IV. TAMING THE TIGERToC

'The state of the English law inthe 17th century with regard to prisons was worthy of Looking Glass Land. The magistrates' responsibility was defined by ... the justice. "They were to commit them to prison but not to provide prisons for them." This duty devolved upon the gaoler, who was an autocrat and responsible to no authority. It frequently happened that he was a convicted & branded felon, chosen for the position by reason of his strength & brutality. Prisoners were ... required to pay for this enforced hospitality, & their first act must be to make the most favourable terms possible with their gaoler landlord or his wife, for food & lodging.'—M.R. BRAILSFORD.

'You are bidden to fight with your own selves, with your own desires, with your own affections, with your own reason, and with your own will; and therefore if you will find your enemies, never look without.... You must expect to fight a great battle.'—JOHN EVERARD.1650.

'The real essential battlefield is always in the heart itself. It is the victory over ourselves, over the evil within, which alone enables us to gain any real victory over the evil without.'—E.R. CHARLES.

'They who defend war, must defend the dispositions that lead to war, and these are clean against the gospel.'—ERASMUS.

Perhaps some boys and girls have said many times since the War began: 'I wish Friends did not think it wrong to fight for their King and Country. Why did George Fox forbid Quakers to fight for the Right like other brave men? Is it not right to fight for our own dear England?'

But did George Fox ever forbid other people to fight? He was not in the habit of laying down rules for other people, even his own followers. Let us see what he himself did when, as a young man, he was faced with this very same difficulty, or an even more perplexing one, since it was our own dear England itself in those days that was tossed and torn with Civil War.

First of all, listen to the story of a man who tamed a Tiger:—

Far away in India, a savage, hungry Tiger, with stealthy steps and a yellow, striped skin, came padding into a defenceless native village, to seek for prey. In the early morning he had slunk out of the Jungle, with soft, cushioned paws that showed no signs of the fierce nails they concealed. All through the long, hot day he had lain hidden in the thick reeds by the riverside; but at sunset he grew hungry, and sprang, with a great bound, up from his hiding-place. Right into the village itself he came, trampling down the patches of young, green corn that the villagers had sown, and that were just beginning to spring up, fresh and green, around the mud walls of their homes. All the villagers fled away in terror atthe first glimpse of the yellow, striped skin. The fathers and mothers snatched up their brown babies, the older children ran in front screaming, 'Tiger! Tiger!' Young and old they all fled away, as fast as ever they could, into the safest hiding-places near at hand.

One man alone, a Stranger, did not fly. He remained standing right in the middle of the Tiger's path, and fearlessly faced the savage beast. With a howl of rage, the Tiger prepared for a spring. The man showed no sign of fear. He never moved a muscle. Not an eyelash quivered. Such unusual behaviour puzzled the Tiger. What could this strange thing be, that stood quite still in the middle of the path? It could hardly be a man. Men were always terrified of tigers, and fled screaming when they approached. The Tiger actually stopped short in its spring, to gaze upon this perplexing, motionless Being who knew no fear. There he stood, perfectly silent, perfectly calm, gazing back at the Tiger with the look of a conqueror. Several long, heavy minutes passed. At length the villagers, peeping out from their hiding-places, looking between the broad plantain leaves or through the chinks of their wooden huts, beheld a miracle. They saw, to their amazement, the Tiger slink off, sullen and baffled, to the jungle, while the Stranger remained alone and unharmed in possession of the path. At first they scarcely dared to believe their eyes. It was only gradually, as they saw that the Tiger had really departed not to return, that they ventured to creep back, by twos and threes first of all, and then in little timid groups, to where the Stranger stood. Thenthey fell at his feet and embraced his knees and worshipped him, almost as if he had been a god. 'Tell us your Magic, Sahib,' they cried, 'this mighty magic, whereby you have managed to overcome the Monarch of the Jungle and tame him to your will.'

'I know no magic,' answered the Stranger, 'I used no spells. I was able to overcome this savage Tiger only because I have already learned how to overcome and tameTHE TIGER IN MY OWN HEART.'

That was his secret. That is the story. And now let us return to George Fox.

Think of the England he lived in when he was a young man, the distracted England of the Civil Wars. Think of all the tiger spirits of hatred that had been unloosed and that were trampling the land. The whole country lay torn and bleeding. Some bad men there were on both sides certainly; but the real misery was that many good men on each side were trying to kill and maim one another, in order that the cause they believed to be 'the Right' might triumph.

