Wesley lost no time in announcing to his friends the decision to which he had come. He was to preach on Sunday at the place where his first meeting had been held, and he felt sure that his congregation would be sufficiently large for his purpose, which was to let it be known throughout the country that he and all those who were associated with him in his work in Cornwall discountenanced Pritchard in every way. To be sure there was very little time left to them to spread abroad the news that Mr. Wesley had returned and would preach on Sunday. Only a single day remained to them, and that was not enough to allow of the announcement being made outside an area of twenty-five or thirty miles from Porthawn; but when Mr. Hartwell and Jake Pullsford shook their heads and doubted if this preaching would bring together more than a few hundred people, these being the inhabitants of the villages and hamlets within a mile or two of Porthawn, Wesley explained that all that was necessary to be done would be accomplished even by a small congregation. All that should be aimed at was to place it on record that Pritchard had done what he had done on his own responsibility and without any previous consultation with the leader of the movement with which he had been associated. But, of course, the more people who would be present the more fully his object would be accomplished, and Wesley's friends sent their message with all speed and in every direction.
“I would fain believe that the news of this distressing folly of Pritchard's has not spread very far abroad,” said Wesley. “I travelled, as you know, through a large portion of the country on my return, and yet it was not until I had reached the head of the valley that the least whisper of the matter reached me; I would fain hope that the trouble will be only local.”
“Those who are opposed to us will take the best of care to prevent it from being circumscribed,” said Mr. Hartwell. “The captain of my mine tells me that there is excitement as far away as Falmouth and Truro over the prediction. In some districts no work has been done for several days. That news I had this morning.”
“'Tis more serious than I thought possible it could be,” said Wesley. “Our task is not an easy one, but with God's help it shall be fulfilled.” Going forth through the village in the early afternoon, he was surprised to find so much evidence of the credence which the people had given to the prediction and so pronounced a tendency to connect it with the movement begun by Wesley in the early Summer. It seemed to be taken for granted that Wesley had come back to urge upon them the need for immediate repentance. This Pritchard had done with great vehemence ever since he had prophesied the Great Day.
Wesley found his old friends agitated beyond measure—even those who had professed to have received the Word that he had preached. No boats except those owned by Nelly Polwhele's father had put off to the fishing ground for some days, and, strange to say, although Isaac Polwhele held that Pritchard had gone too far in all that he had said, he returned on Friday morning from his night's fishing with a strange story of lights seen in the depths of the Channel—something like fires seething beneath the surface—of wonderful disturbances of the waters, although only the lightest of breezes was hovering round the coast; and of a sudden sound, thunderous, with the noise as of a cataract tumbling in the distance, followed by the rolling of large waves in spite of the fact that for the time there was not a breath stirring the air.
The old fisherman told his story of these things without any reserve; but while he was still disposed to give a contemptuous nod when anyone mentioned Pritchard's name, his experience through that night had done much to widen Pritchard's influence until at last there seemed to be neither fisherman nor boat-builder that did not dread the dawning of Monday.
And yet Nelly had not spoken one word about the prophecy when he had talked with her a few hours before!
This circumstance caused Wesley no little surprise. He asked himself if Polwhele's girl was the only sensible person in the neighbourhood. While the other people were overwhelmed at the prospect of a catastrophe on Monday, she had gone to visit her young ladies and brought back with her a pair of young doves.
He began to feel that he had never given the girl credit for some of those qualities which she possessed—qualities which certainly are not shared by the majority of womankind.
Her father told him before he had reached the village something of the marvels which had come under his notice only two nights before. But he tried to make it plain that he did not attach any great importance to them: he did not regard them as portents, however other people might be disposed to do so. The old fisherman was shrewd enough to guess that Mr. Wesley's sympathies were not with Pritchard. Still he could not deny that what he had seen and heard surpassed all his experience of the Channel, although he allowed that he had heard of the like from the lips of mariners who had voyaged far and wide, and had probably been disbelieved in both hemispheres, by the best judges of what was credible. He had heard, for instance, of parallels where through long sultry nights the ocean had seemed one mass of flame. But he himself was no deep-sea sailor.
“A sea of flame is common enough in some quarters,” said Wesley. “I myself have seen the Atlantic palpitating like a furnace, and our ship dashed flakes of fire from the waters that were cloven by her cut-water. But the sounds which you say you heard—think you not that they came from a distant thunderstorm?”
“Likely enough, sir, likely enough,” replied the man after a pause; but he spoke in a way that assured Mr. Wesley that he knew very well that the sounds had not come from a thunderstorm, however distant. He had had plenty of experience of thunderstorms, near at hand as well as far off.
“Or Admiral Hawke's ships—might not some of the Admiral's fleet have come within a mile or two of the coast and discharged their carronades?” Wesley suggested.
“Ay, sir, the boom of a ship's gun carries a long way on the water,” said the fisherman, but in a tone that suggested graver doubt than before.
“'Tis clear you are convinced that what you heard was stranger than either thunder or gunpowder,” said he.
