentle face 
 as she took another iron from the row standing 
 up before the heap of glowing wood coals on 
 the hearth. But a mother with five little 
 ones " under her feet " has little time for sad 
 reflections. 
 
 " Oh, Tommy, let Jim have a turn at pulUng 
 the cart ; father made it as much for him as 
 for thee. Baby is getting too near the fire, 
 
 127 
 
128 POOR TIMATHA 
 
 Bessie. Patty dear, pussies don't like to 
 have their tails pulled — look out of the 
 window at poor Sallie feeding the pigs in the 
 rain." 
 
 A rush to the casement followed, where 
 in the farmyard a figure in a man's great 
 coat and a sack over the head in coalheaver 
 fashion was carrying buckets to the noisy 
 inhabitants of the sty. 
 
 " Now she is shutting the little door of the 
 chicken-house. Mother, why must hens be 
 shut in every night ? " 
 
 " To keep out greedy Mr. Fox, Tomm^^" 
 and she began a merry chant : " The fox 
 jumped up one still clear night," the elder 
 children joining in as to a well-loved perform- 
 ance, until just at the climax, " The little 
 ones picked the bones, oh ! " a cart drove 
 into the yard, and there was a general shout 
 of *' There's father ! " 
 
 By this time the large clothes-horse was 
 covered with nicely ironed little shirts and 
 pinafores, with never a frill or scrap of trim- 
 ming to relieve their home-spun plairmess, 
 and the mother put by the irons and began 
 to set the table for supper. As she cut bread 
 into a long array of rough, red earthen bowls, 
 she said to Bessie ; " I am glad to have some 
 broth for father to-night— he is so fond 
 of Hopping John." 
 
POOR TIMATHA 129 
 
 The usual supper for the whole household, 
 including Sallie and two young apprentices 
 to the wheelwright's trade, was skimmed 
 milk, poured hot on bread and seasoned with 
 salt. When a little savoury broth, made by 
 stewing bones and vegetables, was added to 
 this, it was deemed a delicious treat, and 
 called in Sussex by the strange name of 
 " Hopping John." 
 
 Amos Bates came in after leaving his great- 
 coat to drip in the back kitchen, and was 
 greeted with rapture by his family ; but the 
 little people were well trained, and when 
 called to the supper table took their places 
 quietly. Sallie, now in a tidy cap and apron, 
 came in, followed by the boys from their 
 work in the wheelwright's shop. All bent 
 their heads for silent grace, and then the 
 horn spoons were busily plied in silence, except 
 for a little conversation between Amos and 
 his wife. 
 
 When all had finished, Bessie brought the 
 large Bible to her father, for after supper 
 was the only time available for family reading 
 in that busy household. The father read 
 a short portion, with a pause for silent prayer, 
 and soon after each little one came to him 
 for a loving kiss before the mother carried 
 them off to their beds. Sallie washed the 
 supper bowls, and sat down to her evening 
 
 9 
 
130 POOR TIMATHA 
 
 task of spinning, while Lydia, by the scanty 
 light of a greased rush held in rough iron 
 pinchers, busied herself with the darning of 
 her husband's long worsted stockings, . She 
 dismissed the 'prentices and maid earlier to 
 bed than usual, and then said to her husband 
 anxiously : " How didst thou find father and 
 poor Tim ? I see by thy face that thou 
 hadst a trying time." 
 
 " Well, I must own I had. Thy father 
 was sitting in his chair, looking very feeble 
 and suffering, and full of his old grievances. 
 He did seem a bit interested to hear of our 
 three boys, but snapped at me when I spoke 
 of baby as Jackie. ' He ought to have 
 been Timothy,' he said ; " but really, as he 
 has treated us, I don't see how he could 
 expect to have one of the littje lads named 
 for him. When I called him ' father,' he 
 said ' I'm no father of thine ! ' I offered 
 to take my horse and light plough (though 
 I could ill spare the time) and break up 
 the little potato field for them, but he only 
 grunted, and said Timatha would dig it — 
 he wouldn't encourage her laziness. Timatha 
 lazy ! I never saw anyone look harder worked ; 
 she hasn't a bit of flesh on her bones. She 
 was toiling awaj^ as usual, but nothing she 
 does seems to suit the poor old man. I think 
 she gets fair bewildered with his fault-finding,. 
 
POOR TIMATHA 131 
 
 till she hardly knows what she is about. 
 Why, he said one day she gave the new milk 
 straight to the pigs." 
 
 " Amos ! Did she really do that ? " ex- 
 claimed Lydia. 
 
 " Aye, it seems so ; and they have little 
 enough milk from those two poor old cows 
 on the wretched forest pastures ; but she gave 
 me her little box of butter to change for flour 
 at the shop, and these two pairs of stockings 
 that Friend Lee ordered. He will pay her 
 well for spinning and knitting, and with 
 the money she wants salt and a few other 
 needfuls ; but I fear they are hard up, the 
 farm has run down so since he quarrelled with 
 his last labourer, and now he is so feeble he 
 can't help much. He can't sleep either, and 
 blamed Timatha for going to sleep standing 
 when he called her to rub his limbs last night. 
 Poor miserable old man ! What made him 
 so cantankerous ? " 
 
 " Old Great- Aunt Peggie told me he was a 
 spoiled child. His father died when he was a 
 baby, and his mother gave in to him in every 
 way and made him feel so important, as if 
 the sun rose to oblige him. He was a fine, 
 handsome fellow, but he never could bear 
 contradiction in the least thing. They were 
 quite well off, and he took the big Broadmeads 
 farm under the Duke, and married my sweet 
 
132 POOR TIMATHA 
 
 mother, who was too good-tempered and 
 humble, and gave in to his every whim. 
 
 "Their first child, little Timothy, was a picture 
 of a boy, and father was so proud of him that 
 when he died of croup at two years old he 
 was distracted, but Aunt Peg, who was with 
 them, said it seemed more like anger than 
 sorrow. Then as years passed, and we five 
 girls were born, each was a fresh grievance. 
 He used to talk as if Providence had a 
 special spite against him in denying him sons. 
 Friends reasoned with him, for he always 
 went to meeting in those days, although he 
 was never more than a nominal Friend, but 
 it did little good — ' Never a son to bear 
 my name,' he said. 
 
 " At last, when a fifth girl was born, mother 
 ventured to suggest she should be called 
 Timatha — (there used to be an old Friend 
 at Horsham of that name) — and he seemed 
 to try and train her to be a son to him — 
 indeed he did with all of us. He never could 
 get on with workmen, and we girls used to 
 sow and reap and make hay, and look after 
 the cattle and pigs. But he was a hard 
 taskmaster, and the three elder ones all got 
 married early ; and how angry he was over 
 each one's departure ! " 
 
 " Well, they didn't get much quality in 
 their husbands ! " said Amos drily. 
 
POOR TIMATHA 133 
 
 "No, poor dears, but they were driven to 
 it. Then Timatha and I worked on together, 
 till thou came for me. I have often wondered 
 if it were selfish of me to leave her." 
 
 " Well, it was selfishness that suited me 
 remarkably well ! " said Amos, smiling. " No, 
 my dear one, ours was a match of the I^ord's 
 own making ; it would have done father no 
 real good if thou hadst given me up when 
 he used to storm at thee, or thy sister either ; 
 she always helped us all she could." 
 
 " Yes, she said it was best one of us should 
 be happy, and she loves the children, although 
 she can see so little of them. Five miles is 
 so far away! Since they gave up coming 
 in to meeting she has no break ; her First- 
 days are nearly the same as week-days." 
 
 " Strange that father should have taken 
 that farm — the very name is enough — Lone- 
 some, on Starvemouse Plain ! What could 
 he expect ? " 
 
 " He had quarrelled so bitterly with the 
 Duke's agent, and there was no other place to 
 let when he was turned out of Broadmeads." 
 
 " People talk of a man's cutting off his 
 nose to spite his face : that is what the poor 
 old man seems always doing. He has kept 
 a tidy lot of sheep, but he fell out with the 
 wool-dealer five years ago over a farthing a 
 pound, and the fleeces have just been piled 
 
134 POOR TIMATHA 
 
 in the garret every year since, with the price 
 steadily going down." 
 
 " At any rate, Timatha can always get a 
 fleece to spin — she is a rare hand at that 
 when she has time." 
 
 " Poor girl ! I cannot forget her sad face ; 
 she looked dazed with overwork and sorrow," 
 said the kind brother-in-law, as he picked 
 up the sleeping baby in his wicker cradle to 
 carry him upstairs to the bedroom. 
 
 Many times duruig the next few days did 
 Lj^dia's thoughts turn to her sister in her 
 lonely home, but duties pressed on both 
 husband and wife, and they were not able to 
 go to her. 
 
 One bright spring morning when the children 
 were playing on the doorstep they raised a 
 shout of welcome as they recognised a brisk, 
 comely Friend with a basket on her arm. 
 This was Eunice Beard, who had returned to 
 her old home at the other end of the village, 
 as a comfortably endowed widow, to keep 
 house for her bachelor brother, Luke Lisle. 
 She had no children of her own, but was over- 
 flowing with motherliness, and wonderful things 
 came out of her basket to please the little 
 ones. This morning it was an interesting 
 family of pastry hedgehogs with currant eyes, 
 and the prickles snipped up with scissors 
 before they were baked. These were received 
 
POOR TIMATHA 135 
 
 with ecstasy by Bessie and her brothers, 
 and put in a row on the dresser to await their 
 dinner hour. 
 
 " Now, children, run and get me a big bunch 
 of cowsHps from your orchard, they don't 
 grow on our farm." Then, taking the baby 
 on her lap, Eunice sat down for a chat. She 
 was Lydia's true and tried friend, and soon 
 the whole sad story of Timatha's hard lot 
 at Lonesome Farm was poured out to her. 
 
 " Father has worried her most out of her 
 senses," said Lydia. " Think of her having 
 given new milk to the pigs ! No wonder 
 he was vexed." 
 
 " Did she never do absent-minded things 
 in the old days ? " 
 
 " Never ! she was the clearest headed of 
 any of us. Is there any chance of thy being 
 able to go out and see her ? " 
 
 " Not at present, I fear ; this week is a 
 busy one. I will go when I can. Why, 
 little people, you have brought me far more 
 cowslips than my beaupot will hold ; we 
 will make a ball of some of them ; " and pro- 
 ducing a piece of string she tied it from chair 
 to chair, and taught the little fingers to hang 
 the golden flowers across it, till she drew it 
 up into a delicious golden globe, and tossed 
 it into one little rosy face after the other — 
 no wonder all children loved Friend Eunice ! 
 
136 POOR TIMATHA 
 
 Many times she thought of Timatha Randal 
 with secret prayer to be guided into some way 
 to help her. One morning she came down 
 looking pale and determined, and laying her 
 hand impressively on her brother's shoulder, 
 she said : " Luke, it has been strongly laid 
 on my mind that thou and I must go over to 
 Lonesome Farm this morning." 
 
 "What, to old Timothy's? He hates 
 visitors. Much thanks thou wilt get ! " said 
 Luke. 
 
 " No, it is poor Timatha who needs us." 
 
 " Then take the old mare and drive thyself ; 
 I have arranged to go over to Farmer Burt's 
 to buy some yearling steers." 
 
 " The steers must wait. This is a weighty 
 concern, Luke; we must go." 
 
 " Very well, sister, I have every confidence 
 in thy leadings. We will go directly after 
 breakfast." 
 
 It was early May, but as they drove toward 
 the forest, not even the spring verdure could 
 conceal the poverty of the land. Even the 
 trees looked stunted, and the pastures full 
 of moss and sour weeds instead of grass. 
 It seemed strange that anyone should have 
 built a farm-house there, but Lonesome was 
 a substantial thatched dwelling with some 
 sheds, an orchard of cankered old fruit- 
 trees, and a small cultivated field at the 
 
POOR TIMATHA 187 
 
 side. Here they could see a thin figure in 
 sun-bonnet and short skirts digging the ground 
 at a feverish pace. They tied up their horse 
 and went to her. Both were shocked at 
 the drawn, grey face and wild dark eyes that 
 met them. 
 
 " Timatha,- my dear, we have come to 
 pay thee a little visit." 
 
 " Thank thee, Eunice, but I have no time. 
 I must dig ! I must dig ! or father will be 
 so angry." 
 
 " We will not hinder thee," said Eunice 
 soothingly. " How is the poor old man ? " 
 
 " Oh, he has been so bad — always in pain, 
 night and day ; he can't eat and he could 
 not sleep ; but he is sleeping nicely now, and 
 I must dig." 
 
 Eunice glanced at Luke, who, standing 
 behind Timatha, silently pointed to the large 
 area of soil which had been freshly turned 
 that morning — an incredible task for one 
 woman's spade. He slipped away towards 
 the house, while Eunice said gently : "If 
 thou canst not talk to me, dear Tim, I will 
 just gather some Lent lUies in the orchard 
 before I go home." 
 
 She had picked but two or three when her 
 brother came back with a face full of con- 
 sternation. " I believe the old man is dead, 
 Eunice," he whispered. " I found my way 
 
138 POOR TIMATHA 
 
 to his room. Finding him so has turned her 
 head. Wilt thou stay with her, while I go for 
 her brother and sister and the doctor ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, I must, certainly," said the 
 good woman. But she felt a bit eerie as her 
 brother drove off ; it must be two hours before 
 he could return. Would that spade continue 
 its feverish work ? Could any human body 
 hold out ? She looked round the kitchen : 
 there was no sign of a meal. She opened 
 the pantry door : three pans of milk stood 
 there, but she could see no food, and she noted 
 that a brown earthen teapot was covered 
 with dust. Yet Timatha loved a dish of 
 tea, and Eunice had brought in her basket a 
 little packet oi the best, with some sugar 
 and home-made gingerbread. 
 
 In those days of flint and steel the fire in 
 a farm kitchep did not go out from one year's 
 end to another. Eunice parted the great 
 heap of fluffy white ashes till she found its 
 glowing red heart, and with a wisp of straw, 
 some brushwood and the bellows, she soon 
 had the kettle singing and the tea made. 
 She carried her tray to a sunny bank in the 
 orchard, and pouring out a cup with plenty 
 of milk she walked boldly to Timatha, and 
 held it close to the poor, parched lips. It 
 was irresistible. The spade dropped, and she 
 drank greedily. 
 
POOR TIMATHA 139 
 
 " That was good ! Thank thee, Eunice. 
 But I must dig, or father will be so vexed." 
 
 " Thou wilt dig better for a little food ; 
 come with me to the orchard while thy father 
 sleeps, for I have more tea there." 
 
 Timatha followed meekly. Eunice spread 
 her thick cloak on the grass. " Let us sit 
 down, my dear, and then thou canst sip it 
 slowly, it will refresh thee more so." And 
 she went on gently talking about Lydia and 
 her little ones — how Jackie was beginning to 
 walk and Bessie quite a mother to him — 
 until two more cups were imbibed, and a square 
 of gingerbread eaten, when the weary head 
 leaned back on the bank, the tired limbs 
 relaxed, and to Eunice's relief she saw that 
 sleep had taken possession, and poor Timatha 
 was at rest. 
 