'Have at you for the King!' cried the Cavaliers, and rushed into the fiercest battle with a smile.

'God with us!' shouted back the deep-voiced Puritans. 'For God and the Liberties of England!' and they too laid down their lives gladly.

Far away from all the hurly-burly, though in the very middle of the clash of arms, George Fox, the unknown Leicestershire shepherd lad, went on his way, unheeded and unheeding. He, too, had to fight; but his was a lonely battle, in the silence of his own heart. It was there that he fought and conquered first of all, there that he tamed his own Tigerat last—more than that, he learned to find God.

'One day,' he says in his Journal, 'when I had been walking solitarily abroad and was come home, I was taken up into the love of God, and it was opened to me by the eternal light and power, and I therein clearly saw that all was to be done in and by Christ, and how He conquers and destroys the Devil and all his works and is atop of him.' He means that he saw that all the outward fighting was really part of one great battle, and that to be on the right side in that fight is the thing that matters eternally to every man.

Another time he writes: 'I saw into that which was without end, things which cannot be uttered and of the greatness and infiniteness of the love of God, which cannot be expressed by words, for I had been brought through the very ocean of darkness and death, and through and over the power of Satan by the eternal glorious power of Christ; even through that darkness was I brought which covered over all the world and shut up all in the death.... And I saw the harvest white and the seed of God lying thick in the ground, as ever did wheat that was sown outwardly, and I mourned that there was none to gather it.'

When George Fox speaks of the 'seed,' he means the tender spot that there must always be in the hearts of all men, however wicked, since they are made in the likeness of God. A tiny, tiny something, the first stirring of life, that God's Spirit can find and work on, however deeply it may be buried (like a seed under heavy clods of earth), if men will only yield to It. In another place he calls this seed'THAT OF GOD WITHIN YOU.' And it is this tender growing 'seed' that gets trampled down when fierce angry passions are unloosed in people's hearts, just as the tender springing corn in the Indian village was trampled down by the hungry Tiger. George Fox believed that that seed lay hidden in the hearts of all men, because he had found it in his own. Everywhere he longed to set that seed free to grow, and to tame the Tiger spirits that would trample it down and destroy it. Let us watch and see how he did this.

One day when he was about twenty-five years old, he heard that some people had been put in prison at Coventry for the sake of their religion. He thought that there must be a good crop of seed in the hearts of those people, since they were willing to suffer for their faith, so he determined to go and see them. As he was on his way to the gaol a message came to him from God. He seemed to hear God's own Voice saying to him, 'MY LOVE WAS ALWAYS TO THEE, AND THOU ART IN MY LOVE.' 'Always to thee.' Then that love had always been round him, even in his loneliest struggles, and now that he knew that he was in it, nothing could really hurt him. No wonder that he walked on towards the gaol with a feeling of new joy and strength. But when he came to the dark, frowning prison where numbers of men and women were lying in sin and misery, this joyfulness left him. He says, 'A great power of darkness struck at me.' The prisoners were not the sort of people he had hoped to find them. They were a set of what were then called 'Ranters.' They began to swear and to say wicked things against God. George Fox sat silent amongthem, still fastening his mind on the thought of God's conquering love; but as they went on to say yet wilder and more wicked things, at last that very love forced him to reprove them. They paid no attention, and at length Fox was obliged to leave them. He says he was 'greatly grieved, yet I admired the goodness of the Lord in appearing so to me, before I went among them.'

For the time it did seem as if the Tiger spirits had won, and were able to trample down the living seed. But wait! A little while after, one of these same prisoners, named Joseph Salmon, wrote a paper confessing that he was sorry for what he had said and done, whereupon they were all set at liberty.

Meanwhile, George Fox went on his way, and travelled through 'markets, fairs, and divers places, and saw death and darkness everywhere, where the Lord had not shaken them.' In one place he heard that a great man lay dying and that his recovery was despaired of by all the doctors. Some of his friends in the town desired George Fox to visit the sufferer. 'I went up to him in his chamber,' says Fox in his Journal, 'and spake the word of life to him, and was moved to pray by him, and the Lord was entreated and restored him to health. When I was come down the stairs into a lower room and was speaking to the servants, a serving-man of his came raving out of another room, with a naked rapier in his hand, and set it just to my side. I looked steadfastly on him and said "Alack for thee, poor creature! what wilt thou do with thy carnal weapon, it is no more to me than a straw." The standers-by were much troubled, and he went away in a rage;but when news came of it to his master, he turned him out of his service.'