“Nay, sir, what I am thinking of is the sudden uprise of the sea,” said Polwhele. “Without warning our smack began to sway so that the mast well-nigh went by the board, albeit there was ne'er a draught o' wind. And there was summat besides that I kept back from all the world.”
“A greater mystery still?” said Wesley.
“The biggest of all, sir; after the last rumblings my mates thought that we had been long enough anchored on the fishing bank; so we got in the grapple and laid out sweeps to pull the smack to the shore.”
He made another pause, and looked into the face of his auditor and then out seawards. He took a step or two away and stood thoughtfully with pursed out lips.
“And then?” said Wesley.
“And then, sir, then—sir, the oar blades refused to sink. They struck on something hard, though not with the hardness of a rock or even a sand bank. 'Twas like as if they had fallen on a floating dead body—I know what the feel is, sir. When theGloriana, East Indiaman, went ashore forty years agone, and broke up on the Teeth—you know the reef, sir—we were coming on the bodies o' the crew for weeks after, as they came to the surface, as bodies will after eight days—some say ten, but I stick to eight.”
“But if you came upon the body of a drowned man the night before last you would surely have reported it, Polwhele,” said Wesley.
“It were dead bodies that we touched wi' our blades, but they was the dead bodies of fishes. There they floated, sir, thick as jelly bags after a Spring tide—hundreds of them—thousands of them—all round the boats—big and little—mackerel and cod and congers and skates and some monsters that I had never seen before, with mighty heads. They held the boat by their numbers, blocking its course till we got up a flare o' pitch and held it out on an oar and saw what was the matter. That was how it came about that we landed with fish up to the gunwale, though we had hauled in empty seines—or well-nigh empty half an hour before. And if all the other boats had been out that night they would have been filled likewise. I tell you, sir, all we picked up made no difference to the shoals that was about us. But I said no word to mortal man about this event nor e'en to my own wife. What would be the good? I asks you, sir. The poor folk be troubled enow over Dick Pritchard, as no doubt you heard. I would that Tuesday was safe o'er us. List, you can hear the voice o' Simon Barwell baying the boys into the fold like a sheep dog. Simon was a sad evil liver before he heard you preach, sir, and now he's telling the lads that they have only another day and half to repent, so they'd best not put it off too long.”
Wesley looked in the direction he indicated and saw a young fellow mounted on a fish barrel, haranguing a group of men and women. He was far off, but his voice every now and again reached the place where Wesley and the old man stood.
“There be some that holds that Simon himself would ha' done well to begin his repentance a while back,” resumed Polwhele. “And there's some others that must needs scamp their penitence, if I have a memory at all; howsomever, Dick Pritchard——”
“Ah, friend,” said Wesley, “if I could think that the repentance which is being brought about through fear of Monday will last, I would take joy to stand by the side of Pritchard and learn from him, but alas, I fear that when Monday comes and goes——”
“But will it come and go?” cried the old man eagerly.
“I cannot tell—no man living can tell if to-morrow will come and go, or if he will live to see the day dawn. We know so much, but no more, and I hold that any man who says that he knows more is tempting the Lord.”
“And I hold with you, Mr. Wesley; only not altogether so fast since those happenings I have rehearsed to you. What was it slew them fish, sir?”
“I cannot tell you that. I have heard that some of your mines are pierced far below the sea, and that for miles out. Perhaps we shall hear that a store of gunpowder exploded in one of them, throwing off the roof and killing the fish in the water over it—I do not say that this is the only explanation of the matter. I make no pretence to account for all that you saw and heard. I have heard of earthquakes beneath the water.”
“Earthquakes in divers places, Mr. Wesley, 'twas from that text Dick Pritchard preached last Sunday.” The man's voice was lowered, and there was something of awe in his whisper. “He prophesied that there would be an earthquake in divers places—meaning the sea—before the coming of the terrible day, Monday next. Now you know, sir, why I said naught that was particular—only hazy like—that none could seize hold upon about Thursday's fishing. But I've told you, Mr. Wesley, whatever may happen.”
He took off his hat and walked away, when he had looked for some moments into Wesley's face, and noted the expression that it wore.
And, indeed, Wesley was perturbed as he turned and went up the little track that led to the summit of the cliffs, and the breezy space that swept up to the wood. He was greatly perturbed by the plain statement of the fisherman. He had been anxious to take the most favourable view of Pritchard and his predictions. He had believed that the man, however foolish and vain he might be, had been sincere in his conviction that he was chosen by Heaven to prophesy the approaching end of all things; but now the impression was forced upon him that the man was on a level with the soothsayers of heathendom.
Even though he had taken a ludicrously illiterate view of the text, “There shall be earthquakes in divers places,” he had made it the subject of another prediction, and it seemed as if this prediction had actually been realised, although only a single fisherman, and he a friend of Pritchard's, was in a position to testify to it.
Wesley had heard it said more than once that the finding of water by the aid of a divining rod was a devil's trick; but he had never taken such a view of the matter; he affirmed that he would be slow to believe that a skill which had for its object so excellent an object as the finding of a spring of the most blessed gift of water, should be attributed to the Enemy. He preferred to assume that the finding of water was the result of a certain delicacy of perception on the part of the man with the hazel wand, just as the detection of a false harmony in music is due to a refinement of the sense of hearing on the part of other men.