 For more than an hour her friend sat motion- 
 less beside her, then quietly rose and slipped 
 away, as she heard the wheels, first of her 
 brother's taxed cart with Amos and Lydia, 
 and then the doctor's high-wheeled chaise. 
 Telling them what had happened, she sat 
 on the settle by the weeping Lydia, while 
 Amos accompanied the doctor upstairs. 
 
 " Oh, Eunice, is it wicked to feel relieved 
 that the end of poor Tim's hard trial has 
 come ? If it had only been possible to love 
 father ! We used to jog along pretty comfort- 
 
140 POOR TIMATHA 
 
 ably, but we Neither of us ever had one single 
 word of affection from him, as if he never 
 could forgive us for being girls ! And Tim 
 has been so dutiful and worked so hard, 
 particularly since dear mother died." 
 
 " No, Lydia, I don't think it is wicked. 
 Thy father had a strange, bitter nature, and 
 the good Lord knows what Timatha has gone 
 through, and has sent relief ; but she is worn 
 out, and will want much care for some time." 
 
 Here the men returned, and as Luke Lisle 
 came in the doctor said : " You were right, 
 sir, poor old Mr. Randal must have died in 
 his sleep many hours ago — last evening most 
 likely. I saw that the end was coming when 
 I was here yesterday, but did not think it 
 was so near." 
 
 " Thou saw him yesterday ? " gasped Lydia, 
 who knew her father's inveterate hatred of 
 medical men. 
 
 " Yes, I was driving past. I don't come 
 this lonely road once in a blue moon, but 
 yesterday I did, and Miss Randal came running 
 out, begging me to see her father. He had 
 life enough to scold then. My word ! how 
 he stormed at the poor thing for bringing me 
 in, but I saw enough to know he was seriously 
 ill, and I was on my way to tell you and Mr. 
 Bates, when I was called to a case which was 
 a matter of life or death." 
 
POOR TIMATHA 141 
 
 Here a shrill voice from the garden in- 
 terrupted them. " Yes, father, I'm coming ! " 
 And in burst Timatha looking still half 
 asleep. " Oh, Dr. Bilton ! do go away — he 
 will be so angry ! " Then, seeing the solemn 
 faces of the group, she stopped, looking from 
 one to another for an explanation of their 
 presence. The old doctor was the first to 
 speak, laying a kind hand on the thin shoulder. 
 
 " Never fear. Miss Randal, your father will 
 never scold you again. He passed away in 
 his sleep last night, and these kind friends 
 are come to help you." 
 
 " Father dead ! oh, it can't be true ! " 
 said Timatha. " I must be dreaming — my 
 poor head ! " And she put up a work-worn 
 hand to either temple femd gazed about her 
 trembling. Her sister drew her down on 
 the settle, but she took no notice, while the 
 others consulted as to what must be done. 
 When appealed to, she only shook her head, 
 saying, " I can't think." Amos took her hand. 
 
 " Shall I make all arrangements for thee, 
 sister ? I know what thy wishes will be." 
 
 " That's right," said the doctor ; " she is 
 quite worn out. Take her up to her bed, 
 Mrs. Bates, and let her sleep twenty-four 
 hours if she will. I must be off." 
 
 Away he drove, while Lydia led her sister 
 to her little bedroom, poor and bare, but 
 
142 POOR TIMATHA 
 
 with some pitiful attempts at ornaments 
 which Timothy would have tolerated in no 
 other room in the house. Timatha sat down 
 on the side of the bed. 
 
 " Oh, to be able to rest ! " she said. " Night 
 after night he has called me up every hour, 
 and all day long was driving me about the 
 farm to see after the stock. Last night 
 he was twitting me with laziness because the 
 potato field was not dug. So after he was 
 asleep I slipped out in the moonlight to dig." 
 
 " What ! " said Lydia, " and worked all 
 night alone ? " 
 
 " Yes, and the owls hooted, and the foxes 
 screamed from wood to wood. We often 
 hear them bark, but they were dreadful last 
 night ; and I dug and dug till Eunice came." 
 
 Meanwhile Lydia had helped her undress, 
 and pinned her own shawl over the curtainless 
 windows. The weary head was hardly on 
 the pillow when sleep came. Lydia went 
 downstairs much perplexed as to what to do 
 next. She found that Luke and Eunice were 
 insisting that she and her husband should 
 stay with Timatha ; they would arrange for 
 the plain funeral as soon as possible, and let 
 relations know. There were few to summon. 
 Hannah Randal had died soon after her 
 marriage ; Sarah's husband was a rolling 
 stone, and she had not been heard of for 
 
POOR TIMATHA 143 
 
 years ; only Jane was within reach, the wife 
 of the landlord of the Antelope Inn at 
 Horsham. 
 
 " But I cannot possibly stay," said Lydia. 
 " Sallie means well, but she is a giddy young 
 thing ; and there is baby, and the 'prentices 
 to do for — there must be a woman in the 
 house." 
 
 " So there must, Lydia, and I'm going to 
 be that woman. Isn't it a good thing that 
 baby knows me so well ? " 
 
 " Thou, Eunice ! Thou art very good, but 
 I could not burden thee. Bessie and Jim 
 would be good, but Tom and Patty are so 
 wilful and wayward." 
 
 " I'm not afraid of a four-year-old," said 
 Eunice, smiling. 
 
 " Then our plain ways and meals are so 
 different from thy home comforts." 
 
 " If I am dependent on creature comforts 
 at my age, it is time I was broken of it ! " 
 
 " Oh, Eunice, thou art a friend in need ! 
 it is the only way I could stay with an easy 
 mind." 
 
 So the brother and sister drove away, 
 and Amos and Lydia turned to the duties 
 which must be seen to at all times. 
 
 Lydia was skimming the milk when her 
 husband came to her with a letter. " Look 
 here, wife, I have found this, written five 
 
144 POOR TIMATHA 
 
 days ago by the landlord, Lawyer Yarrel, at 
 Horsham. He's an old skinflint if ever there 
 was one ! In it he says he is sending the 
 bailiffs on the tenth (that's the day we fixed 
 for the funeral) to take possession of all stock 
 and furniture, for seven quarters' arrears 
 of rent. Didst thou know it was so far 
 behind ? " 
 
 " No — father was so close ; but Tim said 
 to me once she was afraid of it, for she knew 
 there was next to nothing coming in, and she 
 has had a struggle for bare food." 
 
 " Well, the landlord must take his own, 
 althaugh I cannot see how he has the face 
 to ask such a rent for such a miserable place 
 as this ! " 
 
 " The farm has run down a good deal in 
 the ten years father has had it," said Lydia, 
 who knew more of agricultural matters than 
 her husband. 
 
 " But surely the stock will be worth more 
 than the rent due ? " 
 
 " I doubt it. There is not a horse left and 
 only a score of sheep. The most valuable 
 thing is the wool, and that's none the better 
 for rats and moths ; but I hope there may 
 be a trifle over for Timatha to go on with— ^ 
 she deserves it." 
 
 Towards evening Moses Hill, Luke Lisle's 
 worthy bailiff, appeared on horseback with 
 
POOR TIMATHA 145 
 
 a large basket stored with bread and meat 
 and fresh vegetables, for Eunice had seen the 
 emptiness of the larder. 
 
 For many hours Timatha lay quiet, but 
 when the sheer physical exhaustion was 
 passed, she became restless, constantly starting 
 and answering an imaginary call from the 
 silent room opposite. Next morning she rose 
 and went about her work mechanically, milk- 
 ing the cows and feeding the pigs, but seeming 
 dazed and bewildered, and unable to take 
 in new ideas. Lydia took all responsibility, 
 and explained that after the funeral her home 
 was to be with them ; but she made no pre- 
 parations, although passively obedient when 
 her sister bade her put her few possessions 
 in boxes and bundles. 
 
 Luke's farm waggon came to carry the 
 plain coffin to the little Quaker burial-ground 
 a few miles away — one of those dreary endings 
 of a poor warped life, when not one who stands 
 around the open grave can feel anything but 
 relief. A dear old apostolic farmer in his 
 smock-frock said some words of prayer, 
 commending all to the Divine mercy of Him 
 who knoweth our frame and remembereth 
 that we are dust ; then the small, silent 
 company turned away. A tall, well-dressed, 
 but hard-featured woman Eunice recognized 
 
 10 
 
146 POOR TIMATHA 
 
 as Jane, the sister next older than Lydia. 
 She drew her aside. 
 
 " Thy poor sister sadly needs a rest ; couldst 
 thou not have her at thy house for a while ? 
 Lydia's hands are full, and thou hast no 
 children," 
 
 " But I have customers. Lor ! Tim would 
 be frightened out of her wits by what goes 
 on in our bar parlour ! If Lydia has children, 
 she has got a sober husband, and that is more 
 than some of us can say ! " 
 
 " The expense, too. These are bad times 
 for tradesmen, and Amos works very hard 
 to keep his family. They say the landlord 
 takes all at the farm, and a little help would 
 be very useful towards thy sister's keep," 
 
 " After the way father treated us at our 
 marriage they have no claim. Besides, / 
 never see the colour of a guinea. Tom will 
 pay a bill, but gives me none to spend," 
 
 With a careless farewell to her drooping 
 sisters, Jane tripped up the steps of the 
 mounting block and seated herself on the 
 best of the two horses a serving-lad had been 
 holding there, and rode away. 
 
 It was the beginning of an anxious time 
 in the wheelwright's home, for it was only 
 too evident that Timatha's mind was thor- 
 oughly unhinged. After her lonely life, the 
 joyous clamour of the five healthy children 
 
POOR TIMATHA 147 
 
 bewildered her, and she was terrified at the 
 outcry when with gentle firmness Amos and 
 Lydia strove to discipline the two who had 
 inherited the stormy Randal nature. She 
 would slip away by herself, sometimes to 
 the orchard, but oftener to the bedroom 
 which she shared with Bessie, and where 
 Lydia encouraged her to sit and spin or knit 
 in quiet. 
 
 As the days passed, and she had less hard 
 bodily labour, the power to sleep left her, 
 and she became wakeful and restless, until 
 one night Lydia was awakened by a shivering 
 and frightened child. 
 
 " Oh, Mother, Auntie Tim is gone ! She 
 woke me up shouting : ' Yes, father, I'm 
 coming ! ' and then she ran downstairs and 
 out at the front door in her nightcap ! " sobbed 
 Bessie. 
 
 Amos hastily dressed. It was a brilliant 
 moonlight night, and far away on the straight 
 road towards the forest he could see a ghostlike 
 white figure, but it was not till the second mile 
 on the way that his active footsteps overtook 
 her. His kind voice and touch seemed to 
 bring back the wandering senses ; he led 
 her back, sobbing, and with bruised and 
 bleeding feet. 
 
 After this, Bessie was sent to sleep with 
 Sallie, and a stout wooden bolt was put on 
 
148 POOR TIMATHA 
 
 the bedroom door and slipped after Timatha 
 had retired for the night. But in the day- 
 time, gentle and docile as she was, she needed 
 constant watching. One day when baby was 
 teething and keeping mother fully engaged, 
 and Amos was away on business, Timatha 
 disappeared, no one knew whither. At supper- 
 time she was still missing. There was nothing 
 for it but for Amos to take a hunch of bread 
 and cheese, turn his tired horse, and drive 
 out to Lonesome Farm. Very forlorn it 
 looked, the house locked up and deserted, 
 but in the porch stood Timatha, calling 
 pitifully to the father, who, she fancied, was 
 within and had locked her out. 
 
 Amos tried the effect of a brotherly scolding, 
 telling her it was unkind to come away with- 
 out telling Lydia, who was so very busy. 
 Timatha did not reply, but next day, when 
 the sisters were alone, she began desperately : 
 
 " Lydia, dear, I couldn't help it yesterday ; 
 my head was bad, and I heard poor father 
 callings — calling— and I had to go. To-day 
 I am better, and know quite well he is dead 
 and gone, and that it is only fancy. I know 
 I'm a dreadful care to you both, Lydia, and 
 I want to say if I do such things I am not 
 fit to live with you and the children — you 
 must send me away. There are places for 
 folks who don't know what they are about, 
 
POOR TIMATHA 149 
 
 and I would rather be there than a burden 
 to you." 
 
 " Oh, Tim ! " cried Lydia, much distressed, 
 " do not talk so. My own sister — and thou 
 hast suffered so much ! When thou gets really 
 rested, thou wilt be better." 
 
 " I hope so. I try to do what you wish, 
 but when that call comes it take away all 
 my will and senses, and I know I ought to 
 be under control, and I cannot bear that thee 
 should be troubled." 
 
 The following day Eunice found Lydia 
 and her overflowing work-basket established 
 in her seldom used best parlour, which had 
 a window looking over the vegetable garden 
 where Timatha was weeding the onion bed 
 with her old industry. Sallie had taken all 
 the children for a walk, and the house was 
 unusually quiet. 
 
 Glad to share her anxieties with the ever 
 sympathising friend, Lydia told her what poor 
 Timatha had said. 
 
 " She is so gentle and always does what 
 we ask her, but this wandering spirit is 
 dreadful ; it takes so much of Amos's time 
 to fetch her back, and he can ill spare it. 
 He loses his sleep when she shakes her door 
 and calls to father several times in the night. 
 Next autumn, when we hope for another 
 little one, what am I to do ? If she could go 
 
?50 POOR TIMATHA 
 
 where folks would be kind to her, I shouldn't 
 mind ; but the mad-houses are dreadful, cruel 
 places. I have heard the poor creatures 
 screaming as I passed the one at Horsham ; 
 they say they are chained to posts and have 
 only straw to lie on. Farmer Briggs' poor 
 wife was sent there, and the keeper would 
 never let her husband and sisters see her — :, 
 said it upset her so — and when she died, they 
 found her poor body covered with wounds and 
 bruises. Oh, I could not send Tim there ! " 
 
 "No, certainly not," said Eunice, who 
 knew these sad facts only too well ; " but 
 we must try and relieve thee, my dear. Does 
 she like driving ? I'm going over to Capel 
 to-morrow to take a leg-rest to old Friend 
 Green. Shall I ask her to come with me ? " 
 
 " Oh, thank thee ! I think she would like 
 that, and she would be so safe with thee." 
 
 The invitation ■was given, and in the cart 
 with a steady old horse the pair jogged through 
 the shady lanes. Timatha much enjoyed it 
 and slept better that night ; so almost every 
 daj' the kind plan was repeated. Lydia feared 
 that Eunice invented errands, but she always 
 professed to have someone to call on, some- 
 thing to take or to fetch, and the slow drives 
 through pleasant farms and villages — never 
 in the forest direction — had a most soothing 
 effect. 
 
POOR TBfATHA 151 
 
 One day the errand was to bring from Reigate 
 a " Publick Friend " from Yorkshire — Hannah 
 Wigham, who had been holding meetings 
 there, and was to stay with Eunice and Luke 
 over First-day, and be present at the village 
 meeting. She was a genial body, and did 
 not quite understand the silence of the second 
 passenger in the cart, who had been introduced 
 as " one of our Friends who came with me for 
 company." 
 
