CHAPTER X

He spent an hour at the Old Waggoner Inn at the corner of the River Road, and while his horse was getting a feed in the stable he had some bread and cheese in the inn parlour—a large room built to accommodate the hungry coach passengers, who, accustomed to break their journey to or from Plymouth, were at this house.

The room was not crowded when he arrived, but in the course of the next half-hour two additional parties entered, and while tankards were filled and emptied, and pewter platters of underdone beef laden with pickles were passed round, there was a good deal of loud talk, with laughter and an interchange of friendly, if rude, humour. Wesley had had a sufficient experience of inn parlours to prevent his being greatly interested by the people here or their loud chat.

This was only at first, however, for it soon became clear to him that the conversation and the jests were flowing in one channel. Then he became interested.

“Come hither, friend Thomas, and pay all scores,” cried one jovial young fellow to an elderly stout farmer who had been standing in the bar.

“Not me, lad,” cried the farmer. “By the Lord Harry, you've the 'impidence'!”.

“What, man, pay and look joyous. What will all your hoard of guineas be to you after Monday?” cried the younger man.

“'Twill be worth twenty-one shillings for every guinea, if you must know,” replied the farmer.

“Nay, sir, you know well that there will be no use for your guineas at the Day of Judgment, which, as surely as Dick Pritchard is a prophet, will happen on Monday,” said the other.

“I'm ready to run the chance, i' the face o' the Prophet Pritchard,” said the farmer. “Ay, and to show what's in me, I am ready 'twixt now and Sunday to buy any property at a reasonable discount rate that any believer in Dick Pritchard may wish to sell.”

“Good for you, farmer—good for you!” shouted a dozen voices, with the applause of rattling pewters on the table.

“Let Dick stick to his trade—water and not fire is his quality; he'd best leave the Day of Judgment in subtler hands,” growled a small, red-faced man, who was cooling himself this Summer day with Jamaica rum.

There was some more laughter, but it was not of a hearty sort; there was a forced gaiety in it that Wesley easily detected.

“By my troth, the fellow's prophecy hath done a good turn to the maltster; there hath been more swilling, hot and cold, since he spoke a week ago yesterday, than in any month of ordinary calm weather, without a sniff of brimstone in it,” said Mr. Hone, the surgeon of the revenue men, who was in the act of facing a huge beef-steak with onions and a potato baked with a sauce of tansy.

“Small blame to the drouthy ones; they know full well that by this day week they will be ready to pay Plymouth prices for a mugful o' something cooling,” remarked a traveller.

“Gentlemen and friends, all, I make bold enough to affirm that this matter is too grave an one to be jested on or to be scoffed at,” said a tall, pale-faced young man. “I tell you, sirs, that there may be more in this thing than some of us suspect.”

“What, Mr. Tilley, are you feeble enough to believe that an event of such considerable importance to the Government as the Day of Judgment would be announced through such an agent? This Dick Pritchard is a common man, as full of ignorance as a young widow is of tricks,” said the surgeon, looking up from his plate.

“Ignorant? ay, doubtless, Mr. Hone; but how many ignorant men have yet won an honourable place in the book of the prophets, sir?” asked the young man. “Seems to any natural man, sir, that ignorance, as we call ignorance, was the main quality needful for an ancient old prophet that spake as he was moved.”

“That was in the Antique Dispensation, Mr. Tilley; you must not forget that, sir,” cried the surgeon.

“Ay, that's sure; 'tis a different age this that we live in,” said an acquiescent voice behind the shelter of a settle.

“I'd as lief credit a Christian as a Jew in such a matter: the Jews seem to have had this business of prophecy as exclusive in their hands as they have the trade of money now,” said the traveller. “The Jewish seers busied themselves a good deal about the Day of Judgment, why should not a humble Christian be permitted a trifle of traffic on the same question, since it is one that should be of vital interest to all—especially innkeepers in hot weather?”