But was he to believe that any man possessed such a sense as enabled him to predict an earthquake?
It was impossible for him to believe it. And what then was he to think of the man who had foretold such an event—an event which had actually taken place within a week of his prediction?
The man could only be a soothsayer. The very fact of his corrupting the text out of the Sacred Word was a proof of this. If he were in the service of God, he would never have mistaken the word in the text to mean the sea. The man was a servant of the Evil One, and Wesley felt once more that he himself had been to blame in admitting him to his fellowship, without subjecting him to such tests as would have proved his faith.
And then he found himself face to face with the further question: If the man had, by reason of his possession of a certain power, achieved success in his forecast of one extraordinary event, was it to be assumed that the other event—the one of supreme importance to the world, and all that dwell therein—would also take place?
What, was it possible that the Arch Enemy had been able to get possession of the secret which not even the angels in heaven had fathomed, and had chosen this man to communicate it to some people in the world?
What, was it possible that Satan, if he acquired that secret, would allow it to be revealed, thereby losing his hold upon as many of the people of the world as became truly repentant, and there was no doubt that Pritchard had urged repentance upon the people?
It was a tangled web that Wesley found in his hand this day. No matter which end of it he began to work upon, his difficulties in untangling seemed the same. He was fearful of doing the man an injustice; but how could he, as a faithful servant, stand by and see the work with which he had been entrusted, wrecked and brought to naught?
And then another point suggested itself to him: what if this prediction became the means of calling many to repentance—true repentance—how dreadful would be his own condemnation if he were to oppose that which had been followed by blessing!
It was the flexibility and the ceaseless activity of his mind that increased the difficulties of his position. He, and he only, could look at the matter from every standpoint and appreciate it in all its bearings. If he had not had the refuge of prayer, having faith that he would receive the Divine guidance, he would have allowed the vanity—if it was vanity—of Pritchard to be counteracted in the ordinary—in what seemed to be the natural way—namely, by the ridicule which would follow the nonfulfilment of his prophecy.
He prayed.
He had seated himself on the trunk of a fallen tree on the edge of the wood, and he had a feeling that he was not alone. The Summer ever seemed to him to be a spiritual essence—a beautiful creature of airy flashing draperies, diffusing perfumes a& she went by. He had known the joy of her companionship for several years, for no man had ampler opportunities of becoming acquainted with the seasons in all their phases.
There was the sound of abundance of life in the woods behind him, and around the boles of the scattered trees in front of him the graceful little stoats were playing. At his feet were scattered all the wild flowers of the meadow. Where the earth was brown under the trees, myriads of fairy bells were hanging in clusters, and in the meadow the yellow buttercups shone like spangles upon a garment of green velvet. He was not close enough to the brink of the cliffs to be able to see the purple and blue and pink of the flowers scattered among the coarse herbage of the rocks. But the bank of gorse that flowed like a yellow river through the meadow could not be ignored. In the sunlight it was a glory to see.
The sky was faintly grey, but the sea was of the brightest azure—the pure translucent blue of the sapphire, and it was alive with the light that seemed to burn subtly within the heart of a great jewel. But in the utter distance it became grey until it mingled imperceptibly with the sky.
The poet-preacher saw everything that there was to be seen, and his faith was upheld as it ever was, by the gracious companionship of nature, and he cried now:
“Oh, that a man could speak to men in the language of the Summer!”
Why could not all eyes of men look forth over that sea to where the heaven bowed down and mingled with it? Why could not men learn what was meant by this symbol of the mystic marriage of heaven and earth? Why should they continue to refuse the love which was offered them from above?
Everything that he saw was a symbol to him of the love of which he was the herald—the love which is followed by a peace that passeth all understanding. He was conscious of this peace leaning over him with outstretched wings, and he felt that the answer to his prayer had come. He would make no further attempt to solve the difficulties which had perplexed him. The voice that breathed the message that soothed him was the same that Elijah heard, and it said:
“Rest in the Lord, and He shall direct thy ways.”
He remained there for another hour, and then rose and made his way slowly toward the village.
The meadow track led to a broad gap in the hedge of gorse, and just as he had passed through, he was aware of the quick pattering of a galloping horse on the short grass behind him, and before he had time to turn, the horseman had put his mount to the hedge, making a clear jump of it.
“What, ho!” cried the man, apparently recognising Wesley before the horse's feet had reached the ground. “What, ho!” and he pulled the animal to its haunches.
Wesley saw that he was Parson Rodney, the good-humoured Rector who had spoken to him when he had been on the road with Nelly six weeks before.
“Ho, Mr. Wesley, I had heard that you were returning to us,” he cried. “Is it your thought that at Monday's Assize you will run a better chance if you are found in good company? What, sir, never shake your head in so gloomy a fashion. The Prophet Pritchard may be wrong. I was thinking of him when I came upon a clump of guzzlers reeling along the road an hour ago—reeling along with the buttercups as yellow as gold under their feet, and the sunlight bringing out all the scents of the earth that we love so well—I thought what a pity 'twould be if the world should come to an end when all her creatures are so happy!”