 " I am so pleased to meet thee, Eunice 
 Beard," she said, " for thy cousin, Eliza- 
 beth Dale at York, told me of thee, and said 
 I was to say she wishes thee and thy brother 
 would take the journey north this summer 
 and pay her a visit." 
 
 " Rather too far for us stay-at-home folks," 
 said Eunice, laughing ; " but I should like 
 well to see dear Cousin Betsey again. We 
 were like sisters as children." 
 
 " We who are called to travel in the ministry 
 get used to long journeys, and find it really 
 very easy in summer time ; in winter snows 
 and floods it is different, but where we are 
 really called to go, way always opens for us." 
 
 They stopped at the Bates's house for 
 Timatha to alight ; Lydia came out, smiling, 
 with her bonny baby in her arms. 
 
 " We hope all to be at meeting to-morrow," 
 she said, as the cart drove off. 
 
152 POOR TIMATHA 
 
 " May I ask thy friend's history ? " said 
 Hannah Wigham to Eunice. " She has a 
 sad face, and a strange look in her eyes." 
 
 Nothing loth, Eunice told the pitiful tale/ 
 and dwelt upon Amos's and Lydia's unselfish 
 kindness in keeping Timatha with them. 
 
 " Indeed, I hardly know if it is right. 
 She is never violent, certainly, but they have 
 to watch her and control her like a child, 
 poor thing! Once she begged her sister to 
 put her away, but thou knows how cruelly 
 poor mad folk are .treated in asylums, and 
 they cannot bear to send her to one." 
 
 " No wonder, as asylums used to be ; but 
 hast thou not heard of William Tuke's con- 
 cern to treat the insane with gentleness and 
 humanity ? He and his wife Esther are 
 some of our choicest Friends." 
 
 " I have seen Esther Tuke at Yearly Meeting 
 once, and I have heard of her school for girls, 
 but never of their asylum." 
 
 " They do not call it by that name. Their 
 daughter rin-law, Mary Maria Tuke, who has 
 a sweet bright spirit, suggested it should be 
 called a Retreat — a safe place where poor 
 people on whom this heaviest of woes has 
 come can be kindly cared for and often 
 healed. In the eight years since it was started 
 quite a number of patients have returned to 
 their friends quite cured." 
 
POOR TBfATHA 153 
 
 "Is it in the city of York?" 
 
 " Oh no, WiUiam Tuke feels that country 
 quiet is helpful. It is like a large rural farm 
 with gardens and animals." 
 
 " That would be the very place for Timathaj 
 if it were not so far away ; but I fear it would 
 be too expensive, and she has no means of 
 her own." 
 
 " A certain number of cases recommended 
 by Quarterly Meetings are admitted at four 
 shillings weekly. Thou sees Friends think 
 so highly of William Tuke that the wealthier 
 ones have given largely, knowing it will be 
 judiciously spent. He has admirable helpers 
 in George and Catherine Jepson, and the 
 success of their humane treatment is so great 
 that already other asylums are trying the 
 new method." 
 
 Here Eunice drove in at their own gate, 
 and in the pleasant excitement of their visitor's 
 company Timatha was forgotten. 
 
 But to Eunice's dismay not one of the 
 wheelwright's family appeared at meeting. 
 She walked up the village to enquire, and 
 found her fears realised^-Timatha had dis- 
 appeared in the early morning. Amos had 
 driven out to Lonesome Farm, waited some 
 time and searched every corner, but she was 
 not there. 
 
 " She must have wandered awav in the 
 
154 POOR TIMATHA 
 
 forest, where she, may not be found for days, 
 or stumbled into one of the deep Hammer- 
 ponds," said Lydia. " Oh, Eunice, what 
 can we do ? I was just making the pudding 
 for SalKe to boil, and tying on the children's 
 clean tippets, and Amos was harnessing the 
 horse, and she vanished. We ran up all 
 the roads, but she was not in sight ; but if 
 she went down the broad hedgerow of the 
 Home Croft, no one would see her. Amos 
 and the 'prentices are gone there now." 
 
 Lydia looked so ill with apprehension that 
 Eunice decided not to leave her. She sent 
 Bessie and Tommy with a message to Luke, 
 and stayed on to share the anxiety. 
 
 All that long summer day the search went 
 on, until just at twilight an old forester 
 whom they knew well arrived, half carrying 
 the exhausted Timatha, whom he had found 
 wandering in a pinewood miles from Lonesome 
 Farm. Eunice waited till she was fed and 
 comforted and safely bolted into her bedroom. 
 
 Then with sudden determination she told 
 Amos and Lydia what she had heard about 
 the Retreat. " It is a long way off, I know, 
 but it would be worth that to have her under 
 the care of such Friends as the Tukes and 
 know she is kindly treated. You must be 
 willing to send her, Amos, as she is wearing 
 thy dear wife out." 
 
POOR TIMATHA 155 
 
 " I know it," said the wheelwright sadly. 
 " Dost thou really think the Quarterly Meeting 
 would send her ? " 
 
 " I believe it will. If not, I'll pay myself. 
 Thou art willing, Lydia ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, it would be such a relief ; but 
 how could she go ' To be shut in a stage- 
 coach with strangers would frighten our wild 
 forest bird out of her wits." 
 
 " Way will be found," said Eunice, and 
 hastened to her home. 
 
 When she laid the case before her brother 
 and their visitor, the latter proposed that 
 before retiring for the night they three should 
 sit in silence before the Lord, and ask for 
 His guidance how they could best help this 
 poor afflicted one. 
 
 At^ breakfast next morning Luke astonished 
 his sister. He, whom she thought so wedded 
 to his farm, actually proposed to drive all 
 the way to York to take Timatha and see 
 Cousin Betsey. " Thou couldst control her 
 on the journey, couldst thou not, Eunice ? " 
 
 " Oh yes ; she enjoys driving so much, and 
 I could sleep with her at the inns." 
 
 " How many days would it take, Hannah 
 Wigham ? I have a remarkably good horse 
 for long drives now ; he never seems to 
 tire." 
 
 " I should think you could do it in about 
 
156 POOR TIMATHA 
 
 eight days. I know the North Road so well, 
 I can write down the inns and the distances 
 for you." 
 
 " Then the sooner the better. We finish 
 haying to-morrow, and the harvest won't 
 be ready for three weeks. Moses Hill can 
 manage without me for that while. Thou 
 thinks there would be room for another 
 female patient without our waiting to hear 
 from the Retreat ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, I have no doubt of it ; and Eliza- 
 beth Dale has a large house and is the soul 
 of hospitality." 
 
 " Then after we have seen Amos and Lydia, 
 we will write the two letters to say we 
 are coming, and Moses shall take them to 
 meet the mail." 
 
 They found that Timatha was worn out 
 by her long day's wandering, and Lydia was 
 keeping her in bed. The proposition was 
 received with the deepest thankfulness, and 
 Eunice went up to propose it to Timatha. 
 Her mind was unusually clear, and she was 
 feeling acutely the sorrow that her last attack 
 had brought to her sister. She was more 
 than willing to go. 
 
 " Hannah Wigham says many patients are 
 perfectly cured, so we may have another 
 journey soon to fetch thee back," said 
 Eunice cheerfully. 
 
POOR TIMATHA 157 
 
 When she came down Amos said grate- 
 fully : " That thou and Luke should take 
 that long, long journey for our poor sister ! 
 We do not know how to thank thee, Eunice." 
 
 " Why should not we travel in the ministry 
 as well as Hannah Wigham ? A minister 
 only means a servant, and there are many 
 kinds of service besides preaching. I assure 
 thee we feel it a privilege, and there is the 
 visit to our dear cousin as well." 
 
 The start could not be made for a few days, 
 during which Luke had to drive to a large 
 town in which lived Enoch Brown, the treasurer 
 of the Quarterly Meeting. Eunice resolved to 
 consult him as to the probability of Friends 
 being willing to pay for Timatha in the Retreat. 
 She did not know him well, as he had come 
 from London a few years before, and had 
 taken a large draper's shop, where a stern, 
 elderly housekeeper ruled the household for 
 him. 
 
 Eunice was kindly received, and when the 
 nature of her errand was explained, Enoch 
 took her up to a small private parlour over 
 the shop. He listened with much sympathy, 
 and had little doubt the required four shillings 
 a week would be forthcoming. 
 
 " I have heard much of William Tuke's 
 concern," he said, " and have already begun 
 to make a collection among Friends for this 
 
158 POOR TIMATHA 
 
 blessed house of healing. If it had otily.been 
 started a dozen years ago ! " he went on with 
 deep emotion. " Thou probably never heard, 
 Eunice Beard, of my sweet young wife, Alice ? 
 After her baby was born, her poor mind went 
 wrong. It often took three people to hold 
 her, and the doctors insisted on her being 
 strapped to the bed, lest she should do herself 
 an injury. There she lay week after week, 
 screaming and crying, till the neighbours 
 complained bitterly. The doctor gave her 
 much strong medicine and allowed very little 
 food, and she got weaker and weaker till she 
 died, with never a look or word to me or her 
 poor mother, who did not long survive her. 
 The baby, too, was put out to nurse ; the 
 foster-mother proved unworthy and neglected 
 it, till it also left me. I could not stay in 
 that house then, and came down into the 
 country." 
 
 Eunice's sympathy was always ready when 
 she heard of sorrow, and after a while Enoch 
 Brown asked : " Thou saidst these good 
 Friends are poor ? Has the poor afflicted 
 one clothes fit to go to York ? " 
 
 " I fear not ; I mean to consult her sister 
 about that." 
 
 " Then come with me." 
 
 In the room adjoining was a tall chest 
 of drawers. Enoch unlocked drawer after 
 
POOR TIMATHA 159 
 
 drawer all filled with nicely folded womanly 
 garments. 
 
 " Take what she needs, my friend," he 
 said ; "I will fetch a trunk to pack them 
 in," and he disappeared. 
 
 Thankfully Eunice selected the plainest of 
 the gowns, a warm cloak for winter, under- 
 clothing, caps and kerchiefs. The draper's neat 
 hands aided in their disposal in the trunk. 
 
 Then with a sudden impulse he unlocked 
 another drawer. " Thou said the good sister 
 is expecting another little one — take these 
 as a gift to her. Why should things be 
 kept in memory of the dead when there is 
 a living need ? " 
 
 Eunice saw piles of little garments, ex- 
 quisitely sewn by the young mother who had 
 hardly recognised her babe. She knew what 
 a boon they would be to Lydia, and with 
 tears in her eyes she helped to make them 
 into a large bundle, with deep pity for the 
 good man so tragically bereaved. 
 
 When they stopped to leave the trunk to 
 Lydia's care, Eunice found her busily picking 
 to pieces her well-known First-day gown of 
 brown stuff. 
 
 " What art thou doing, my dear ? " 
 
 " Oh, poor Timatha must have neat clothes 
 to go in, and I could spare this gown best, 
 so I am altering it for her." 
 
160 POOR TIMATHA 
 
 " Thou mayst just sew it up again, for 
 see how she has been provided for ! " and poor 
 AUce's nice garments were displayed, and 
 most thankfully accepted. 
 
 So, early one summer morning the trio drove 
 off— Timatha dazed and quiet, but quite will- 
 ing to go, and the relief of her absence was 
 very great in the wheelwright's home. 
 
 It was an anxious journey for Eunice. 
 Every night she locked the door of their room 
 and put the key under her pillow, and many 
 times was she roused by Timatha's plaintive 
 answer to imaginary calls. But the long 
 drives and new scenes had a soothing effect, 
 and her friends were full of hope when they 
 left her under the kind care of George and 
 Catherine Jepson. 
 
 The then extremely novel treatment of 
 warm baths was tried, which helped the 
 sleeplessness. Timatha was encouraged to 
 work in the garden and to spin, and George 
 Jepson, who was a weaver by trade, would 
 praise the unusual evenness of her thread. 
 
 William Tuke and his daughters would 
 come in the free, friendly way that gave 
 them so much influence and chat to Timatha 
 of her Sussex home and friends, and surely, 
 if slowly, her disordered faculties became 
 clearer and steadier. 
 
 When summer came again and Hannah 
 
POOR TIMATHA 161 
 
 Wigham journeyed southward to finish the 
 visits to meetings which she. had failed to 
 reach the previous year, Timatha was ready 
 to come with her, not only sane, but brighter 
 and happier than she had been for many a 
 year. 
 
 She found a home on a Sussex farm, caring 
 for an old couple who needed a housekeeper ; 
 and although her wage was very small, there 
 was always a golden guinea ready when the 
 meeting subscription was made up for York 
 Retreat. 
 
 11 
 
TRANSPORTED 
 
 1817 
 
 The garden was gay in the evening sunlight. 
 It was only a narrow slip at the back of a 
 house in Camberwell, but blue iris, wall- 
 flowers, pansies, and double daisies were 
 flourishing, as flowers do that are tended by 
 a loving hand. 
 
 It had been a dry season in late spring, 
 and a trim little figure in a gray gown and 
 Quaker cap was busy watering, a young servant 
 bringing her the water from the house. 
 
 " Just one more bucketful, please, Rhoda ; 
 these white hlies are just forming their buds 
 and need much moisture. They should be 
 at their best when my dear mother and sister 
 return in six weeks' time." 
 
 Rhoda brought the water and poured it 
 carefully into the green watering-can. 
 
 " That is enough, thank thee ; now thou 
 canst return to the wonderful patchwork that 
 thou loves so much," said the lady kindly. 
 
 But the girl Hngered. " Did I understand. 
 Miss Mary, that the mistress won't be home 
 for six weeks ? " 
 
 163 
 
TRANSPORTED 163 
 
 " Yes, Rhoda, they have gone a long way 
 into the West of England, and have many places 
 to visit before we can hope to see them back." 
 
 " Then, Miss Mary, I must give my notice to 
 you. I want to leave this day month." 
 
 Mary Dudley put down her can in astonish- 
 ment. " Why, Rhoda, thou hast only been 
 with us three years, and always seemed so 
 contented and happy in our quiet household." 
 
 " That's just it. Miss, 'tis too quiet, and I 
 want a change," said the girl doggedly. 
 
 " I know young people love change, but 
 hast thou thought if it is wise to throw thyself 
 out of place ? Being an orphan, thou hast no 
 home to go to, and places are hard to find." 
 
 " Oh, that's all right. My cousin, who is 
 head housemaid at my Lord Birkenholt's 
 in London, told me last week the under- 
 housemaid is leaving to be married, and she 
 would speak to the housekeeper for me, and 
 had no doubt she could get me the place." 
 
 Mary Dudley looked grave ; she knew the 
 name of Lord Birkenholt as one of the Prince 
 Regent's wild associates, and she said : " I 
 do not think thou wouldst find much comfort 
 in a large household of that sort, and thou 
 hast learned to cook so nicely, and seemed 
 so fond of it. Cooking is a good trade, Rhoda, 
 for folks must eat. Is it not a pity to give 
 it up ? In a few years thou might be earning 
 
164 TRANSPORTED 
 
 twelve or even fourteen pounds, when thou 
 hast learned a little more about pastry and 
 preserves. If change is what attracts thee, 
 why not wait till we can hear of a cook wanted 
 in some family where we know servants are 
 kindly cared f or ? " 
 
 " I have passed my word to my cousin," said 
 the girl sullenly, and returned to the house, 
 
 Mary Dudley finished her gardening, and 
 went in to a plainly furnished back parlour, 
 where on a slippery horsehair sofa her youngest 
 sister lay, wrapped in a large shawl. 
 