Although that particular man's Tiger spirit had been foiled in its spring, the man himself had not been really tamed. Perhaps George Fox needed to learn more, and to suffer more himself, before he could really change other men's hearts. If so, he had not long to wait.

Shortly after this, it was his own turn to be imprisoned. He was shut up in Derby Gaol, and given into the charge of a very cruel Gaoler. This man was a strict Puritan, and he hated Fox, and spoke wickedly against him. He even refused him permission to go and preach to the people of the town, which, strangely enough, the prisoners in those days were allowed to do.

One morning, however, Fox was walking up and down in his cell, when he heard a doleful noise. He stopped his walk to listen. Through the wall he could hear the voice of the Gaoler speaking to his wife—'Wife,' he said, 'I have had a dream. I saw the Day of Judgment, and I saw George there!' How the listener must have wondered what was coming! 'I saw George there,' the Gaoler continued, 'and I was afraid of him, because I had done him so much wrong, and spoken so much against him to the ministers and professors, and to the Justices and in taverns and alehouses.' But there the voice stopped, and the prisoner heard no more. When evening came, however, the Gaoler visited the cell, no longer raging and storming at his prisoner, but humbled and still. 'I have been as a lion against you,' he said to Fox, 'but now I come like a lamb,or like the Gaoler that came to Paul and Silas, trembling.' He came to ask as a favour that he might spend the night in the same prison chamber where Fox lay. Fox answered that he was in the Gaoler's power: the keeper of the prison of course could sleep in any place he chose. 'No,' answered the Gaoler, 'I wish to have your permission. I should like to have you always with me, but not as my prisoner.' So the two strange companions spent that night together lying side by side. In the quiet hours of darkness the Gaoler told Fox all that was in his heart. 'I have found that what you said of the true faith and hope is really true, and I want you to know that even before I had that terrible vision, whenever I refused to let you go and preach, I was sorry afterwards when I had treated you roughly, and I had great trouble of mind.'

There had been a little seed of kindness even in this rough Gaoler's heart. Deeply buried though it was, it had been growing in the darkness all the time, though no one guessed it—the Gaoler himself perhaps least of all until his dream showed him the truth about himself. When the night was over and morning light had come, the Gaoler was determined to do all he could to help his new friend. He went straight to the Justices and told them that he and all his household had been plagued because of what they had done to George Fox the prisoner.

'Well, we have been plagued too for having him put in prison,' answered one of the Justices, whose name was Justice Bennett. And here we must wait a minute, for it is interesting to know that it was this same Justice Bennett who first gave the name of Quakersto George Fox and his followers as a nickname, to make fun of them. Fox declared in his preaching that 'all men should tremble at the word of the Lord,' whereupon the Justice laughingly said that 'Quakers and Tremblers was the name for such people.' The Justice might have been much surprised if he could have known that centuries after, thousands of people all over the world would still be proud to call themselves by the name he had given in a moment of mockery.

Neither Justice Bennett nor his prisoner could guess this, however; and therefore, although his Gaoler's heart had been changed, George Fox still lay in Derby Prison. There was more work waiting for him to do there.

One day he heard that a soldier wanted to see him, and in there came a rough trooper, with a story that he was very anxious to tell. 'I was sitting in Church,' he began. 'Thou meanest in the steeple-house,' corrected Fox, who was always very sure that a 'Church' meant a 'Company of Christ's faithful people,' and that the mere outward building where they were gathered should only be called a steeple-house if it had a steeple, or a meeting-house if it had none. 'Sitting in Church, listening to the Priest,' continued the trooper, paying no attention to the interruption, 'I was in an exceeding great trouble, thinking over my sins and wondering what I should do, when a Voice came to me—I believe it was God's own Voice and it said—"Dost thou not know that my servant is in prison? Go thou to him for direction." So I obeyed the Voice,' the man continued, 'and here I have come to you, and now Iwant you to tell me what I must do to get rid of the burden of these sins of mine.' He was like Christian inPilgrim's Progress, with a load of sins on his back, was he not? And just as Christian's burden rolled away when he came to the Cross, so the trooper's distress vanished when Fox spoke to him, and told him that the same power that had shown him his sins and troubled him for them, would also show him his salvation, for 'That which shows a man his sin is the Same that takes it away!'