“Pardon me, Reverend sir,” said Wesley. “But I have at heart too much sorrow to enjoy any jest, least of all one made upon a matter that seems to me far too solemn for jesting.”
“Pshaw! Mr. Wesley, what is there serious or solemn in the vapourings of a jackanapes?” cried the other. “What doth a parson of our church—and a learned parson into the bargain—a Fellow of his College—not a dunce like me—what, I say, doth such an one with the maunderings of a vain and unlettered bumpkin whom his very godfathers and godmothers made a mark for ridicule when they had him christened Richard—Richard Pritchard?”
“Ah, sir,” said Wesley, “you witnessed what you did an hour ago on the roadside—you saw what I saw, and yet you can ask me why I should be troubled. Were not you troubled, Mr. Rodney?”
“Troubled? Oh, ay; my horse became uneasy when one of the drunken rascals yelled out a ribald word or two across the hedge—I am very careful of my horse's morals, sir; I never let him hear any bad language. When we are out with the hounds I throw my kerchief over his ears when we chance to be nigh the Master or his huntsmen. That is why I laid over the rascal's shoulders with my crop, though the hedge saved them from much that I intended. Trust me, Mr. Wesley, that is the way such fellows should be treated, and as for this Pritchard—faugh! a horsewhip on his back would bring him to his senses, though as a Justice of the Peace, I would be disposed to let this precious water-finder find what the nature of a horse-pond is like. Why, in Heaven's name, do you trouble yourself about him?”
“It was I who gave him countenance at first, sir. He made profession to me and I trusted him. I fear that the work on behalf of which I am very jealous may suffer through his indiscretion.”
“His indiscretion?yourindiscretion, you surely mean, Mr. Wesley.”
“I accept your correction, sir.”
“Look ye here, Mr. Wesley, I have more respect for you, sir, than I have for any man of our cloth—ay, even though he may wear an apron and lawn sleeves. I know that as a clergyman I am not fit to black your shoes, but I am equally sure that as a man of the world, with a good working knowledge of human nature, I am beyond you; and that is why I tell you that this movement of yours has—well, it has too much movement in it to prove a lasting thing. You have never ridden to hounds or you would know that 'tis slow and steady that does it. If you keep up the pace from the start, you will be blown before the first half-hour is over, and where will you be when you have a double ditch to hop over? Why, you'll be up to your neck in the mire of the first. Mr. Wesley, there are a good many ditches to be got over in the life of a beneficed clergyman of your Church and mine; and, my word for it, you would do well to take them slowly, and reserve your strength. You want to go too fast ahead—to rush your hedges—that's how the thorns in the flesh thrive, and this Pritchard is only one of the many thorns that will make your life wearisome to you, and bring your movement to an end. You have never said a hard word about me, Mr. Wesley, though you had good reason to do so; and I have never said aught but what is good about you.”
“I know it, sir. Others have called me a busybody—some a charlatan.”
“They were fools. You are the most admirable thing in the world, sir—a zealous parson; but a thoroughbred horse is not the best for daily use; a little blood is excellent, but not too much. Your zeal will wear you out—ay, and it will wear your listeners out sooner. You cannot expect to lead a perpetual revival, as people call it, and that's why I am convinced that the humdrum system, with a stout woollen petticoat here and a bottle of sound port there, is the best for the parsons and the best for the people.”
“Your views are shrewd, and I dare not at this moment say that they are not justifiable. But for myself—sir, if God gives me strength, I shall not slacken the work with which I believe He hath entrusted me—until our churches are filled with men and women eager in their search after the Truth.”
“If all your friends were like you, the thing might be accomplished, Mr. Wesley; but the breakdown of your methods—your Methodism—will come through your introduction of the laity as your chief workers. You will find yourself face to face with Pritchards, and the last state of the people will be, as it is now, worse than the first. You may have done some good since you came here to preach a month ago, but you have—unwittingly, I say—done great mischief. My parishioners were heretofore living quite comfortably, they were satisfied with my ministrations, such as they were. I have heard it said that a healthy man does not know that he has any liver or spleen or vitals within his body: 'tis only the sick that have that knowledge. Well, the same is true in respect to their souls. Sir, there was not a man of my flock that knew he had a soul. There was a healthy condition of things for you!”
“Sir, I entreat of you not to mock!”
“I am not mocking, friend Wesley. What have people in the state of life to which the majority of my parishioners have been called, to do with the state of their souls? There should be a law that no man below the Game Law qualification shall assume that he has a soul.”
“I cannot listen further to you, Mr. Rodney.”
“Nay, Mr. Wesley, whatever you be, I'll swear that you are no coward: you will not run away by reason of not agreeing with an honest opponent—and I am not an opponent—I am only an honest friend. I say that my people were simple, homely people who respected me because I never wittingly awoke a man or woman who went asleep in my church, and because I never bothered them with long sermons, when they could hear their Sunday dinners frizzling in their cottages—they respected me for that, but more because they knew I had a sound knowledge of a horse, a boat, a dog and a game-cock.”