 " I wonder if this will worry Charlotte," 
 thought kind Mary; "but she will have 
 to know it some time, and does not like me 
 to conceal things from her.'' 
 
 So she gave the story in Rhoda's words, 
 adding : "Of course there are plenty of 
 young maids to be had, and it may be best 
 for me to engage one, but it is a thing I have 
 never done, and I hope mother and sister 
 will be satisfied." 
 
 " Oh, dear ! I wish they would not take 
 these long journeys," said Charlotte fret- 
 fully ; " things always go wrong when they 
 are away, and there are not the kind Friends 
 to come in and out every day as we had at 
 Clonmel. I think London is the loneliest 
 place in the world." 
 
 Mary, the humblest of good creatures, felt 
 
TRANSPORTED 165 
 
 an inward pang that with all her care she 
 could not make the invalid happy, but she 
 only said soothingly : " We have some kind 
 friends, and shall soon make more, and perhaps 
 it is our part to make it easy for mother and 
 sister to travel in the ministry. They have 
 both been entrusted with so large a gift, 
 and it is such a joy to mother that Betsey 
 has a concern to travel with her. They have 
 been so kind to Rhoda, that it will grieve 
 them to return and find her gone." 
 
 " And she seemed such a cheerful, grateful 
 girl, it is very strange she wishes to leave 
 us." 
 
 "It is those unsatisfactory relatives of hers 
 in the Borough. Martha Savory told us that 
 when she took Rhoda from the Poorhouse at 
 twelve years old as a little under-maid, she 
 was said to have no relatives whatever ; but as 
 soon as she grew up, and was earning wages, 
 this aunt turned up, and has often worked 
 on the girl's kind heart to " lend " her a few 
 shillings, which of course are never returned. 
 Poor Rhoda, I fear she is being led into crooked 
 ways. And she has grown so pretty of late 
 with her curly chestnut hair, which in her 
 position is apt to be only a misfortune^ But 
 she is twenty years old, and we have no right 
 to restrain her." 
 
 " Thou must warn her of the dangers of 
 
166 TRANSPORTED 
 
 life in the household of such a man," said 
 Charlotte. 
 
 " I suppose it is my duty, but mother and 
 sister would do it so much better than poor 
 little me," said the humble-minded Mary. 
 
 So after much thought and prayer she faced 
 the task. When the housemaid was out, 
 she went into the clean, comfortable kitchen, 
 and sitting down opposite to Rhoda, who was 
 sewing, she talked kindly of the change it 
 would be in a large household, warning her 
 of any notice which might come from Lord 
 Birkenholt or his associates, and saying that 
 they and her former mistress, Martha Savory, 
 would always be glad to help and advise her. 
 
 Rhoda did not feel grateful. She was quite 
 dazzled by the prospect before her, and did 
 not feel as if she was at all likely to need 
 help. So away she went, and no word of 
 her came to the good Dudley family for more 
 than a year. 
 
 Mary easily found a steady young cook, 
 wishing to better herself, and quite willing 
 to help the delicate housemaid, Sallie, who 
 had come with the Dudleys from Ireland, 
 in such work as was beyond her strength. 
 In due time the mother and sister returned. 
 
 Mary Dudley, the stately old minister, had 
 been a convert and personal friend of John 
 Wesley, and the good man was much aggrieved 
 
TRANSPORTED 167 
 
 when she found a more congenial spiritual home 
 in the quiet ways of Quakerism, and became a 
 leading minister among Friends ; as was also 
 her devoted daughter, Elizabeth, a little rigid 
 in her goodness, of whom the younger sisters 
 stood rather in awe. Happily both approved 
 the new maid, and the quiet household of 
 women settled down to the usual round of 
 charities and attendance at Friends' Meetings. 
 
 After one of these in London, at which 
 Elizabeth Dudley had spoken with consider- 
 able power, that great and good woman, 
 Elizabeth Fry, with the marvellous insight 
 which enabled her to select the right helpers 
 in her works of loving philanthropy, drew the 
 young Irish minister aside. " Canst thou 
 find any concern on thy mind to come with 
 me to Newgate, Elizabeth Dudley ? " she 
 said. " It has seemed to me that thy gift 
 is a particularly suitable one for our poor 
 ignorant prisoners there." 
 
 " Dost thou really think so ? I have never 
 even seen the inside of a prison, and have 
 little idea how it is best to speak to such 
 characters." 
 
 " They need the simple Gospel of a Saviour 
 from sin, and the promise of help to live a 
 righteous life to those who repent. They 
 are very attentive now — quiet, clean and 
 civil, quite different from the savages whom 
 
168 TRANSPORTED 
 
 dear Anna Buxton and I had to deal with 
 at our first visits to Newgate. Then there 
 was continual drinking, swearing and gambling 
 — ^some of them half-naked, for no clothes 
 are provided, and if they have no friends 
 to bring them raiment, they are in terrible 
 need and suffering in cold weather. We 
 procured a bale of green baize from the manu- 
 facturers and taught them to make themselves 
 warm gowns, and blue gingham for aprons. 
 We started a little school for the poor children, 
 whom it is grievous to see shut up from air 
 and exercise for their mothers' sin. One of 
 our most hopeful cases, Mary Connel, who 
 I believe has become a true, humble Christian, 
 teaches it very nicely." 
 
 Elizabeth Dudley was much interested, and 
 asked many questions about the work, so 
 utterly new for cultured women at the begin- 
 nings of the nineteenth century, and the founder 
 of it all was the gentle, timid mother of many 
 children, who under profound conviction of 
 a Christian call had commenced to visit the 
 neglected prison near her London home. 
 
 " What tries me most," said Elizabeth Fry, 
 " is our interviews with the poor creatures 
 who are condemned to death. Believing as 
 I dp that man has no right to send his poor 
 fellow mortals to stand before their time 
 at the great Judgment Seat, these interviews 
 
TRANSPORTED 169 
 
 are terribly painful. We can only endeavour 
 to lead them to the One Who alone can wash 
 away sin. Some grasp that hope, but most 
 are so expectant of a reprieve, that they can 
 hardly attend." 
 
 " Are there women there under sentence 
 of death now ? " said Elizabeth Dudley, 
 shuddering. 
 
 " Only one, and she, poor creature, already 
 the mother of six children, is awaiting the 
 birth of a seventh. When that is a month 
 old she will be hanged, as her husband was 
 a few weeks ago. Of course, her great hope 
 is that she may die at her confinement." 
 
 " How shocking ! What had she done to 
 deserve this terrible punishment ? " 
 
 " Her husband, a clever rogue, persuaded 
 her to pass a forged one-pound note. She 
 is a simple-minded, decent body, and did not 
 at all realise how wrong it was. And this 
 dreadful death penalty is given her just the 
 same as to a terrible woman who suffered 
 last week, who had deliberately murdered 
 her poor, feeble, old mistress for the sake of 
 her few outward possessions. That woman 
 remained hard and defiant to the last. I 
 cannot tell thee how inexpressibly painful 
 our interviews with her were." 
 
 " Cannot these laws which deal death for 
 such various offences be altered ? " 
 
170 TRANSPORTED 
 
 " My brother-in-law, Fowell Buxton, and 
 other thoughtful Christians in Parliament are 
 trying hard to get these Acts repealed, but 
 such things move so slowly. Meanwhile we 
 can only try and comfort and help in Newgate. 
 The younger women are the most hopeful, 
 and I feel thy gift, under Divine Guidance, 
 may be very helpful among them." 
 
 An appointment was made for the very 
 next morning, and Elizabeth Dudley found 
 herself at the iron-bound gate of Newgate 
 with EUzabeth Fry and her faithful helper, 
 Mary Sanderson. 
 
 The turnkey greeted the ladies respectfully, 
 and informed them there were two fresh young 
 women come in, under sentence of transporta- 
 tion. " One looks a decent body, but the 
 other, Sukey Brett, is as bold a hussy as ever 
 I see ; she's been a-puUing the other women's 
 caps off, and making no end of a row. Since 
 you ladies have give 'em something to do, 
 we haven't had many such scenes." 
 
 They passed on, behind the double grating 
 where prisoners were allowed to see their 
 friends, into a large whitewashed room, where 
 a hundred and fifty women awaited the daily 
 reading — quiet now and respectful, but with 
 faces that told tales of lives of recklessness 
 and vice. 
 
 Elizabeth Fry seated herself at a table. 
 
TRANSPORTED 171 
 
 and after a pause with bent head, opened her 
 Bible and began to read a chapter in the 
 Gospels in her beautiful voice, with many 
 simple explanations suited to the ignorance 
 of the majority of her hearers. 
 
 Elizabeth Dudley had no difficulty in 
 identifying the new-comers. One had a hard, 
 bold, mocking face, and looked ripe for 
 mischief, although she sat with tolerable quiet- 
 ness. Her companion sat with bent head, 
 her mob cap pulled low over her face, which 
 was farther concealed by her hand. When 
 Elizabeth Dudley rose and gave a short, 
 loving address, followed by a prayer from 
 one of the older workers, the bent shoulders 
 were shaken with sobs, and she thought — " At 
 least one has been tenderly reached to-day." 
 
 As the women filed out to their sewing- 
 classes, the irrepressible Sukey suddenly 
 tweaked off the cap of her weeping com- 
 panion just as she passed Elizabeth Dudley, 
 revealing abundant, curly, chestnut hair and 
 a face only too familiar. The lady took a 
 step forward and said gently : " Rhoda, my 
 poor child, I am grieved to see thee here." 
 
 " Oh, Miss Betsey, Miss Betsey ! that you 
 can speak kindly to me now ! " and she clung 
 to the hand held out to her. 
 
 A matron, thinking the new visitor was 
 being annoyed, bustled up. 
 
172 TRANSPORTED 
 
 " I have found an old servant of mine 
 here, and should like to talk to her. May she 
 be excused going to the sewing-class to-day ? " 
 
 Leave was given, and Elizabeth made the 
 poor girl sit beside her, while by degrees 
 she poured out her sad story. It would take 
 too long to tell it in her own words, as bit 
 by bit she confessed to her foolish weakness. 
 The plunge into the gay household of a bachelor 
 nobleman, with a housekeeper efficient enough, 
 but utterly careless of the characters of the 
 under-servants, was enough to turn her 
 head. Rhoda, pretty, lively and willing, was 
 soon popular, and one of the footmen, George 
 Yates, had flattered and befooled her until 
 she would do anything for him, and firmly 
 believed in the pictures of the nice, country 
 inn, where some day they would be host and 
 hostess. Yates was feathering his own nest 
 at his master's expense. Lord Birkenholt, a 
 wealthy, careless man, who was seldom sober 
 after dinner, made it only too easy to do so. 
 
 One evening Yates said to Rhoda : " You 
 have to go to my Lord's dressing-room to 
 make up the fire. He borrowed a ten-pound 
 note of me yesterday ; he has been to the 
 Bank to-day, and his pocket-book is lying 
 on the table — ^just take out what he owes me. 
 I have to be waiting in the dining-room, 
 or would do it myself." 
 
TRANSPORTED 173 
 
 Innocent Rhoda, marvelling that her lover 
 was so rich as to lend to his master, did 
 as she was told. But Lord Birkenholt was 
 not drunk that evening ; his expected guests 
 failed to come to dinner, he took less wine 
 than usual, and went up to his dressing-room 
 before going out to some place of amusement. 
 Rhoda was coming out, and indignantly turned 
 away from the careless chuck under the chin 
 he gave her in passing. She was stopped in 
 the corridor by the housekeeper with some 
 directions about her work, and in a minute 
 their master came storming out of his room, 
 declaring a note had been taken from his 
 pocket-book, and Rhoda must be searched. 
 At once the housekeeper dived into her capa- 
 cious pocket, and there indeed was the proof 
 of her guilt. The poor girl's story of Yates 
 having lent the money was scoffed at, and 
 she was bundled off to prison, the cowardly 
 Yates allowing all the consequences of his 
 ill-conduct to fall on the girl whom he had 
 professed to love. 
 
 Rhoda, with her decent training, was heart- 
 broken; even the relations who had tempted 
 her from her sheltered home turned against 
 her. " And the judge condemned me to go 
 all alone to the other side of the world," 
 sobbed Rhoda. " It takes months and months 
 in the crowded convict ships, and among 
 
174 TRANSPORTED 
 
 those awful women [ You saw that Sukey 
 Brett, Miss Betsey — oh ! she is terrible ! 
 She drinks and swears, and seems to delight 
 in tormenting me. I have to lie next her 
 at night ; we are all in rows on this dirty, 
 bare floor. Miss, with that bit of board for 
 a pillow, and not a stitch of bedclothes ; 
 and to think of the nice four-poster Sallie 
 and I had at your house! Oh what a fool 
 I was to leave ! " 
 
 Elizabeth gave what comfort she could, 
 and told poor Rhoda that even in prison 
 industry and good conduct would tell. She 
 would tell the ladies that the girl could sew 
 and read well, and she might be employed 
 in teaching the more ignorant while she was 
 in Newgate. Elizabeth Fry spoke kindly 
 to her, recognising that rare thing, a true 
 penitent — not for the crime falsely laid upon 
 her, but for her wilful leaving of a good home. 
 
 Never was there a more attentive listener 
 to the readings, or a prisoner so diligent in 
 sewing or knitting, in which she began to feel 
 a sort of comfort ; but Sukey Brett resented 
 her superiority, and persecuted her outrage- 
 ously. The Matron and Gaoler complained 
 to Elizabeth Fry, and asked her to speak 
 to the wild, hardened girl, and expecting a 
 scolding she grew more defiant than ever. 
 One day, when her conduct had been worse 
 
TRANSPORTED 175 
 
 than usual, Elizabeth Fry came straight to- 
 wards her. Sukey put on her most impudent 
 expression, but no scolding came, only two 
 gentle hands laid on her shoulders, the sweep 
 of pure, silken garments, and the kindest of 
 voices, saying: "I hope soon to hear better 
 things of thee." 
 
 An overwhelming wave of conviction and 
 repentance swept through the wild girl's heart 
 — that that saintly lady should care for 
 troublesome Sukey Brett ! She burst into 
 tears and sobbed wildly, while the gentle 
 voice went on to speak of pardon for sin 
 and help to reform her conduct. 
 
 " No one ever spoke to me so before," 
 said the poor girl. "I've never been to 
 school, I had no mother, and I can't sew or 
 read or do anything but sell vegetables in 
 the streets." 
 
 "But thou canst learn; here is Rhoda 
 who can teach thee. Ask Matron to allow 
 her to do so." 
 
 So the rough ignorant girl, strangely humbled 
 and quieted, became Rhoda's pupil, and in 
 time they were fast friends. 
 