Fox did not speak in vain. The trooper 'began to have great understanding of the Lord's truth and mercyes.' He became a bold man too, and took his new-found happiness straight back to the other soldiers in his quarters, and told them of the truths he had learnt in the prison. He even said that their Colonel—Colonel Barton—was 'as blind as Nebuchadnezzar, to cast such a true servant of God as Fox was, into Gaol.'

Before long this saying came to Colonel Barton's ears, and then there was a fine to do. Naturally he did not like being compared with Nebuchadnezzar. Who would? But it would have been undignified for a Colonel to take any notice then of the soldiers' tittle-tattle; so he said nothing, only bided his time and waited until he could pay back his grudge against the sergeant. A whole year he waited—then his chance came. It was at the Battle of Worcester, when the two armies were lying close together, but before the actual fighting had begun, that two soldiers of the King's Army came out and challenged any two soldiers of the Parliamentary Army to single combat, whereupon Colonel Barton ordered the soldier whohad likened him to Nebuchadnezzar to go with one other companion on this dangerous errand. They went; they fought with the two Royalists, and one of the two Parliamentarians was killed; but it was the other one, not Fox's friend. He, left alone, with his comrade lying dead by his side, suddenly found that not even to save his own life could he kill his enemies. So he drove them both before him back to the town, but he did not fire off his pistol at them. Then, as soon as Worcester fight was over, he himself returned and told the whole tale to Fox. He told him 'how the Lord had miraculously preserved him,' and said also that now he had 'seen the deceit and hypocrisy of the officers he had seen also to the end of Fighting.' Whereupon he straightway laid down his arms.

The trooper left the army. Meanwhile his friend and teacher had suffered for refusing to join it. We must go back a little to the time, some months before the Battle of Worcester, when the original term of Fox's imprisonment in the House of Correction in Derby was drawing to a close.

At this time many new soldiers were being raised for the Parliamentary Army, and among them the authorities were anxious to include their stalwart prisoner, George Fox. Accordingly the Gaoler was asked to bring his charge out to the market-place, and there, before the assembled Commissioners and soldiers, Fox was offered a good position in the army if he would take up arms for the Commonwealth against Charles Stuart. The officers could not understand why George Fox should refuse to regain his liberty on what seemed to them to be such easy terms.'Surely,' they said, 'a strong, big-boned man like you will be not only willing but eager to take up arms against the oppressor and abuser of the liberties of the people of England!'

Fox persisted in his refusal. 'I told them,' he writes in his Journal, 'that I knew whence all wars arose, even from men's lusts ... and that I lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars. Yet they courted me to accept their offer, and thought I did but compliment them. But I told them I was come into that covenant of peace which was before wars and strifes were. They said they offered it in love and kindness to me, because for my virtue, and such like flattering words they used. But I told them if that was their love and kindness, I trampled it under my feet. Then their rage got up, and they said, "Take him away, Gaoler, and put him into the prison among the rogues and thieves."'

This prison was a much worse place than the House of Correction where Fox had been confined hitherto. In it he was obliged to remain for a weary half-year longer, knowing all the time that he might have been at liberty, could he have consented to become an officer in the army. His relations, distressed at his imprisonment, had already offered £100 for his release, but Fox would not accept the pardon this sum might have obtained for him as he said he had done nothing wrong. He was occasionally allowed to leave the horrible, dirty gaol, with its loathsome insects and wicked companions, and walk for a short time in the garden by himself, because his keepers knew that when he had given his wordhe would not try to escape from their custody.

As time went on, many dismal people (looking on the gloomy side of things, as dismal people always do) began to shake their heads and say, 'Poor young man, he will spend all his life in gaol. You will see he will never be set free or get his liberty again.' But Fox refused to be cast down. Narrow though his prison was, Hope shared it with him. 'I had faith in God,' his Journal says, 'that I should be delivered from that place in the Lord's time, but not yet, being set there for a work He had for me to do!' Work there was for him in prison truly. A young woman prisoner who had robbed her master was sentenced to be hanged, according to the barbarous law then in force. This shocked Fox so much that he wrote letters to her judges and to the men who were to have been her executioners, expressing his horror at what was going to happen in such strong language that he actually softened their hearts. Although the girl had actually reached the foot of the gallows, and her grave had already been dug, she was reprieved. Then, when she was brought back into prison again after this wonderful escape Fox was able to pour light and life into her soul, which was an even greater thing than saving her body from death. Many other prisoners did Fox help and comfort in Derby Gaol;[2]but though he could soften the sufferings of others he could not shorten his own. Once again Justice Bennett sent his men to the prison, this time with orders to take the Quaker byforce and compel him to join the army, since he would not fight of his own free will.