“Mr. Rodney——”
“Pshaw, Wesley, have you not eyes to see that the Church of England exists more for the bodies than the souls of the people? I would rather see a good, sturdy lot of Englishmen in England—good drinkers of honest ale, breeders of good fat cattle, and growers of golden wheat—honest, hard swearers of honest English oaths, and with selfrespect enough to respect their betters—I would rather have them such, I say, than snivelling, ranting Nonconformists, prating about their souls and showing the whites of their eyes when they hear that an educated man, who is a gentleman first and a parson afterwards, follows the hounds, relishes a main in the cockpit, and a rubber of whist in the rectory parlour and preaches the gospel of fair play for ten minutes in his pulpit, and the rest of the twenty-four hours out of it.”
“And I, Mr. Rodney, would rather hear of the saving of a sinner's soul by a Nonconformist ranter, Churchman though I be, than see the whole nation living in comfortable forgetfulness of God.”
Parson Rodney laughed.
“I will give you another year of riding to and fro and telling the peasantry that they have souls,” he said. “You will not make us a nation of spiritual hypochondriacs, Mr. Wesley. For a while people will fancy that there is something the matter with them, and you'll hear a deal of groaning and moaning at your services; but when the novelty of the thing is gone, they will cease to talk of their complaints. Englishmen are stronger in their bodies than in their souls, and the weaker element will go to the wall, and your legs will be crushed against that same wall by the asses you are riding. Why, already I know that you have suffered a bruise or two, through the shambling of that ass whose name is Pritchard. The unprofitable prophet Pritchard. A prophet? Well, 'tis not the first time that an ass thought himself a prophet, and began to talk insolently to his master. But Balaam's animal was a hand or two higher than his brother Pritchard; when he began to talk he proved himself no ass, but the moment the other opens his mouth, he stands condemned. Lay on him with your staff, Mr. Wesley; he has sought to make a fool of you without the excuse that there is an angel in your way. I have half a mind to give his hide a trouncing myself to-morrow, only I could not do so without giving a cut at you, who are, just now, holding on by his tail, hoping to hold him back in his fallow, and, believe me, sir, I respect you with all my heart, and envy your zeal. Good-day to you, Mr. Wesley; I hope I may live to see you in good living yet; if you worry to a sufficient degree the powers that be, they will assuredly make you a Dean, hoping that in a Cathedral Close, where everything slumbers, you will fold your hands and sleep comfortably like the rest. I doubt if you would, sir. But meantime if you will come to my humble rectory this evening, I can promise you a Tubber with a good partner, and a bottle of Bordeaux that the King of France might envy, but that has paid no duty to the King of England.”
“I thank you for your invitation, sir; but you know that I cannot accept it.”
“I feared as much, sir. But never mind, I hope that I shall live until you are compelled to accept my offer of hospitality to you as my Bishop.”
He waved his hand, and gave his horse, who had never heard his master talk for so long a time at a stretch and whose impatience had for some time given way to astonishment, a touch with the spur. Wesley watched him make a beautiful jump over the gate that led into the park, beyond which the rectory nestled on the side of a hill among its orchards.
He turned with a sigh to the cliff path leading beyond the village to where Mr. Hartwell's house stood, separated from the beach only by a wall of crags, and a few rows of weather-beaten trees, all stretching rather emaciated arms inland.
Wesley had preached under varying conditions in different parts of England, but never under such as prevailed on this Sunday, when he set out in the early morning with his friend, Mr. Hartwell, for the pulpit among the crags which he had occupied several times during his previous stay at Porthawn.
When he set out from the Hartwells' house the grey sea-mist, which had been rolling round the coast and through the valley of the Lana for several days past, was as thick as a fog. It was dense and confusing to one who faced it for the first time. It was so finely grey that one seemed to see through it at first, and boldly plunged into its depths; but the instant that one did so, its folds closed over one as the dense waters of the sea do over a diver, and one was lost. Before one had recovered, one had the feeling of being smothered in a billow of grey gauze, smooth as silk that has been dipped in milk, and gasped within the windings of its folds. It was chilly, with the taste of the salt sea in its moisture. It took the heart out of one.
“This is nothing, sir,” said Mr. Hartwell. “Lay your hand upon my arm and you will have no trouble: I could find my way along our cliffs through the thickest weather. I have been put to the test before now.”
“I am not thinking so much of ourselves as of our friends whom we expect to meet us in the valley,” said Wesley. “How, think you, will they be able to find their way under such conditions?”
“I do not assume that this mist is more than a temporary thing—it comes from the sea well-nigh every Summer morn, but perishes as it rolls over the cliffs,” said Mr. Hartwell.
“It was clinging to the ridges of the valley slopes when I rode through, almost at noon yesterday,” said Wesley.
“Stragglers from the general army that we have to encounter here,” said the other. “When the phalanx of sea-mist rolls inland, it leaves its tattered remnants of camp followers straggling in its wake. I believe that when we reach the place we shall find ourselves bathed in sunshine.”
“May your surmise prove correct!” said Wesley.