 The good visiting ladies tried hard to 
 get the sentence of transportation revoked, 
 knowing too well the miserable method of 
 herding women together on the convict ships, 
 with no other control than an often perfectly 
 
176 TRANSPORTED 
 
 unsuitable surgeon and the captain and rough 
 sailors. But in vain they pleaded Rhoda's 
 previous good character, they could get no 
 remission of the cruel sentence of transporta- 
 tion, and after some months in Newgate, 
 the order came for her and a score of other 
 women prisoners to be transferred to the 
 convict ship Maria lying in the Thames off 
 Woolwich. 
 
 Such news in former days had meant the 
 wildest outbreak of the victims — every window 
 they could reach was smashed, and forms and 
 tables broken up and burnt. They were 
 conveyed to the boats in open waggons, but 
 the heavy iron shackles on ankle and wrist 
 did not prevent a most uproarious scene, 
 singing and yelling at the top of their voices 
 through the streets of London. 
 
 But Elizabeth Fry had been successful 
 in pleading that closed coaches should be 
 used, and promised Rhoda and her companions 
 that if they would go quietly, she and some 
 of the other ladies would go with them to 
 the ship, and see them settled as comfortably 
 as possible. So a long procession of coaches, 
 followed by a carriage full of grey Friends' 
 bonnets, trotted down to Deptford. 
 
 One of the ladies stepped on board each 
 of the rowing-boats which carried the prisoners 
 out to the ship. All were quiet and orderly, 
 
TRANSPORTED 177 
 
 and some hours were spent in sorting them 
 out into messes and appointing monitors. 
 
 For weeks longer the ship lay anchored in 
 the Thames, and day by day more convict 
 women, heavily ironed and in charge of 
 rough and often brutal warders, came on 
 board. From all parts of the kingdom they 
 came — some speaking only Welsh or Gaelic, 
 or broad Yorkshire equally incomprehensible. 
 Only a very small amount of luggage was 
 allowed, and the ladies found most of the 
 poor creatures and their little children totally 
 lacking in the clothing needed for warmth and 
 decency during the three or four months' voyage. 
 
 Daily they visited them, bringing such 
 needfuls as sea-soap and towels, shoes and 
 stockings, and once a huge bale of warm 
 shawls, which would be an unspeakable com- 
 fort in the bitter days among the icebergs 
 off Cape Horn. 
 
 Elizabeth Fry, with the claims of her large 
 family, could not often visit the ships, but 
 Elizabeth Dudley and Elizabeth Pryor went 
 constantly, trying especially to give hope and 
 encouragement to the Newgate group to keep 
 up the decent ways they had been taught. 
 How to provide employment for so long a 
 time was a puzzle, when someone was in- 
 spired to suggest patchwork, as needing little 
 space and taking much time and ingenuity. 
 
 12 
 
178 TRANSPORTED 
 
 An 9.ppeal to the Manchester warehouses in 
 London brought abundance of pieces of print 
 and Hnen, and Rhoda and the more advanced 
 joyfully undertook to see it made into quilts, 
 and also to the due distribution of knitting 
 materials. 
 
 To have something ready to sell to the 
 Colonists immediately they landed was 
 impressed upon the women as most desirable, 
 for no money gifts were permitted, and, in- 
 credible as it seems to us now, a hundred 
 years ago these poor bewildered women were 
 just put ashore in a strange land, where 
 the inhabitants were of the roughest, without 
 a penny to pay for a lodging ! 
 
 A school for the children and women who 
 desired to learn was also arranged, Bibles 
 and suitable books provided, and when the 
 last day came Elizabeth Fry herself came on 
 board, and standing on the deck surrounded 
 by the women, with the rigging above full 
 of curious sailors, she read aloud the 117th 
 Psalm, dwelling on the words, " They that 
 go down to the sea in ships." Then she knelt, 
 and all the weeping women fell on their knees, 
 while the voice which had brought to them 
 the message of hope commended them to 
 the loving and forgiving Father in Heaven 
 for time and for eternity. 
 
 Elizabeth Dudley took kind leave of Rhoda, 
 
TRANSPORTED 179 
 
 with gifts from her mother and sisters of 
 books, a little tea and sugar, and some writing 
 paper and pens, so that she might let them 
 know how she had fared. 
 
 Many months after came a letter, rather 
 ill-spelt, and incoherent in her gratitude, 
 telling dear Miss Betsey that she had sold 
 a patchwork quilt at Rio for a whole guinea, 
 when the ship put in there for fresh water 
 and provisions, and also a number of pairs 
 of children's socks. So that on being landed 
 at Paramatta she and Sukey Brett had 
 mon^y to pay for a decent lodging, and both 
 had secured respectable places of service. 
 Rhoda was to go up country with a young 
 sheep-farmer's wife and her infant — " and 
 you know. Miss, I always loved babies." 
 
 Years passed, and once again Rhoda wrote 
 to report that she was most happily married 
 to a good man who had never been a convict, 
 h^d " a good home, plenty of pigs and fowls, 
 and buy my tea by the chest." She concluded 
 with the words, " I still have the Bible you 
 gave me, and I read it daily, and when I lay 
 my sweet baby Betsey down to rest on the 
 patchwork quilt I made on the voyage, I don't 
 know how to be grateful enough to you and 
 all the good ladies who helped me out of the 
 horrible pit that my own foolish wilfulness 
 had led me into.' 
 
THE BEE MISTRESS 
 
 1830 
 
 " It hardly seems decent to me, Prue, a 
 marriage with neither parson nor ring, and 
 not even your own brother to give you away ! 
 I should have thought it was against the 
 law of the land." 
 
 " Oh no, sister Delia, the Society of Friends 
 have married in this simple way for over a 
 hundred years. We need no human priest 
 when we take each other, as we reverently 
 believe in the presence of the great Head of 
 the Church. And I earnestly hope Brother 
 Thomas will come with me, even if thou 
 canst not leave the children." 
 
 " How I shall manage those children with- 
 out their Auntie I can't imagine, and so 
 fond of them as you have always been ! And 
 now you are ready to give them up for a 
 pale-faced whipper-snapper like Ben Vine, 
 just because he is a Quaker ! He looks so 
 sickly that we shall have you back on our 
 hands as a young widow one of these days," 
 
 Prudence Carfrey looked grave. " I know 
 Benjamin is not strong," she admitted, " but 
 
 ISO 
 
THE BEE MISTRESS 181 
 
 he has worked very hard in the shop, and had 
 little comfort and bad cooking in his lodging, 
 I trust in our cottage overlooking the heath, 
 and with me to look after him, he may be 
 better." 
 
 " And to think you might have had George 
 Greenwood, with the biggest farm and finest 
 hop-garden in the parish, and yet you take 
 up with this beggarly Quaker ! They made a 
 mistake when they christened you Prudence ! " 
 The girl laughed happily. " I feel I am 
 prudent to have chosen a sweet-tempered. 
 God-fearing man, sister ! George Greenwood 
 drinks and swears, and I am sorry for his 
 poor young wife. My joining Friends quite 
 stopped his attentions to me." 
 
 " Well, I hope you won't live, to repent 
 it," said Delia Carfrey; and picking up a 
 crawling baby from the floor, she went off 
 to see what mischief her five elder children 
 were perpetrating in the garden. 
 
 The loss of her capable young sister-in-law 
 was a grave one to Delia. Naturally indolent 
 and hasty-tempered, although kind-hearted 
 enough, she found the care of her household 
 and children very irksome, and selfishly desired 
 to retain her responsible unpaid servant. 
 
 Prudence sat still, sewing diligently on the 
 grey stuff gown in which she was to be married 
 at Burgate Meeting in a fortnight's time. 
 
182 THE BEE MISTRESS 
 
 She knew Delia's only idea of a wedding was 
 a time of feasting and uproarious mirth, so 
 she preferred to be married from the house 
 of quiet, motherly Abigail Lester in the market 
 town eight miles away. 
 
 Naturally sober and thoughtful. Prudence 
 had grown up in the house of her brother, 
 for she lost her parents when a child. Twelve 
 years before our story opens he had married 
 Delia, and although they had never quar- 
 relled, her love of noisy pleasure and her 
 careless, slovenly housekeeping were sadly 
 depressing. The children were heartily loved 
 by their young aunt, and they were left much 
 to her. Of outside help she had little ; the 
 village church was utterly neglected by the 
 absent rector, an ill-paid curate riding over 
 from the town to take the solitary service 
 on Sunday. 
 
 One day when Prudence was about twenty, 
 she was wending her way to the church from 
 some sense of duty, but expecting little help 
 from the carelessly read service, when an 
 elderly woman, whom she knew slightly as 
 the wife of a Quaker farmer in the village, 
 followed a " leading " to invite the sad-looking 
 young girl to a meeting, at which one of the 
 leading ministers was to be present. Pru- 
 dence consented, and seated in the plain 
 little Meeting House found an atmosphere 
 
THE BEE MISTRESS 183 
 
 entirely new to her. The intense earnestness 
 of the speaker, whom she knew was unpaid, 
 and a business man in touch with the ordinary 
 needs of Hfe^ was a revelation to her. Here 
 was true sincerity, here was the prospect 
 of fellowship ; and the lonely girl felt she had 
 found a spiritual home. 
 
 Her brother, a busy, indifferent man, cared 
 little, but Delia stormed and sneered in vain. 
 To assume the Quaker cap and use the 
 " thee and thou " to all comers was not easy 
 in such a household, but Prudence had plenty 
 of " grit," and quietly lived down opposition. 
 In the dairy and poultry yard, and the care 
 of the children, she was more unselfishly 
 diligent than ever, only occasionally claiming 
 the privilege to absent herself to attend the 
 Monthly and Quarterly Meetings. Here she 
 had met Benjamin Vine, the chief assistant 
 in a large grocer's shop, and the acquaintance 
 soon ripened to warm love. 
 
 It was far from a brilliant match, but Ben 
 had a little store of savings, and Prudence 
 some furniture and house-linen ; so they took 
 a cottage with a large garden on the outskirts 
 of Burgate, and after the simple marriage 
 ceremony walked quietly home together. 
 
 To Prudence the year that followed was 
 ideal happiness. The quietness after her 
 brother's noisy household, the independence 
 
184 THE BEE MISTRESS 
 
 to carry out her neat; thrifty ways, the 
 perfect accord in best things with her husband, 
 and his loving care and delight in her society, 
 seemed almost too sweet for this world. 
 
 The time of happiness was but short. 
 Early in the second spring Benjamin came 
 home in great pain ; the doctor could only 
 pronounce it " internal inflammation," for 
 what modern medical skill can cope with 
 was then a mystery. Through the few sorrow- 
 ful days that Ben lay patiently suffering 
 the Burgate Friends came to the aid of the 
 young wife. Kind Abigail Lester was there 
 night and day, and when the pain was stilled 
 for ever, she was the loving helper of the 
 desolate widow. 
 
 But Prudence was not one of those who 
 cannot bow before a storm. Her faith rose 
 with her sore need, and she " sorrowed not 
 as others who have no hope." When only 
 a week after the funeral a little daughter 
 came to her, she received the gift as a sweet 
 consolation, not as a burden, as Delia hinted, 
 and named her Benjamina after the father 
 whose loving care she would never know. 
 
 Her brother and sister offered that Prudence 
 should return to the old home, but that she 
 felt was impossible, only consenting to go 
 for a visit until she could see her way to 
 making a living. She had enough for present 
 
THE BEE MISTRESS 185 
 
 needs, and declined to give up her cottage 
 by the heath. She felt that it would be 
 impossible to train up her child rightly 
 among the cousins, who had run wild during 
 the eighteen months since she left the farm. 
 Prudence felt sure a way would open for 
 her to earn an honest living. She was an 
 excellent needlewoman, and while at her 
 brother's house an accident introduced her 
 to another source of revenue. 
 
 She was standing at the farm-house door 
 on a sunny April day, with her six- weeks- 
 old daughter in her arms, watching her three 
 nephews, who in a wild mood were chasing 
 each other round the garden. 
 
 " Will ! Tom ! not so near the beehives 1 " 
 she called. 
 
 But the caution was too late : Will had 
 tripped and fallen against a hive, turning 
 over the stool. Down rolled the skep, and 
 out rushed the offended bees ready to wreak 
 vengeance on the destroyers of their home. 
 
 " Run away, boys, among the bushes ! " 
 shouted Prudence, as a swarm of angry 
 insects attacked her perfectly innocent self. 
 Instinctively she covered her baby with her 
 bare arm, as five furious stings were inflicted 
 on it and three on her face. She rushed 
 into the kitchen, laid Baby Mina in the 
 large wicker cradle, threw a tablecloth over 
 
186 THE BEE MISTRESS 
 
 it, and ran out again to the garden, where 
 yells of pain and fright were resounding. 
 Twisting her apron over her head, she set 
 up the stool and the heavy skep upon it so 
 quickly that no fresh sting reached her ; 
 then, diving among the currant bushes, she 
 eluded the pursuing bees. As she came out 
 the other side of the garden she saw Delia 
 standing on the grass plot, vainly fighting 
 the enemy with five screaming children clinging 
 to her skirts. 
 
 Will, the guilty party, had had presence 
 of mind to obey his aunt's instructions, and 
 was the only one who had escaped. 
 
 " Round through the lilac bushes, Delia ! " 
 called Prudence, catching up the nearest child, 
 and soon she had the miserable party in the 
 back kitchen and was flicking off the bees 
 that hung on their clothing and hair. Tom 
 had a sting on the tip of his little freckled 
 nose, another on his forehead, and on both 
 hands ; five-year-old Robert had really fared 
 worse, for as he stared open-mouthed at the 
 catastrophe a bee had stung him on the 
 tongue. Each little girl had two or three 
 stings, but poor Delia had suffered most. 
 Her face, her head, and her bare arms were 
 savagely attacked as she tried to beat off 
 the bees, and she was quite hysterical with 
 pain and fright. 
 
THE BEE MISTRESS 187 
 
 Prudence gave her a drink of water, and 
 then set about finding remedies to allay the 
 intolerable smart, first squeezing out the 
 barbed weapons left in the flesh by the 
 warriors who had died for their common- 
 wealth. Raw onion, soda, the bluebag, were 
 all tried, but had little effect, and by the 
 time Thomas Carfrey came in from his work 
 swelling had begun, and they were indeed a 
 pitiful sight. Poor Delia's eyes were nearly 
 closed, and little Robert's tongue was so 
 enlarged that they seriously feared the child 
 would be suffocated. 
 
 Thomas fetched the doctor, who sent them 
 all to bed to keep as cool and quiet as possible. 
 Giving his directions, he suddenly exclaimed : 
 " Why, Mrs. Vine, you are stung too ! There 
 are two stings in your chin at this moment." 
 
 " Are there ? " said Prudence. " I really 
 have been so busy I have not felt them." 
 
 The doctor extracted the stings, saying as 
 he did so : " There is not the least sign of 
 swelling. It is so with a few constitutions. 
 You are evidently designed by nature to be 
 a Bee Mistress." 
 
 Baby Mina had peacefully slumbered under 
 her tablecloth all through the disturbance, 
 but she now claimed her mother's attention, 
 and a busy time had Prudence with so many 
 to care for, although Willie, well knowing 
 
188 THE BEE MISTRESS 
 
 that the fault was his, did his very best to 
 help, rocking the baby, and waiting on his 
 mother and the little ones. 
 