'But I told him,' said Fox, '"that I was brought off from outward wars." They came again to give me press money, but I would take none. Afterwards the Constables brought me a second time before the Commissioners, who said I should go for a soldier, but I said I was dead to it. They said I was alive. I told them where envy and hatred is, there is confusion. They offered me money twice, but I refused it. Being disappointed, they were angry, and committed me a close prisoner, till at length they were made to turn me out of Gaol about the beginning of winter 1651, after I had been a prisoner in Derby almost a year; six months in the House of Correction, and six months in the common gaol.'

Thus at length Derby prison was left behind; but the seeds that the prisoner had planted in that dark place sprang up and flourished and bore fruit long after he had left.

Eleven years later, the very same Gaoler, who had been cruel to Fox at the first, and had then had the vision and repented, wrote this letter to his former prisoner. It is a real Gaoler's love-letter, and quite fresh to-day, though it was written nearly 300 years ago.

'DEAR FRIEND,' the letter begins,'Having such a convenient messenger I could do no less than give thee an account of my present condition; remembering that to the first awakening of me to a sense of life, God was pleased to make use of thee as an instrument. So thatsometimes I am taken with admiration that it should come by such means as it did; that is to say that Providence should order thee to be my prisoner to give me my first sight of the truth. It makes me think of the gaoler's conversion by the apostles. Oh! happy George Fox! that first breathed the breath of life within the walls of my habitation! Notwithstanding that my outward losses are since that time such that I am become nothing in the world, yet I hope I shall find that these light afflictions, which are but for a moment, will work for me a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. They have taken all from me; and now instead of keeping a prison, I am waiting rather when I shall become a prisoner myself. Pray for me that my faith fail not, and that I may hold out to the death, that I may receive a crown of life. I earnestly desire to hear from thee and of thy condition, which would very much rejoice me. Not having else at present, but my kind love to thee and all friends, in haste, I rest thine in Christ Jesus.'THOMAS SHARMAN.'Derby, the 22nd of the fourth month, 1662.'

'DEAR FRIEND,' the letter begins,

'Having such a convenient messenger I could do no less than give thee an account of my present condition; remembering that to the first awakening of me to a sense of life, God was pleased to make use of thee as an instrument. So thatsometimes I am taken with admiration that it should come by such means as it did; that is to say that Providence should order thee to be my prisoner to give me my first sight of the truth. It makes me think of the gaoler's conversion by the apostles. Oh! happy George Fox! that first breathed the breath of life within the walls of my habitation! Notwithstanding that my outward losses are since that time such that I am become nothing in the world, yet I hope I shall find that these light afflictions, which are but for a moment, will work for me a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. They have taken all from me; and now instead of keeping a prison, I am waiting rather when I shall become a prisoner myself. Pray for me that my faith fail not, and that I may hold out to the death, that I may receive a crown of life. I earnestly desire to hear from thee and of thy condition, which would very much rejoice me. Not having else at present, but my kind love to thee and all friends, in haste, I rest thine in Christ Jesus.

'THOMAS SHARMAN.

'Derby, the 22nd of the fourth month, 1662.'

This Gaoler was one of the first people whose Tiger spirits were tamed by George Fox. But he certainly was not the last. Fox himself had told the soldiers in Derby market-place that he could not fight, because he 'lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars.' As a friend of his wrote, after his death many years later: 'George Fox was a discerner of other men's spirits,AND VERY MUCH A MASTER OF HIS OWN.'

[2]Two men who were executed for small offences he could not save, but 'a little time after they had suffered their spirits appeared to me as I was walking, and I saw the men was well.'

'As I was walking I heard oldpeople and work people to say: "he is such a man as never was, he knows people's thoughts" for I turned them to the divine light of Christ and His spirit let them see ... that there was the first step to peace to stand still in the light that showed them their sin and transgression.'—G. FOX.

'Do not look at but keep over all unnaturalness, if any such thing should appear, but keep in that which was and is and will be.'—G. FOX.

'Wait patiently upon the Lord; let every man that loves God, endeavour by the spirit of wisdom, meekness, and love to dry up Euphrates, even this spirit of bitterness that like a great river hath overflowed the earth of mankind.'—GERRARD WINSTANLEY. 1648.