And so they started breaking into the mist, feeling its salt touch upon their faces and hearing the sound of the waves breaking on the beach below them. It was curiously hollow, and every now and then amid the noise of the nearer waves, there came the deep boom from the distant caves, and the sob of the waters that were choked in the narrow passage between the cliffs and the shoreward limits of the Dog's Teeth.
They had not gone more than half a mile along the track that led to the pack horse road, when they heard the sound of voices, near at hand, with a faint and still fainter far-off hail. The next moment they almost ran into a mixed party of travellers on the same track.
Mr. Hartwell was acquainted with some of them. They came from a hamlet high up in the valley a mile from Ruthallion.
“We are bound for the preaching,” said one of them. “What a wandering we have had for the past two hours! We lost our way twice and only recovered ourselves when we gained the horse road.”
“We are going to the preaching also,” said Mr. Hartwell.
“How then does it come that we meet you instead of overtaking you?” asked the other.
There was a silence. The halloa in the distance became fainter.
“One of us must be wrong,” said Wesley.
“We don't match our knowledge against Mr. Hartwell's,” said the spokesman of the strangers.
“I am confident that I know the way,” said Mr. Hartwell. “I only left the main track once, and that was to cut off the round at Stepney's Gap.”
“On we go then, with blessings on your head, sir,” said the other man. “Friends, where should we ha' landed ourselves if we had fallen short of our luck in coming right on Mr. Hartwell? Would we not do kindly to give a halloa or twain to help those poor hearts that may be wandering wild?” he added, pointing in the direction whence the hail seemed to come.
“Ay, 'twould be but kind,” said an old man of the party. “Oh, 'tis a dread and grisly mishap to be wandering wild in an unknown country.”
Forthwith the younger ones sent out answering hails to the halloas that came to them. But when the next sounds reached their ears like echoes of their own shouts, it seemed that they came from quite another quarter.
“I could ha' taken my davy that the lost ones was off another point o' the compass,” said the old man.
“No, Comyn,” said another. “No, my man, they came from thither.”
He pointed straight in front of him.
“From where we stand that should be the Gap,” said Mr. Hartwell.
“A special comfortable place to be wandering wild in is the Gap, for if you walk straight on it carries you to the mighty ocean, and if you walk back you will reach your own home safe, if it be in that direction,” said the old man with emphasis.
“Was this mist far up the valley?” Wesley enquired.
“Not more than a league, sir,” replied the old man. “'Twas a sunlit morn when we made our start, and then it came down on us like a ship in full sail. There goes another hail, and, as I said, it comes from behind us. Is there one of us that has a clear throat. 'Kish Trevanna, you was a gallery choir singer in your youth, have you any sound metallic notes left that you could cheer up the lost ones withal? Come, goodman, be not over shy. Is this a time to be genteel when a parson's of the company, waiting to help and succour the vague wanderers?”
“The call is for thee, Loveday, for didst not follow the hounds oft when there was brisk work in Squire's coverts?” said the man to whom the appeal was made.
“We must hasten onward,” said Mr. Hartwell, making a start. “'Tis most like that we are overtaking whomsoever it be that was shouting a hail. Forward, friends, and feel your way to the pack-horse road.”
The whole party began to move, Mr. Hartwell and Wesley leading, and before they had proceeded for more than two hundred yards they heard the sound of talking just ahead of them, and the next moment a group of men loomed through the mist. Friends were also in the new party.
“Were you them that sang out?” asked one of them.
“Only in answer to your hail; we be no cravens, but always ready to help poor wanderers,” replied the talkative old man.
“We did not sound a note before we heard a hail,” said the questioner in the new party. “We have not strayed yet, being bound for the preaching.”
“Have you been on the horse road?” asked Hartwell.
“The horse road? Why, sir, the horse road lies down the way that you came,” said the other.
“Surely not, my friend. How could we have missed it?” said Hartwell.
“If 'twasn't for the fog I could walk as steady for it as a mule,” said the old man. “Ay, friends, us any mule under a pack saddle, for I have traversed valley and cleft an hundred times in the old days, being well known as a wild youth, asking your pardon for talking so secular when a parson is by. I am loath to boast, but there was never a wilder youth in three parishes, Captain Hartwell.”
(Mr. Hartwell had once been the captain of a mine.)
“Surely we should be guided by the sound of the sea,” said Wesley. “A brief while ago I heard the boom of waters into one of the caves. If we listen closely we should learn if the sound is more distinct and thereby gather if we are approaching that part of the cliff or receding from it.”
“Book-learning is a great help at times, but 'tis a snare in a streaming fog, or in such times of snow as we were wont to have in the hard years before the Queen died in her gorgeous palace,” remarked the patriarch.
“One at a time, grandfather,” said a man who had arrived with the last party. “There's not space enough for you and the ocean on a morn like this. Hark to the sea.”
They stood together listening, but now, through one of the mysteries of a fog, not a sound from the sea reached them. They might have been miles inland.
“I have been baffled by a fog before now,” said a shepherd. “Have followed the bleat of an ewe for a mile over the hills, and lo, the silly beast had never left her lamb, and when I was just over her she sounded the faintest.”