 All night long Prudence sat by little Robert, 
 and often the doctor's words came back to 
 her. Could she not take up the trade of a 
 Bee Mistress ? The farm bees had always 
 been handled by the old foreman, but she 
 knew a good deal about them, and had been 
 interested in their ways and management. 
 
 In the morning Robert was better, and 
 able to take spoonfuls -of warm milk, but his 
 mother was miserably feverish and perfectly 
 blind from the swelling. Her anger with 
 the bees was almost comical. 
 
 " The horrible beasts ! to sting my poor little 
 children ! I will have them all smothered ! 
 It is not safe to have them in the garden- 
 such vicious things ! Willie has been stung 
 twice before, when Barnes was attending to 
 them. Thomas must get rid cf them at 
 once ! " 
 
 " You would miss the honey for sweetening, 
 especially the buUace pies," said Prudence. 
 
 " I'll have the buUace-trees cut down, for 
 I really couldn't afford sugar to cook with 
 them; but anyway, the bees must go. I 
 should miss more not having honey for making 
 metheglin. It is just the proper complimeht 
 to pass round at christenings, and when our 
 
THE BEE MISTRESS 189 
 
 friends come to see us at Christmas ; but I 
 have a good cask in the cellar, which will 
 last some time." 
 
 Prudence was silent. She had often assisted 
 in the brewing of the honey wine, with its 
 many ingredients — sweetbriar, violets and 
 rosemary, carraway, cinnamon and musk 
 being among them — but she had noticed that 
 even her silent brother became noisy and 
 foolish after drinking the strongly alcoholic 
 stuff ; and although, like all her generation, 
 she believed in the absolute necessity of 
 malt liquors, and regarded brandy as a suit- 
 able medicine for every ill that flesh is heir 
 to, she had felt that metheglin was not a 
 desirable drink. 
 
 Prudence went downstairs and looked out 
 of the kitchen window. There stood the four 
 skeps, the one which had been overturned 
 as peacefully busy as the rest. When Thomas 
 came in for his dinner she offered to buy them. 
 
 " I could give thee a guinea for them — 
 the old saying is that bees must be paid for 
 in gold, although I have no faith in such 
 superstitions," she said. 
 
 " I'll give them to you, Prue, gladly, as 
 the missus is determined to get rid of them." 
 
 " No, I thank thee, brother, I should 
 prefer to buy them. I really think on the 
 edge of the heath, with the white clover 
 
190 THE BEE MISTRESS 
 
 j&elds behind and the great avenue of limes 
 at Burgate Hall, it will be an excellent place 
 for them." 
 
 " Do you think we can move them without 
 breaking the combs ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, if thou wilt drive walking pace 
 when thou takes me home next week." 
 
 With the help of old Barnes, Prudence 
 prepared the bees for removal. A long sharp 
 skewer of wood was run through each skep, 
 holding the winter toughened combs in their 
 place, and the night before her departure 
 each colony was securely tied in a coarse 
 linen cloth. Deha saw them depart with joy, 
 for although her face had resumed its normal 
 size, and little Robert was as merry as ever, 
 she was quite determined never to have bees 
 in her garden again. 
 
 The settling in of her new possessions was 
 a real help to Prudence in the sad return 
 to the home that had been so happy. With 
 a thick hedge to the northward the bees were 
 well established, and soon were busy in the 
 early fruit blossom in the gardens around. 
 
 Abigail Lester did not like her young friend 
 to be quite alone in the cottage with her^ 
 infant, and suggested that Ann Gibbs, a gentle, 
 elderly Friend, much crippled with rheuma- 
 tism, whom the overseers of the meeting 
 had endowed with the magnificent sum of 
 
THE BEE MISTRESS 191 
 
 five shillings a week, should live with her, 
 which Prudence thankfully accepted. The 
 baby was the joy of their lives, and " Grannie 
 Gibbs " could take care of her while her 
 mother was busy ; and whether it was change 
 of air, or Prudence's good cooking of their 
 simple meals, the old lady revived wonder- 
 fully, and became more active and efficient 
 than she had ever hoped to be again. 
 
 Needlework came in plenty. The more 
 well-to-do Friends gave it at first out of 
 sympathy, but when they found how exquis- 
 itely the sets of shirts and baby-linen were 
 made. Prudence had quite as much sewing 
 as she could do. 
 
 But next to little Mina, the bees were her 
 great interest. It was a sunny summer, and 
 they flourished exceedingly, sending out many 
 swarms. One or two of these sailed right 
 away over the tree-tops, in spite of her energetic 
 clanging on a tin pan, but she soon had a 
 dozen skeps at work. Perfectly fearless, 
 Prudence went among them, shaking the 
 swarms from the apple boughs into the skeps 
 with face and arms quite unprotected. 
 
 Like all bees, they had a habit of swarming 
 on Sunday, and often when she and Ann 
 Gibbs returned from Meeting (where they 
 sat near the door in case Baby Mina should 
 be wakeful) she would find a brown mass, 
 
192 THE BEE MISTRESS 
 
 like a large bunch of grapes, hanging in some 
 tree, awaiting her hand to introduce them 
 to a new home. 
 
 She soon concluded that the customary 
 " ringing the bees " at swarming time had 
 no effect whatever on the insects themselves, 
 but was useful in showing from whose garden 
 the flying swarm had come. Several cottagers 
 around the heath kept bees, and many were 
 the bits of advice given to the young Bee 
 Mistress, which ancient lore, being endowed 
 with a plentiful stock of common sense, she 
 judged carefully before she made use of. 
 
 Many prescriptions for dressing new hives 
 with bean-leaves, milk and salt, oak twigs, 
 sugar and beer were given her, although in 
 Sussex nothing quite so repulsive was used 
 as the old Cornish custom of endowing each 
 new colony with a pilchard,: as if bees were 
 likely to take kindly to a diet of stale fish ! 
 
 Prudence would use nothing but a spoonful 
 of honey rubbed into the straw, which she 
 felt would give the new dwelling a homelike 
 savour. 
 
 Some rumour reached her of the usefulness 
 of double hives, so cutting a round hole in 
 the top of the skep of one of her strongest 
 stocks, she put a smaller one above it, and 
 found to her delight that it was soon filled 
 with beautiful golden combs of virgin honey. 
 
THE BEE MISTRESS 193 
 
 Cutting this out carefully, she sold the best 
 pieces to housekeepers who appreciated honey- 
 comb, and the rest was strained through a 
 coarse cloth. The apothecary in the town 
 was a constant customer, and it was a common 
 sight in the street to meet the young Bee 
 Mistress, in a neat, home-made Quaker bonnet, 
 trundling a wicker wagon, with a rosy baby 
 at one end and a large jar of honey at the 
 other. 
 
 She persuaded the old potter, who came 
 round with his load of pans and pitchers of 
 red Sussex ware, to make jars for her of a 
 special size and shape, in which to sell her 
 sweet produce. It was at the time when the 
 conscience of Friends was stirred against the 
 use of slave-made sugar. Some contrived to 
 get free-grown sugar, and served it in the 
 basins, now cherished heirlooms in several 
 Quaker famiUes, bearing the inscription, " The 
 sugar in this basin is not the produce of 
 slaves, but of free men." But with others 
 honey was much in demand for the sweetening 
 of fruit, and even of tea. So when Quarterly 
 Meeting was held at Burgate many of the 
 chaises went away with a good jar of Prudence 
 Vine's honey wedged between the luggage, 
 and orders came from London for jars to be 
 sent by the carrier who passed the heath 
 cottage three times a week. 
 
 13 
 
194 THE BEE MISTRESS 
 
 Fortunately little Benjamina inherited her 
 mother's constitution, and was never troubled 
 by swelling, for bees will sting sometimes, 
 in thundery weather, and when their honey 
 is taken — and who can blame them ? 
 
 As time went on a fine flock of geese grazed 
 on the heath, as carefully tended as the bees, 
 and a couple of fat pigs were in the sty. All 
 meant hard work for Prudence, but she was 
 young and strong, and gloried in her honour- 
 able independence. 
 
 Rainy summers came occasionally, with few 
 shining hours for the little busy bees to 
 improve; but the rent was always ready, 
 and a sufficiency of simple food and clothing 
 for mother and child. 
 
 She earned something by handUng the bees 
 of her neighbours, who were more fearful of 
 the stings, and in time hired a small paddock 
 which joined her garden to make room for 
 what had become a considerable apiary. 
 
 If frame hives and sections and extractors 
 were not invented, neither was the Isle of 
 Wight disease, and Prudence Vine's bees were 
 always healthy, and year by year she grew 
 more content that she had taken up the 
 calling of a Bee Mistress. 
 
NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 
 
 1863 to 1875 
 
 " I've got to go to tea at Cousin Caroline's dovm 
 in the village," said a big schoolboy gloomily. 
 
 " I thought the old girl always gave you a 
 good spread," said his chum, as he skilfully 
 put in the last stitches on a crewelled hard 
 ball, a popular employment in Friends' schools 
 in the sixties. 
 
 " The spread is all right, but this time 
 that new red-headed brat on the girls' side is 
 going too — cousin, or something— Miss Hannah 
 Maria Haruborough," said the first boy with 
 deep disgust. 
 
 " I should have thought you would like to 
 meet your cousin," said Edward Banks, to 
 whom girls were no rarities, as he had two 
 sisters and five cousins with whom he had 
 the right to promenade on the broad walk 
 between the two school playgrounds. 
 
 " She is no cousin of mine, thank goodness ! " 
 was the reply of this gallant gentleman. " She 
 comes of Cousin Caroline's mother's people, 
 and I of her father's ; but I have got to 
 put up with her for this one evening," and 
 
 195 
 
196 NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 
 
 the boy lounged off with the scant grace of 
 overgrown fifteen. 
 
 In the opposite wing a little maiden two 
 years younger was also in a state of trepida- 
 tion, while she sewed a clean tucker into her 
 best grey merino frock. 
 
 " It's a treat to go out to tea, you know, 
 from school," said a more experienced girl 
 consolingly, " and I have heard Caroline Collins 
 is very kind ; I have only seen her at meeting 
 myself. Her old gardener draws her there in 
 a wheeled chair, for she cannot walk at all. 
 It must be a nice change for her to have a 
 girl to tea — ^you will cheer her up." 
 
 " Oh, I'm not afraid of her — ^she is Mamma's 
 cousin ; but she has asked a great, huge boy 
 as well, and I'm terrified of boys," almost 
 sobbed Hannah Maria, who was an only child, 
 and knew little of the species. However, by 
 the time the best frock was on, the clean, 
 white stockings and little grey, cashmere boots, 
 laced at the side, and a broad, black velvet 
 snood around the closely cropped, too brilliant 
 red-gold hair, she cheered up, and trotted off 
 in the winter twilight to the pleasant cottage 
 in the village, where Cousin Caroline dwelt. 
 
 The " huge boy " was there before her, and 
 the unwilling hands had to meet ; but their 
 cousin was used to shy young people, and 
 soon made them at home. 
 
NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 197 
 
 " Thy name is Hannah Maria, my dear ? 
 That is rather long for every-day use — hast 
 thou no shorter name ? " 
 
 " Mamma calls me Nannie, and I like it ; 
 but Papa and Governess do not approve of 
 nicknames?' 
 
 " But I like them for little people, so Nannie 
 thou must be, as Richard here is Dick in 
 private life. I have been thinking of a happy 
 summer I spent at Weymouth with your two 
 mothers, who happened to be there at the 
 same time. Look here, these are what they 
 painted for my album," and she opened a 
 square book of embossed leather and showed 
 two old-fashioned paintings. Dick's mother's 
 performance depicted a prim little basket of 
 moss-rosebuds and forget-me-nots, but the 
 other was a sea-shell, with a background of 
 delicate red sea-weeds, which showed some 
 originality, and both children examined them 
 with interest. 
 
 The old servant appeared with the tea, and 
 Cousin Caroline set Dick to cut the bread, 
 and Nannie to toast it at the bright fire. 
 Next the teapot must be filled from the bright 
 copper kettle with a handle of golden-green 
 glass. The toast and butter— a treat in itself — 
 was farther enriched with anchovy paste from 
 a little china box with a gay picture on the lid. 
 There was choice of delicious quince jelly 
 
198 NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 
 
 and strawberry jam, and both children thawed 
 considerably over the pleasant meal. 
 
 Then said Cousin Caroline : " Perhaps, Dick, 
 thou wouldst fetch the glass of wine I always 
 offer my visitors the first time they come to 
 see me." 
 
 Poor Nannie ! her eyes grew large with 
 alarm as Dick came back, bearing a wine- 
 glass on a small waiter. 
 
 " Now drink Cousin Caroline's health," he 
 said solemnly, proffering the ruddy liquid. 
 
 " Oh, please, I can't — we never have wine 
 in my home — Mamma would not like it," she 
 stammered. 
 
 " Then it must be turned over on the table- 
 cloth," said the boy. 
 
 That beautiful, glossy damask^ — ^it would 
 be ruined with port wine ! And Nannie's 
 hands instinctively clutched at the glass. 
 But Richard was too quick for her, and it 
 was upside down before her — but no stain 
 appeared ; and the boy burst into a roar 
 of laughter in which his cousin joined, as 
 Nannie, lifting the vessel, found the simulated 
 port as hard glass as the cup that contained it ! 
 She also joined in the merriment, and after 
 that the ice was finally broken. Games 
 foUowed^ — writing games, in which the silver- 
 haired lady with the Quaker cap and white 
 shawl and the red-haired little maiden vied 
 
NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 199 
 
 with each other in humorous verses ; and 
 even the schoolboy produced something, each 
 extraordinary attempt at rhyme being an 
 occasion for fresh laughter. 
 
 The evening passed so quickly, that all were 
 quite surprised when two of the teachers from 
 the girls' side, who had also had tea in the 
 village, called to take the little maiden home, 
 and being great friends were quite content to 
 let the children follow them in the bright 
 moonlight, chatting in the most friendly 
 manner, until " Good-night, Nannie," was said 
 at the dividing door, and " Good-night, Dick," 
 was answered in a tone which showed the 
 " great, huge boy " had lost his terrors. 
 
 It was long before the days of co-education, 
 and the pair seldom met. Dick saw the red 
 head among the most active in games on the 
 girls' playground, or Nannie would note his 
 tall figure and broad shoulders, as the boys 
 filed into meeting, but that was all. Both were 
 good scholars ; and having been taught in well- 
 managed homes to be obedient and honour- 
 able, took good places with both teachers and 
 schoolfellows. 
 
 School-life in the sixties had far less of 
 pressure than at present, being quite un- 
 troubled by outside examinations, and few 
 ' events broke the monotony of work and play 
 during the year. Twice on Sundays, and on 
 
200 NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 
 
 Thursday mornings, the whole school of boys 
 and girls decorously walked to the Meeting 
 House, and sat for an hour and a half on the 
 old-fashioned benches. Few felt this a hard- 
 ship — it was a matter of course in most of 
 their homes, and to even the liveliest spirits 
 the change from the noise and bustle of school 
 was a rest and relief. That the thoughts in 
 all the young heads were strictly edifying 
 cannot be asserted, but it did none of them 
 harm to have to sit still and think sometimes. 
 