'Blessed is he who loves Thee, and his friend in Thee, and his enemy for Thy sake.'—AUGUSTINE.

'Eternity is just the real world for which we were made, and which we enter through the door of love.'—RUFUS M. JONES.

22nd Dec. 1651.

'Rough Moll, the worst-tempered woman in all Yorkshire.' It was thus her neighbours were wont to speak behind her back of Mistress Moll, the keeper of the 'George and Dragon' Inn at Hutton Cranswick near Driffield in the East Riding. Never a good word or a kind deed had she for anyone, since her husband had been called away to serve in King Charles's army. In former days, when mine host was at home, the neighbours had been encouraged to come early and stay late at night gossipping over the home-brewed ale he fetched for them so cheerily; for Moll's husband was an open-hearted, pleasant-mannered man, the very opposite of his shrewish wife. But now, since his departure for the wars, the neighbours got to the bottom of their mugs with as little delay as possible, vowing to themselves in whispers that they would seek refuge elsewhere another night, since Moll's sour looks went near to give a flavour of vinegar even to the ale she brewed. Thus, as speedily as might be, they escaped from the reach of their hostess's sharp tongue.

But the lasses of the inn, who were kept to do the rough work of the house, found it harder to escape from the harsh rule of their mistress. And for little Jan, Moll's four-year-old son, there was still less possibility of escape from the tyrant whom he called by the name of Mother.

Nothing of true mother-love had ever yet beenkindled in Rough Moll's heart. From the very beginning she had fiercely resented being burdened with what she called 'the plague of a brat.' Still, so long as his father remained at home, the child's life had not been an unhappy one. As soon as ever he could stand alone he drew himself up by his father's trousers, with an outstretched hand to be grasped in the big fist. As soon as he could toddle, he spent his days wandering round the Inn after his daddy, knowing that directly he grew tired daddy would be ready to stop whatever he might be doing, in order to lift the small boy up in his arms or to give him a ride on his knee.

'Wasting your time over the brat and leaving the Tavern to go to rack and ruin'—Moll would say, with a sneer, as she passed them. But she never interfered; for the husband who had courted her when she was a young girl was the only person for whom she still kept a soft spot in the heart that of late years seemed to have grown so hard.

Truth to tell, tavern-keeping was no easy business in those unsettled times, and Moll had ever been a famous body for worrying over trifles.

'"The worry cowWould have lived till now,If she had not lost her breath,But she thought her hayWould not last the day,So she mooed herself to death."

'And all the time she had three sacks full! Remember that, Moll, my lass!' Jan's father would say to his wife, when she began to pour out to him her dismal forebodings about the future.

But since this easy-going, jolly daddy had leftthe Inn and had gone away with the other men and lads of the village to fight with My Lord for the King, little Jan's lot was a hard one, and seemed likely to grow harder day by day.

Rough Moll's own life was not too easy either, at this time, though few folks troubled themselves to speculate upon the reason for her added gruffness. So she concealed her anxieties under an extra harshness of tongue and did her best to make life a burden to everyone she came across. For, naturally, now that the Inn was no longer a pleasant place in mine host's absence, it was no longer a profitable place either. Custom was falling off and quarter day was fast approaching. Moll was at her wits' end to know where she should find money to pay her rent, when, one day, to her unspeakable relief, My Lady in her coach stopped at the door of the Inn. Now Moll had been dairymaid up at the Hall years ago, before her marriage, and My Lady knew of old that Moll's butter was as sweet as her looks were sour. Perhaps she guessed, also, at some of the other woman's anxieties; for was not her own husband, My Lord, away at the wars too? Anyway, when the fine yellow coach stopped at the door of the Inn, it was My Lady's own head with the golden ringlets that leaned out of the window, and My Lady's own soft voice that asked if her old dairymaid could possibly oblige her with no less than thirty pounds of butter for her Yuletide feast to the villagers the following week.

The Moll who came out, smiling and flattered, to the Inn door and stood there curtseying very low to her Ladyship, was a different being from the Rough Moll of every day. She promised, with her very smoothesttongue, she would not fail. She knew where to get the milk, and her Ladyship should have the butter, full weight and the very best, by the following evening, which would leave two full days before Christmas.

'That is settled then, for I have never known you to fail me,' said My Lady, as the coach drove away, leaving Moll curtseying behind her, and vowing again that 'let come what would come,' she would not fail.