“Time is passing; should we not make a move in some direction?” said Wesley. “Surely, my friends, we must shortly come upon some landmark that will tell us our position in a moment.”
“I cannot believe that in trying to cut off the mile for the Gap I went grossly astray,” said Mr. Hartwell. “I am for marching straight on.”
“Straight on we march and leave the guidance to Heaven,” said Wesley.
On they went, Wesley marvelling how it was that men who should have known every inch of the way blindfold, having been on it almost daily all their lives, could be so baffled by a mist. To be sure Mr. Hartwell had forsaken the track at one place, but was it likely that he had got upon a different one when he had made his detour to cut off a mile of their journey.
On they walked, however, their party numbering fourteen men, and then all of a sudden the voice of the sea came upon them, and at the same moment they almost stepped over the steep brink of a little chasm.
“What is this?” cried Hartwell. “As I live'tis Gosney hollow, and we are scarcely half a mile from my house! We have walked a good mile back on our steps.”
“Did not I tell you how I followed the ewe?” said the shepherd. “'Tis for all the world the same tale. Sore baffling thing is a sea-mist.”
“The valley will be full o' lost men and women this day,” remarked the old man.
There is no condition of life so favourable to the growth of despondency as that which prevails in a fog. The most sanguine are filled with despair when they find that their own senses, to which they have trusted for guidance and protection, are defeated. The wanderers on this Sunday morning stood draped by the fog, feeling a sense of defeat. No one made a suggestion. Everyone seemed to feel that it would be useless to make the attempt to proceed to the crags where the preaching was to be held.
“Think you, Mr. Wesley, that this state of weather is the work of the Fiend himself?” asked the talkative old man. “I know 'tis a busy question with professing Christians, as well as honest Churchmen—this one that pertains to the weather. Stands to reason, for say I have a turnip crop coming on and so holds out for a wet month or two, while a neighbour may look for sunshine to ripen his grain. Now if so be that the days are shiny my turnips get the rot, and who is to blame a weak man for saying that the Foul Fiend had a hand in prolonging the shine; but what saith my neighbour?”
“Hither comes another covey of wandering partridges,” said one of the first party, as the sound of voices near at hand was heard.
“Now, for myself, I hold that 'tis scriptural natural to say that aught in the matter that pertains to the smoke of the Pit is the Devil's own work, and if such a fog as this comes not straight out the main flue of——”
The old man's fluency was interrupted by the arrival of the new party, Nelly Polwhele and her father.
“You are just setting out for the preaching, I suppose; so we are not so late as we feared,” cried the girl. “Still, though we shall certainly not be late for the preaching, however far behind we may be, we would do well to haste.”
Wesley surely felt less despondent at the cheery greeting of the girl. He laughed, saying:
“'Tis all very well to cry 'Haste,' child; know that it Has taken us a whole hour to get so far.”
“Is't possible that you have been out for an hour, sir?” she cried. “Surely some man of you was provident to carry with him a compass on such a morn as this?”
“You speak too fast, maid; book-learning has made thee talkative; a mariner's compass is for the mariners—it will not work on dry land,” said the old man.
“Mine is one of the sort that was discovered since your sensible days, friend—ay, as long agone as that; it works on land as well as on sea. If a bumpkin stands i' the north its finger will point dead to him. Wouldst like to test it thyself?” said Nelly's father. Before the old man had quite grasped his sarcasm, though it was scarcely wanting in breadth, he had turned to Mr. Hartwell, displaying a boat's compass in its wooden box.
“'Twas Nelly bade me carry it with us,” he Said. “I worked out all the bearings o' the locality before we started, and I can make the Red Tor as easy as I could steer to any unseen place on the lonely ocean. Here we be, sir; west sou'west to the Gap, track or no track; then west and by nor'-west a little northerly to the lift o' the cliff, thence south-half-east to the Red Tor. Up wi' your grapples, friends, we'll be there before the sermon has begun or even sooner if we step out.”
Wesley, and indeed all of the party except perhaps the pessimistic old man, whose garrulity had suffered a check, felt more cheerful. Hartwell clapped Polwhele on the back, saying:
“You are the man we were waiting for. Onward, pilot; we shall reach the Tor in good time, despite our false start and the delay it made to us.” They started along the track, Polwhele at their head, and Wesley with Mr. Hartwell and Nelly immediately behind him.
“There's a whole sermon in this, child,” said the preacher.
“A whole sermon, sir?” said she.
“There should be only one sermon preached by man to men, and this is it,” said Wesley. “The poor wandering ones standing on a narrow causeway, with danger on every side, and the grey mist of doubt in the air. The sense of being lost—mark that, dear child,—and then the coming of the good Pilot, and a complete faith in following Him into the place of safety which we all seek. There is no sermon worth the preaching save only this.” On they went, Polwhele calling out the bearings every now and again, and as they proceeded they came upon several other travellers, more or less forlorn—all were hoping to reach the Red Tor in time; so that before the abrupt turn was made from the pack-horse track, there was quite a little procession on the way.