 The ministry of that meeting was not 
 inspiring. The Superintendent (as the Head 
 Master was called in those days) almost 
 invariably preached — ^good sermons enough, 
 but rather too much a matter of course, and 
 the very familiarity of his sonorous voice made 
 it easy not to listen. Now and then a few 
 words of loving counsel came from Caroline 
 CoUins's wheel-chair, and two old countrymen, 
 whose broad dialect was almost incompre- 
 hensible to the children whose homes were 
 in towns, occasionally spoke, but visitors were 
 few and far between. 
 
 Soon after our story begins, in a distant 
 county, two men were discussing an event 
 which was to have its influence on the young 
 life of the school. 
 
 By a blazing fire in a large parlour hand- 
 somely furnished, but which no woman's hand 
 
NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 201 
 
 had rendered homelike, sat a large, rather 
 pompous, elderly man, wrapped in a warm 
 dressing-gown. His companion, who was 
 much younger, had come to bring news to the 
 invalid, but some of his information was 
 eminently unsatisfactory. 
 
 " I wish I had been at the Monthly Meeting," 
 he said. " It was most unfortunate that this 
 attack of bronchitis kept me at home at this 
 season. With a little guidance the meeting 
 would have been enabled to prevent so weak 
 a brother as Ambrose Gell from receiving a 
 minute for ' travelling in the ministry.'" 
 
 " I am sorry that thou disapproves. Cousin 
 Thomas," said the younger man ; " but if thou 
 hadst been present, I think thou wouldst 
 have felt with us that his concern was a very 
 deep one, so that we could not take the re- 
 sponsibility of discouraging it." 
 
 " I daresay, I daresay ; the man is earnest 
 enough, but frothy. Cousin Samuel — frothy, 
 and very crude in some of his views. I do 
 not like to see him take out his pocket Bible 
 when he is preaching — the way he turns the 
 leaves savours of a sermon manufactured 
 beforehand." 
 
 " Few men know their Bibles from cover 
 to cover as Ambrose Gell does; it is easy to 
 him to turn to any passage which he feels is 
 the appropriate message to the meeting." 
 
202 NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 
 
 The elder man shook his head and repeated : 
 " A weak brother. I never understood how 
 it was he was recorded a minister. It was 
 done before he came to Uve amongst us, but 
 I have heard that his communications were 
 very unacceptable in some of the larger 
 meetings he has attended." 
 
 " So I have heard, but it seems to me some 
 Friends are too critical. Ambrose speaks 
 himself of the smallness of his gift with real 
 humility, and wonders that this call to preach 
 the Gospel in the meetings attended by our 
 Friends' Schools was laid upon him, but he 
 has tried the fleece wet and dry, and could 
 not escape from the conclusion that he is being 
 rightly put forth. I feel myself that his very 
 simplicity may be helpful in speaking to the 
 . young hearts of the children." 
 
 " Soundness is more than simplicity," said 
 Thomas. " As I said before, the little man is 
 frothy, frothy. Let us hope he will be re- 
 strained from doing much harm among the 
 hopeful youth of our Society in the Schools." 
 
 Samuel Brown had an amused twist in the 
 corner of his mouth as he rose to say farewell. 
 He was thinking that few had less conception 
 of the needs and mentality of the hopeful 
 youth than the ponderous bachelor Elder, his 
 Cousin Thomas. 
 
 So Ambrose Gell, armed with his " Minute 
 
NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 203 
 
 for Service in the Meetings attended by our 
 Schools," started on his travels. 
 
 The Sunday that he was expected was a 
 momentous one for Nannie Hamborough, for 
 it was her first time to read aloud to the whole 
 assembled family of teachers and scholars. 
 
 The excellent custom of one boy and one 
 girl taking part in this weekly gathering and 
 learning by practice to read the Bible aloud 
 with clearness and dignity has been invaluable 
 to many ; but it could not fail to be rather 
 alarming to the more shy and retiring 
 natures. 
 
 The Superintendent, Charles Coles, was very 
 particular that it should be well done. Early 
 in the week he gave a slip of paper to the boy 
 and girl selected, telling them to read over 
 the chapter chosen by him and to meet John 
 Drake, the elderly elocution master, in the 
 large reading-room on Saturday evening. 
 Thither, in great trepidation, went Nannie, 
 and found to her relief that Richard, almost 
 her sole acquaintance on the boys' side, was 
 to be her companion. 
 
 John Drake, commonly called " Daddies," 
 was a little late, and the two talked in friendly 
 fashion till he appeared. Nannie confided 
 her fears : " Oh, I hope I shan't break down," 
 she said. " I know the chapter almost by 
 heart — it is about the woman of Samaria — 
 
204 NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 
 
 and Governess has said I read well; but 
 before all those boys- " 
 
 " Pooh ! they won't take any notice," said 
 Dick, with fraternal frankness. " Don't they 
 hear a new girl every Sunday ? And if she 
 reads straight on, and don't burst out howling, 
 as Ted Banks' youngest sister did, they take it 
 all as a matter of course. I read first, so you 
 will get used to being on the platform before 
 your turn comes." 
 
 " Which chapter have you to read? " 
 
 " Isaiah 53rd. Don't know as I ever heard 
 it before, but I have read it through several 
 times." 
 
 Here " Daddies " appeared in a great bustle, 
 and sending the two children on to the plat- 
 form, he seated himself at the back and gave 
 them very valuable hints as to voice and 
 pronunciation ; each standing at the desk 
 with the great Bible, and reading slowly and 
 carefully, their voices echoing strangely in 
 the large empty room. 
 
 They heard that evening that the visiting 
 minister had arrived, but none of the children 
 saw him then, vvhich was just as, well, for 
 Nature had been singularly unkind to poor 
 Ambrose Gell. He was barely five feet in 
 height, with long arms which looked out of 
 all proportion. His grizzled hair, thinning 
 with age, did not take the form of a decent 
 
NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 205 
 
 tonsure of baldness, but was in odd-shaped 
 woolly tufts. His eyes did not match, and 
 he was painfully shy and diffident. 
 
 When he arrived at the school, late on 
 Saturday evening, Charles Coles, the Super- 
 intendent, whose guest he was, found him by 
 no means easy to entertain. He had no small 
 talk, and had an exaggerated fear of giving 
 trouble. Next morning, when going off to 
 give the early Bible lesson, Charles Coles put 
 the visitor in his study, telling him he would 
 be quite undisturbed till meeting-time. 
 
 Seldom has an hour been spent in such 
 humble entreaty for help and guidance — for 
 the power of the Divine Spirit to overcome 
 the personal weaknesses of which he was so 
 painfully conscious ; but help and comfort 
 came, and when seated in the gallery he was 
 able to look calmly into the many scores of 
 bright young faces before him. Richard 
 Clavering mentally pronounced him " a rum- 
 looking little beggar," but when he rose to 
 speak the intense earnestness of his message 
 soon captured his attention. 
 
 The opening text was the first verse of 
 Romans I2th : "I beseech you, therefore, 
 brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye 
 present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, 
 acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable 
 service." 
 
206 NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 
 
 Appealing to the children, he enlarged on 
 the mercies which had encompassed their 
 young lives, on the crowning mercy of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ coming to live and to die 
 for the sake of every one of them, for the 
 nineteenth-century school boy and girl as 
 much as for the disciples who were with 
 Him in His earthly life. 
 
 Would not they give themselves, their lives, 
 their best service, to the Master ? It was the 
 reasonable demand of Him Who had loved 
 them and given Himself for them. 
 
 The preacher went on to say he had a strong 
 conviction that there was one present who just 
 needed to throw himself at the foot of the 
 Cross, and take the new life so freely offered, 
 and that he might become a mighty power 
 in helping forward Christ's Kingdom of 
 righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 Richard listened with a beating heart. He 
 was by no means a thoughtless boy — ^he 
 knew what it was to feel a Power not his own, 
 guiding and helping ; but he was such a poor 
 sort of fellow, and his parents and two elder 
 brothers were so hopelessly 'good, he had felt 
 it impossible that he should ever live up to their 
 standard, but this way of stating Divine truth 
 was new to him. He had never presented his 
 living sacrifice, never claimed a personal share 
 
NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 207 
 
 in the life and death of the Lord Jesus. Surely 
 this call, given through the visiting Friend, was 
 to him, and in the long silence that followed 
 the boy prayed as he had never prayed before : 
 " Take me. Lord, forgive my sins, and make 
 me Thy faithful servant all my life." 
 
 A strange peace and joy stole over his 
 spirit, and the meeting ended for him in thank- 
 fulness and praise. 
 
 Meanwhile on the girls' side a similar ex- 
 perience came to the much more simple and 
 childish mind of Nannie Hamborough. She had 
 been well taught in religious knowledge, and 
 had often " tried to be good," but it always 
 ended in discouragement, and games and 
 lessons were so very absorbing. But Ambrose 
 Cell's message brought new light — that she, 
 little childish Nannie, was invited to come 
 into the Father's House and dedicate herself 
 to His service was so wonderful ! A few 
 qualms came — would she have to leave her 
 parents and go out as a missionary ? Or 
 (awful prospect !) would she have to be a 
 minister herself if she responded to the call ? 
 But better thoughts prevailed : " Oh, I am 
 so young and foolish, but, dear Lord Jesus, I 
 do want to be Thy child, now and always." 
 
 Ambrose Gell's concluding prayer, as the 
 children stood with bent heads, seemed to 
 carry the needs of each up to the Great, White 
 
208 NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 
 
 Throne, and quiet and awestruck they passed 
 out with their fellows. To both the duties 
 of the rest of the day went by like a dream. 
 
 At the appointed time in the evening they 
 went on to the platform to read. Each had 
 read well on Saturday, but what new meanings 
 the sacred words had to them that Sunday 
 evening ! Richard could hardly control his 
 voice as he read, " He was wounded for our 
 transgressions, He was bruised for our iniqui- 
 ties, the chastisement qf our peace was upon 
 Him, and with His stripes we are healed." 
 That chapter would be one of his most 
 cherished possessions all the rest of his life. 
 
 To Nannie also her chapter was full of new 
 meaning : " Whoso drinketh of the water 
 that I shall give him, shall never thirst." Had 
 she not that day had her first taste of that 
 Living Water ? A thrill of joy passed through 
 her at the promise of future blessing. 
 
 There was no singing in Friends' Schools of 
 the sixties, but John Ford's admirable collection 
 of hymns was in common use, and the children 
 learned them by heart and repeated them 
 together. That evening the two chosen were, 
 " Just as I am, without one plea," and " I 
 heard the voice of Jesus say." 
 
 By some they would be rejected as too 
 emotional, but there are moments in life 
 when emotion is needed, and to Richard and 
 
NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 209 
 
 Nannie that Sunday evening every word in 
 which their voices joined came from the very 
 depths of their young hearts. It never occurred 
 to either of them to speak of their new-found 
 sacred joy. Richard's first apprehension of 
 Christian duty was to soundly cuff a small 
 boy who drew a caricature of Ambrose Gell 
 on the blackboard, telling him not to be a 
 senseless cad ; but that night in the dormitory, 
 where open habits of prayer had been unknown, 
 Dick for the first time knelt down by his bed. 
 There was an awed silence, for he was much 
 respected by his fellows, and after a minute 
 three more of the boys followed his example, 
 one at least bitterly reproaching himself for 
 cowardice in having neglected his mother's 
 plea that he would never be ashamed to pray. 
 
 Nannie became more scrupulously honest in 
 " giving herself marks," the children in Friends' 
 Schools being trusted to keep their own record, 
 to the great astonishment of an Inspector 
 from the outside world. She further began 
 quietly and happily to set about her Father's 
 business : the lame teacher's books were always 
 carried for her ; a dull and unpopular girl was 
 drawn into games and cheerful companionship ; 
 a forlorn ten-year-old, whom some family 
 emergency had sent to school in the middle 
 of the term, was mothered and comforted. 
 
 How little the two good mothers at home 
 14 
 
210 NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 
 
 realised the tremendous worth to their children 
 of the event mentioned in their next letters. 
 Nannie wrote : " Ambrose Gell was at our 
 meeting on Sunday, we did like him so 
 much " ; at which Mrs; Hamborough said, 
 with an amused smile, " Children are easily 
 pleased with someone fresh ! " Richard's 
 letter stated : " We have had a visit here 
 from Ambrose Gell. He is a jolly good sort." 
 His mother's only comment was, " Dick's one 
 adjective ! The idea of calling that queer 
 little man ' jolly ' ! " 
 
 Dick and Nannie did not meet again until 
 the middle of the autumn, when Cousin 
 Caroline invited each to bring a favourite 
 schoolfellow to assist at her apple-gathering. 
 It was a brilliant warm September day, and 
 the tea-table, loaded with good things, was set 
 among the trees, from which the four active 
 young people had been picking the beautiful, 
 rosy and streaked fruit, under the superinten- 
 dence of the old gardener, and storing it in the 
 loft. Under such circumstances a small joke 
 goes a long way, and Cousin Caroline joined 
 from her wheeled chair in the frequent bursts 
 of laughter from her bright young guests. 
 
 All his life Richard Clavering looked back on 
 that afternoon as the last day of his childhood. 
 Next morning he was called out of school by 
 the Superintendent. 
 
NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 211 
 
 " I have sad news for thee, my dear boy," 
 he said gently : " thy father is seriously ill, 
 and thy mother has telegraphed for thee 
 to come without delay. Go and change thy 
 clothes. Matron is packing thy bag. There is 
 just time to catch the 11.45 train. I will 
 take thee to the station myself." 
 
 Poor Dick ! half dazed with the sudden 
 sorrow he did as he was bid — no time for 
 good-byes — ^no time to think at all. Sarah 
 Coles pressed a nice packet of provisions into 
 his great-coat pocket, and he was in the train 
 alone, speeding away for his distant home and 
 dreading what he should find there. But the 
 boy's heart turned to the very present help 
 in trouble, and it was a manly, thoughtful 
 helper that he proved himself to his mother 
 during the week that his father lived after his 
 return. The sick man was mostly uncon- 
 scious, but Richard had the joy of one 
 bright smile of loving recognition before he 
 passed away. 
 
 School-days were over. Richard was nearly 
 sixteen. One brother was in America, the 
 other married in a distant town. Mrs. 
 Clavering was a good deal of an invalid and 
 could not be left alone. The boy's ambition 
 had been to learn engineering, but when a 
 Friend who. had a large ironmonger's shop near 
 by offered to take him as apprentice, he could 
 
212 NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 
 
 not resist his mother's wistful look, and con- 
 sented, throwing his energy into his work in a 
 sober, steady fashion, and spending his scanty 
 leisure in cheering and helping her in her 
 loneliness. 
 
 Years passed, until the mother died and the 
 old home was broken up. Richard's master 
 had young sons coming, into the business, 
 and did not require his help. He heard of 
 an opening in a similar line in Lower Luxford, 
 in the shop and agricultural implement factory 
 of an elderly Friend, who might in time take 
 a younger partner with such a modest amount 
 of capital as Richard could bring. In the 
 good old way he was made at home with 
 James and Mary Lake, who had no children, 
 and the gentle considerateness learned in his 
 mother's service soon rendered him beloved 
 by them. 
 