It was small wonder, therefore, after this unaccustomed graciousness, that she was shorter-tempered than ever with her unfortunate guests that evening. Was not their presence hindering her from getting on with her task? At length she left the lasses to serve the ale, which, truth to tell, they were nothing loath to do, while Moll herself, in her wooden shoes and with her skirts tucked up all round her, clattered in and out of the dairy where already a goodly row of large basins stood full to the brim with rich yellow milk on which, even now, the cream was fast rising.

Thirty pounds of butter could never all be made in one day; she must begin her task overnight. True, little Jan was whining to go to bed as he tried vainly to keep awake on his small hard stool by the fire. The brat must wait; she could not attend to him now. He could sleep well enough leaning against the bricks of the chimney-corner. Or, no! the butter-making would take a long time, and Moll was never a methodical woman. Jan should lie down, just as he was, and have a nap in the kitchen until she was ready to attend to him. Roughly, but not unkindly, she pulled him off the stool and laid him down on a rug in a dark corner of the kitchen and told him to be off to sleep as fast as he could, stooping to cover him with an old coatof her husband's that was hanging on the door, as she spoke. Nothing loath, Jan shut his sleepy eyes, and, burying his little nose in the folds of the old coat, he went happily off into dreamland, soothed by the well-remembered out-door smell that always clung around his father's belongings.

It did not take Moll long to fill the churn and to set it in its place. Just as she was busy shutting down the lid, there came a knock at the door. 'Plague take you, Stranger,' she grumbled, as she opened it, and a gust of snow and wind blew in upon her and the assembled guests in the tavern kitchen. 'You bring in more of the storm than you are likely to pay for your ale.'

'My desire is not for ale,' said the Stranger, speaking slowly, and looking at the woman keenly from underneath his shaggy eyebrows. 'I came but to ask thee for shelter from the storm; and for a little meat, if thou hast any to set before me.'

'To asktheefor shelter.' 'Ifthouhast any meat.' The unusual form of address caught Moll's ear. She looked more closely at her visitor. Yes, his lower limbs were not covered with homely Yorkshire frieze; they were encased in odd garments that must surely be made of leather, since the snowflakes lay upon them in crisp wreaths and wrinkles before they melted. She had heard of the strange being who was visiting those parts and she had no desire to make his acquaintance. 'Hey, lasses!' she called to her maids at the far end of the tavern parlour, 'here is the man in leather breeches himself, come to pay us a visit this wild night!'

A shout of laughter went up from the men at theirtankards. 'The man in leather breeches!' 'Send him out again into the storm! We'll have none of his company here, the spoil sport!'

Moll nodded assent, and returning to her unwelcome guest, said shortly, 'Meat there is none for you here,' and moved towards the door, where the Stranger still stood, as if to close it upon him.

But the man was not to be so easily dismissed.

'Hast thou then milk?' he asked.

Moll laughed aloud. A man who did not want ale should not have milk; no money to be made out of that; especially this night of all nights, when every drop would be wanted for her Ladyship's butter.

Lies were part of Moll's regular stock-in-trade. She lied now, with the ease of long habit.

'You will get no shelter here,' she said roughly, 'and as for milk, there is not a drop in the house.'

The Stranger looked at her. He spoke no words for a full minute, but as his eyes pierced her through and through, she knew that he knew that she had lied. The knowledge made her angry. She repeated her words with an oath. The Stranger made as if to turn away; then, almost reluctantly but very tenderly, as if he were being drawn back in spite of himself: 'Hast thou then cream?' he asked. Yet, though his tone was persuasive, his brows were knitted as he stood looking down upon the angry woman.

'Not as if he cared about the cream, but as if he cared about me,' Moll said herself, long after. But at the time: 'No, nor cream either. On my soul, there is not a drop in the house,' she repeated, more fiercely than before.

But, even as she spoke, she saw that the Stranger'seyes were fastened on the churn that stood behind her, the churn evidently full and drawn out for use, with drops of rich yellow cream still standing upon the lid and trickling down the sides.

Moll turned her square shoulders upon the churn as if to shut out its witness to her falsehood. Her lies came thick and fast; 'I tell you there is not a single drop of cream in the house.'