Never had Wesley had such an experience as this.
Out from the folds of the impenetrable mist that rolled through the hollows of the low mounds that formed that natural amphitheatre, came the sound of many voices, and the effect was strange, for one could not even see that a mass of people was assembled there. The hum that the newcomers heard when still some distance away became louder as they approached, and soon they were able to distinguish words and phrases—men calling aloud to men—some who had strayed from the friends were moving about calling their names, and occasionally singing out a hail in the forlorn hope of their voices being recognised; then there came the distressed wail of a woman who had got separated from her party, and with the laughter of a group who had got reunited after many wanderings. There was no lack of sounds, but no shape of men or women could be distinguished in the mist, until Wesley and his party were among them. And even then the dimly seen shapes had suggestions of the unreal about them. Some would loom larger than human for a few moments, and then vanish suddenly. Others seemed grotesquely transfigured in the mist as if they had enwrapped themselves in a disguise of sackcloth. They seemed not to be flesh and blood, but only shadows. Coming suddenly upon them, one felt that one had wandered to another world—a region of restless shadows.
How was any man to preach to such a congregation? How was a preacher to put force into his words, when failing to see the people before him?
When Wesley found himself on the eminence where he had spoken to the multitude on his first coming to Cornwall, and several times later, he looked down in front of him and saw nothing except the fine gauze of the grey clouds that rolled around the rocks. He stood there feeling that he was the only living being in a world that was strange to him. He thought of the poet who had gone to the place of departed spirits, and realised his awful isolation. How was he to speak words of life to this spectral host?
He had never known what fear was even when he had faced a maddened crowd bent upon the most strenuous opposition to his preaching: he had simply paid no attention to them, and the sound of his voice had held them back from him and their opposition had become parched. But now he felt something akin to terror. Who was he that he should make this attempt to do what no man had ever done before?
He fell upon his knees and prayed aloud. Light—Light—Light—that was the subject of his prayer. He was there with the people who had walked in darkness—he had walked with them, and now they were in the presence of the One who had said “Let there be Light.” He prayed that the Light of the World might appear to them at that time—the Light that shineth through the darkness that comprehended Him not. He prayed for light to understand the Light, as the poet had done out of the darkness of his blindness.
“So much the rather, Thou Celestial Light,
Shine inward and the mind through her way
Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mists from thence
Purge and disperse that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.”
And after his prayer with closed eyes, he began to preach into that void, and his text was of the Light also. His voice sounded strange to his own ears.
It seemed to him that he was standing in front of a wall, trying to make his words pass through it. This was at first; a moment later he felt that he was speaking to a denser multitude than he had ever addressed before. The mist was before his eyes as a sea of sad grey faces waiting, earnest and anxious for the message of gladness which he was bringing them. His voice rose to heights of impressiveness that it had never reached before. It clove a passage through the mist and fell upon the ears of the multitude whom he could not see, stirring them as they had never been stirred before, while he gave them his message of the Light.
For close upon half an hour he spoke of the Light. He repeated the word—again and again he repeated it, and every time that it came from his lips it had the effect of a lightning flash. This was at first. He spoke in flashes of lightning, uttered from the midst of the cloud of a night of dense blackness; and then he made a change. The storm that made fitful, fiercer illumination passed away, and after an interval the reiteration of the Light appeared again. But now it was the true Light—the light of dawn breaking over a sleeping world. It did not come in a flash to dazzle the eyes and then to make the darkness more dread; it moved gradually upward; there was a flutter as of a dove's wing over the distant hills, the tender feathers of the dawn floated through the air, and fell upon the Eastern Sea, quivering there; and even while one watched them wondering, out of the tremulous spaces of the sky a silver, silken thread was spread where the heaven and the waters met—it broadened and became a cincture of pearls, and then the thread that bound it broke, and the pearls were scattered, flying up to the sky and falling over all the waters in beautiful confusion; and before the world had quite awakened, the Day itself gave signs of hastening to gather up the pearls of Dawn. The Day's gold-sandalled feet were nigh—they were shining on the sea's brim, and lo! the East was bright with gold. Men cried, “Why do those feet tarry?” But even while they spoke, the wonder of the Morn had come upon them. Flinging down his mantle upon the mountains over which he had stepped—a drapery of translucent lawn, the splendour of the new light sprung upward, lifting hands of blessing over the world, and men looked and saw each other's faces, and knew that they were blest.
And the wonder that he spoke of had come to pass. While the preacher had been describing the breaking light, the light had come. All unnoticed, the mist had been dissolving, and when he had spoken his last words the sunlight was bathing the preacher and the multitude who hung upon his words. The wonder that he told them of had taken place, and there did not seem to them anything of wonder about it. Only when he made his pause did they look into each other's faces as men do when they have slept and the day has awakened them. Then with the sunlight about them, for them to drink great draughts that refreshed their souls, he spoke of the Light of the World—of the Dayspring from on High that had visited the world, and their souls were refreshed.
And not one word had he said of all that he had meant to say—not one word of the man whom he had come so far to reprove.
No one was conscious of the omission.