 He was quite a stranger in Luxford, but with 
 the comfortable Freemasonry which prevails 
 among Quakers, he was welcomed into a 
 pleasant circle. Some enthusiastic young men 
 drew him into their Adult School work and 
 other wholesome and helpful interests, and 
 he found one old schoolfellow in Edmund 
 Stanbridge, a young farmer who lived three 
 miles from the town. 
 
 One winter day, when the hills were covered 
 with snow which had frozen until the roads 
 
NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 213 
 
 were like glass, Edmund walked in on an 
 errand, and invited Dick to return with him 
 to skate on their private mere. " The towns- 
 people go to Upper Luxford Mere because 
 it is bigger, but all the young Friends have a 
 standing invitation to come to us when they 
 want to skate. My brother and sisters are 
 planning to have tea on the ice. Do come, 
 Dick." 
 
 " I don't think I can be spared," said Dick, 
 glancing at James Lake. 
 
 " Oh yes, thou canst — I'm not worn out 
 yet," said the old man, laughing. " I used to 
 be a skater myself, and thou hast earned a 
 holiday; get thy skates and go along with 
 Edmund, but come back by nine o'clock, or 
 the mistress will think thou art drowned." 
 
 With hearty thanks the young men started, 
 and their vigorous steps soon brought them to 
 the sheet of ice, several acres in extent, sur- 
 rounded with beds of reeds which rustled in 
 the frosty air. Already a dozen young people 
 were skimming over the surface, and as soon 
 as Richard's skates were on, one and another 
 came up to greet him. 
 
 " I am so glad you could join us," said 
 Claudia Welland, a clever woman some years 
 his senior. " Luxford Friends are great on 
 skating. Even Hannah Hamborough cannot 
 resist that temptation. Oh, I forgot, you do 
 
214 NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 
 
 not know her — she has been away with her 
 parents at Torquay ever since you came to 
 town;" and as just then an active figure 
 skimmed by with a great knot of chestnut plaits 
 under a jaunty sealskin cap, she said : " Come, 
 Hannah, I want to introduce a new Friend 
 who has come to Lower Luxford — Richard 
 Clavering." 
 
 Up came the girl with outstretched hand. 
 " Why, it is Richard, whom I last saw gather- 
 ing Cousin Caroline's apples ! " 
 
 " Can it be the little Nannie that I remember 
 — so scared of the school reading ? " 
 
 "So you knew each other before," said 
 Claudia, surprised. 
 
 " We were at school together when I was 
 quite a little girl," said Nannie. " It must be 
 fully ten years ago. I well remember," she 
 went on in a lower voice, " how sorry we all 
 were when we heard you had been called away 
 by so sad a cause." 
 
 " Thank you." said Richard ; " I had the 
 consolation of finding my dear father living, 
 but I felt as if I left my boyhood behind at 
 the old school. Did you stay there much 
 longer ? " 
 
 " Nearly three years. Oh, I Jove the place ! 
 and go back there whenever I can." 
 
 They skated slowly round the mere, chatting 
 of the old days, and then joined the merry 
 
NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 215 
 
 circle of the Stanbridges and their friends. 
 The ice was perfect ; the air so still that the 
 cold was hardly felt, as the red sun sank, a 
 great white moon rose over the eastern hill. 
 A grand fire was built near the bank with dead 
 wood from a neighbouring copse, and baskets 
 unpacked. Mrs. Stanbridge knew the keen- 
 ness of skating appetites, and the substantial 
 sandwiches and home-made buns vanished 
 with speed. Was ever tea so delicious as that 
 handed round in tin mugs and stirred with a 
 hazel twig ? 
 
 Much refreshed, they returned to the ice, 
 trying to play games, " terza " and " touch 
 last," and taking lessons from the more pro- 
 ficient in " outside edge " and Dutch roll, 
 forward and backward, with much laughter ; 
 for what exercise is so exhilarating to the 
 young and strong as skating on smooth ice in 
 pure, frosty air ? 
 
 Eight o'clbck came. The younger Stan- 
 bridges were despatched home with the baskets, 
 and Edmund and his sisters walked towards 
 the town with their friends. It was at the 
 time of the great Evangelical Revival in the 
 early seventies, and Friends as well as others 
 were keenly interested in the various missions 
 held. 
 
 Richard and Nannie were walking a little 
 behind the rest, when she began eagerly : " Oh, 
 
216 NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 
 
 can you tell me how Mr. Blake's Mission at 
 Lower Luxford Hall went off ? You know, I 
 have been away for months ; but Papa would 
 not have wished me to attend if I had been 
 at home. He thinks these meetings are too 
 sensational, but I can't help being interested. 
 Claudia says there is nothing a real Friend 
 ought to take exception to, and she and her 
 brothers sing in the choir. Did you go to any 
 of the meetings ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Richard, " I went several 
 evenings. The singing was beautiful, and Mr, 
 Blake's sermons very eloquent and searching. 
 But I could not feel in sympathy with the 
 methods of the enquiry-room and the constant 
 appeals to those who were being reached to 
 confess their conversion, the publicity and 
 the indecent exultation of the workers in 
 counting heads. It seems to me," he went 
 on thoughtfully, "that spiritual life is too 
 sacred a thing to be touched so roughly, and 
 the parable of the seed in stony places, that 
 sprang up immediately, kept coming to my 
 mind." 
 
 "It is our Friendly training," said Nannie. 
 " I hate cant as much as anyone, yet it seems 
 to me we lose by our inability to speak of that 
 which is the real mainspring of our lives and 
 conduct." 
 
 " Perhaps it is so. I never told even my dear 
 
NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 217 
 
 mother of my spiritual awakening, and now 
 she is gone I feel what a joy it would have 
 been to her if I had done it, but I was so 
 afraid of making a profession and not living 
 up to it." 
 
 " They tell me that all the churches are being 
 revived by those who have been aroused by 
 Mr. Blake, who professes to belong to no 
 denomination. But one thing I overheard 
 in the train I did not like — a gentleman said 
 that the Missioner is such a handsome man 
 and trades on his personal charm to make 
 weak people do as he bids. It is sad to think 
 some may think more of the messenger than 
 of the message." 
 
 " I should not wonder if there is some truth 
 in what was said, but no one can accuse me 
 of having fallen into that snare," said Richard, 
 laughing. " Do you remember that quaint 
 little object, Ambrose Gell, coming to the 
 old school ? " 
 
 Nannie stood still in the snowy road. 
 " Richard Clavering ! Do you really mean 
 that the Sunday he came was the great turning- 
 point of life to you ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Richard reverently ; "it was 
 through his faithful ministry that, like 
 Christian, the burden rolled from my back at 
 the sight of the Cross. It was a very real 
 thing, young though I was." 
 
218 NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 
 
 " And I was younger — not fourteen ; yet to 
 me also that Sunday meant the lighting of a 
 flame that has never died down in my heart. 
 Why, Richard, we are sort of twins ! How 
 can we be thankful enough for that good little 
 man's faithful message ? " 
 
 They walked on, talking quietly, until they 
 came to their friends waiting at the top of 
 a hill where the roads branched to Upper and 
 Lower Luxford. 
 
 " Come along, Nannie," said Claudia Welland ; 
 " we have just decided to sing a hymn before 
 we separate." 
 
 It was a lonely place — no human habitation 
 in sight ; the white hills around silent and 
 beautiful in the moonlight, when Claudia's 
 high clear voice started a tune well known 
 at that epoch : 
 
 We praise Thee. O God, for the Son of Thy love. 
 
 The dozen young voices joined in singing 
 with hearty goodwill, if not very artistically. 
 At the last verse — 
 
 We praise Thee, O God, for Thy Spirit of light. 
 Who has shown us our Saviour, and scattered our night — 
 
 Richard's right hand sought the little warm 
 left one that hung near his side and gave it 
 a firm pressure. 
 
NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 219 
 
 The last notes died away, cheery good-nights 
 followed, and the three parties separated, 
 the Stanbridges to return to their farm, the 
 Wellands, Nannie, and a few more young people 
 taking the road to Upper Luxford, while 
 Richard alone made his way to the Lower town. 
 His soul was strangely stirred. His had been 
 a rather lonely life, mostly in the company 
 of elder people, and the sense of spiritual 
 companionship with this bright young creature 
 was as sweet as it was new. When he had 
 seen Ambrose Gell at Yearly Meeting, where 
 he did not shine, he had felt almost ashamed 
 to think of him as the one used of God to draw 
 him to the fold, and now here was another 
 instance of the true call of one who was neither 
 mighty nor noble. 
 
 At supper, when he was describing the 
 skating party to Mary Lake, who liked to hear 
 all that was going on, she exclaimed : " Hannah 
 Hamborough \ — then her parents are back 
 from their long visit to Torquay. How glad 
 they will be at the First-day School ! Edith 
 Welland has taken the class, but she has not 
 the gift that Hannah has of both pleasing 
 and instructing the women — many of them 
 older than herself." 
 
 " Ah — Hannah," said James Lake ; "a 
 truly valuable young Friend. Such a good 
 daughter to her elderly parents, and she has 
 
220 NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 
 
 several times appeared in the ministry in our 
 meetings most acceptably." 
 
 Richard was struck with the thought of 
 his little schoolfellow's faithfulness to a service 
 from which he still felt an unaccountable 
 shrinking, although to his class he could 
 speak bravely enough of the faith that was 
 in him. From that time he constantly met 
 Nannie — at Meeting, at Adult School gather- 
 ings, at the Essay Society, where they two, 
 with Wellands, Stanbridges and other young 
 Friends, met to read compositions which were 
 supposed to be strictly anonymous, but any 
 specially bright rhyme was always traced 
 to Nannie's ready pen. She would come into 
 the shop too, and chat in the friendliest way 
 to the aproned young man who served her 
 with a garden tool, a frying-pan, or a box of 
 tintacks. 
 
 Richard was introduced to her rather stately 
 parents, and was almost startled, and wholly 
 sorry, to find what a spacious house and 
 beautiful garden was the home of his friend, 
 for before many weeks had passed he had to 
 own to himself that he had fallen deeply in 
 love with Nannie Hamborough, and that to 
 win her would be his greatest earthly happiness. 
 
 But would her parents give their only child 
 to one who was but a junior partner in an 
 ironmonger's shop? Would Nannie herself 
 
NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 221 
 
 feel it gave sufficient scope for her abilities ? 
 Would not she feel her first duty was to her 
 parents, who were both nearly sixty years 
 of age ? All through the summer and autumn 
 Richard waited, happy in every moment of 
 frank and friendly intercourse that came in his 
 way — ^miserably doubtful if she, and her father, 
 would ever consent to a nearer relationship. 
 
 At last one winter evening, when he knew 
 that Mrs. Hamborough and her daughter were 
 away, he ventured to call, and to his surprise 
 was kindly received by the white-haired old 
 man, who listened to Richard's honest, manly 
 account of his deep affection for Nannie and 
 his fears that her father would not feel his 
 business position worthy of her. 
 
 "We are in no hurry to part with our one 
 ewe lamb," said Isaac Hamborough thought- 
 fully ; " but her mother and I have often 
 felt how lonely she will be when we are called 
 hence, if she makes no fresh ties. I may tell 
 thee, Richard Clavering, that I have guessed 
 enough of thy feeling for her to make some 
 enquiries as to thy character and conduct, 
 which have quite satisfied me. We care more 
 for an honest, loving husband, who is a Friend, 
 for her, than for worldly position. If thou 
 canst win her (and my Hannah Maria is 
 worth the winning), we shall be quite content. 
 But do not' hurry her, my lad — she has not 
 
222 NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 
 
 known thee for many months — the school 
 acquaintance counts for nothing " ; and with 
 a kindly farewell he dismissed Richard, who 
 walked back to the Lower town as if treading 
 on air, hardly able to believe that his wooing 
 had the blessing of the alarming parent. 
 
 Christmas passed, and early in January 
 came a hard frost. Guessing that skating 
 would be going on, Richard walked to the mere, 
 finding only some village children sliding on 
 the lower end and a sdlitary figure in a sealskin 
 cap standing doubtfully on the edge. 
 
 " Oh, Richard, I am so glad to see someone 
 else. The Wellands were prevented from 
 coming at the last minute, and I cannot think 
 what has become of the Stanbridges, but I 
 daresay they will be here soon. Papa always 
 made me promise I would never go on the ice 
 alone, for fear of accident." 
 
 Richard buckled on her skates and then his 
 own, and just as they were rising, Edmund 
 Stanbridge's voice came to them from a 
 respectful distance : "No skating for us to- 
 day — those troublesome brats of ours are 
 in bed with measles, and as we have none of 
 us had it, mother says we must lie low for 
 fear of giving it to some of you." 
 
 Richard and Nannie suitably expressed their 
 sympathy, and then skimmed off to the 
 smoother ice in the centre of the mere. 
 
NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 223 
 
 Edmund looked after them ruefully. " It's 
 an ill wind that blows nobody good — I suppose 
 that's settled. Well, old Dick is one of the 
 best, and she would have never looked at a 
 rough chap like me ; " and the good fellow 
 shouldered his burden and tramped back to 
 his farm. 
 
 So Richard, as they slowly skated side by 
 side, had the fullest opportunity of telling 
 Nannie of his love. To her first exclamation, 
 " Oh, papa and mamma could never spare me," 
 he had the ready answer. Tears came into 
 her bright eyes. " How unselfish they are ! " 
 she said ; this difficulty removed, she was 
 ready sweetly to respond, and to own that 
 her feeling of hearty friendship and respect 
 might very easily take a warmer colour. With 
 crossed hands they skated on, soberly talking 
 of the double life of service they must give to 
 the Heavenly Master Who had called them 
 on the same day at the old School. When 
 twilight fell they walked back to Nannie's 
 home, and were so kindly received that Richard 
 resolved to be the best of sons to the couple, 
 who were willing to trust their treasure to his 
 keeping. 
 
 Before another skating season Nannie was 
 reigning as mistress in the old-fashioned rooms 
 over the shop, and entering heartily into all 
 Richard's plans for the good of his neighbours 
 
224 NOT MIGHTY OR NOBLE 
 
 and the world at large. Talents grow with the 
 using, and in after years a bonnie flock of little 
 ones was often left in grandmamma's charge, 
 while Richard and Nannie went here and there 
 exercising their helpful ministry. 
 
 One summer evening they were visiting a 
 Meeting House in the suburbs of London, 
 and being early they wandered round the 
 large graveyard, with maiiy nameless green 
 mounds and a few low tombstones, just 
 alike for rich and poor. On one of these they 
 found a familiar name : " Ambrose Gell, aged 
 67," and the date of a few years back. 
 
 " That good, faithful man of one talent ! " 
 said Richard. " Do you know, Nannie, that 
 I alipost wish he had had the encouragement 
 of knowing that his visit to the school was 
 not in vain ? It seems hard to have worked 
 on in faith, and never to know " 
 
 " I think he knows now," said Nannie 
 softly. 
 
 Printed in Great Britain by 
 
 GNWIN BROTHERS, LIUITBD, THE GRESBAU PKESS, LONDON AND WOKING