The next moment, a loud crash made her look round. She had forgotten Jan! The loud angry voice and the cold blast from the open door had awakened him before he had had time to get sound asleep. Hearing his mother vow that she had not a drop of cream in the house, he left his rug and began playing about again. Then, being ever a restless little mortal, he had crept round to the churn to see if it had really become empty in such a short time. He had tried to pull himself up by one of the legs in order to stand on the rim and see if there was really no cream inside; and in attempting this feat, naturally, he had pulled the whole churn over upon him. And not only the churn,—its contents too! Eighteen quarts of Moll's richest yellow cream were streaming all over the kitchen floor. Pools, lakes, rivers, seas of cream were running over the flagstones and dripping through the crevices into the ground.

With a cry of rage Moll turned, and, seeing the damage, she sprang upon little Jan and beat him soundly; and a beating from Moll's heavy hand was no small matter: then with a curse she flung the child away from her towards the hearth.

'Woman!' The Stranger's voice recalled her. 'Woman! Beware! Thou art full of lies and furyand deceit, yet in the name of the Lord I warn thee. Ere three days have gone by, thou shalt know what is in thine heart; and thou shalt learn the power of that which was, and is, and will be!'

So saying, the unwelcome guest opened the outer door and walked away into the raging storm and darkness,—a less bitter storm it seemed to him now than that created by the violent woman within doors. Some way further on he espied a haystack, under which he lay down, as he had done on many another night before this, and there he slept in the wind and the snow until morning.

Moll, meanwhile, enraged beyond words at the loss of her cream, stalked off for a pail and cloth, and set herself to wash the floor, muttering curses as she did so. Never a glance did she cast at the corner by the fire where little Jan still lay by the hearth-stone, motionless and strangely quiet; he, the restless imp, who was usually so full of life. Never a glance, until, the centre of the floor being at last clean again, Moll, on her knees, came with her pail of soap-suds to the white river that surrounded the corner of the kitchen where Jan lay. A white river? Nay, there was a crimson river that mingled with it; a stream of crimson drops that flowed from the stone under the child's head.

Moll leapt to her feet on the instant. What ailed the boy? She had beaten him, it is true, but then she had beaten him often before this in his father's absence. A beating was nothing new to little Jan. Why had he fallen? What made him lie so still? She turned him over. Ah! it was easy to see the reason. As she flung him from her in her rage, thechild in his fall had struck his head against the sharp edge of the hearth-stone, and there he lay now, with the life-blood steadily flowing from his temple.

A feeling that Rough Moll had never been conscious of before gripped her heart at the sight. Was her boy dead? Had she killed him? What would his father say? What would her husband call her? A murderer? Was she that? Was that what the Stranger had meant when he had looked at her with those piercing eyes? He might have called her a liar, at the sight of the churn full of cream, but he had not done so; and little she would have cared if he had. But a murderer! Was murder in her heart?

Lifting Jan as carefully as she could, she carried him upstairs to the small bedroom under the roof, where he usually lay on a tiny pallet by her side. But this night the child's small figure lay in the wide bed, and big Moll, with all her clothes on, hung over him; or if she lay down for a moment or two, it was only on the hard little pallet by his side.

All that night Moll watched. But all that night Jan never moved. All the next day he lay unconscious, while Moll did her clumsy utmost to staunch the wound in his forehead. Long before it was light, she tried to send one of her maids for the doctor; but the storm was now so violent that none could leave or enter the house.

Her Ladyship's order went unheeded. The thirty pounds of butter were never made. But My Lady, who was a mother herself, not only forgave Moll for spoiling her Yuletide festivities, but even told her, when she heard of the disaster, that she need not troubleabout the rent until her boy was better.

Until he was better! But would Jan ever be better? Moll had no thought now for either the butter or the rent. The yellow cream might turn sour in every single one of her pans for all she cared, if only she could get rid of this new unbearable pain.

At length, on the evening of the second day, faint with the want of sleep, she fell into an uneasy doze: and still Jan had neither moved nor stirred. Presently a faint sound woke her. Was he calling? No; it was but the Christmas bells ringing across the snow. What were those bells saying? 'MUR-DER-ER' 'MUR-DERER'—was that it? Over and over again. Did even the bells know what she had done and what she had in her heart? For a moment black despair seized her.

The next moment there followed the shuffling sound of many feet padding through the snow. The storm had ceased by this time, and all the world was wrapped in a white silence, broken only by the sound of the distant bells. And now the Christmas waits had followed the bells' music, and were singing carols outside the ale-house door. Fiercely, Moll stuck her fingers in her ears. She would not listen, lest even the waits should sing of her sin, and shew her the blackness of her heart. But the song stole up into the room, and, in spite of herself, something forced Moll to attend to the words:

Back to Index Next