There was only a shred of laughter when he had spoken. It was clear that in spite of some of the jeers against the water-finder that had taken place in the room, there was a feeling that whatever he had taken it upon him to say—it seemed to Wesley that it had reference to the Day of Judgment on the next Monday—should not be treated with levity. The jocular tone of a few men who were present was distinctly forced. Upon several faces Wesley perceived an expression that reminded him of that upon the faces of some of the prisoners under sentence of death whom he had visited in his young days at Oxford.

“Say what you will, gentlemen,” resumed the young man called Tilley, “this Dick Pritchard is no ordinary man. I have seen him at work with his wizard's wand', and inside five minutes o' the clock he had shown us where to bore for water in a meadow slope that was as deeply pitted before with borings as if it had an attack of smallpox. Ay, sirs, a hole had been dug here and another there—and there—and there—” he indicated with his finger on the floor the locality of the diggings to which he referred—“but not a spoonful of water appeared. Then in comes our gentleman with a sliver of willow between his palms, and walks over the ground. I was nigh to him, and I affirm that I saw the twig twist itself like a snake between his fingers, jerking its tip, for all the world like the stumpy head of an adder, first in one direction, anon in another—I'll swear that it turned, wicked as any snake, upon Dick himself at one time, so that he jerked his hands back and the thing fell on the grass, and if it did not give a kind of writhe there, my eyes played me false. But he picked it up again and walked slowly across the ground, not shunning in the least as an ordinary man would have done, if he had his wits about him, the parts that showed the former borings that had come to naught. 'Twas in full boldness, just between two of the old holes, that he stopped short, and says he, 'There's your spring, and 'tis not six foot from the surface. I'll wait to have a mugful, if I don't make too bold,' says he, 'for'tis strangely drying work, this waterfinding.' And by my faith, sirs, the fellow had a pitcher of the softest spring water from that spot before an hour had gone and the rude scum of the field had been rinsed away.”

The silence that followed the man's story was impressive. It seemed as if the cloud which had been overhanging the company had become visible. No man so much as glanced at his neighbour, but every one of them stopped eating or drinking at that moment, and stared gloomily straight in front of him. Only one man, however, uttered a groan.

“Lord have mercy on us!—the rocks and the mountains—the great and terrible day of the Lord!” he murmured.

Then it was that a couple of men passed their hands over their foreheads.

“I would sooner see my cattle die of drouth than call in a water-finder,” said the farmer. “I've oft-times said that he has a partner in his trade. In my young days, a water-finder was burnt at the stake, for 'twas clearly proven that he was in league with the Fiend: after drinking o' the water that he drew from the bowels o' th' earth the husbandman's son was seized wi' a fit and down he fell like a log and was only saved by the chance of the curate passing near the farm. Though but a young man, he saw at once that the boy had been tampered with.'Twas by good luck that he had with him a snuffbox made of the cedar wood of Lebanon at Jerusalem, where King Solomon built his temple, and 'tis well known that neither witch nor warlock can stand against such. Before you could say 'Worm,' the young parson had made a circle o' snuff around the poor victim, and with a deadly screech the fiend forsook the boy and 'twas said that it entered into a young heifer of promise, for she went tearing out of her byre that same night and was found all over a lather wandering on Dip-stone Sands in the morning. Ay, they burnt the water-finder at the next 'Sizes, the testimony being so clear as I say.”

“'Tis time they burnt Dick Pritchard,” said someone else in a low voice. “Though I'm not sure that 'tis in the Book that mere water-finding is heinous.”

“Maybe not, but sure a proof o' the gift o' prophecy is burnable in the New Dispensation,” suggested another.

A big man sprang to his feet. His face was pale and his hands were nervous. He clapped his palms together.

“Every man in the room has a tankard with me,” he cried. “I'll pay the score for all. What use is the blunt to me after Monday? But now is our time, lads. Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die!”

The sentiment was greeted with a loud and harsh laugh by some men, but by a serious shake of the head by others. A young man started a ribald song.

“Shame, sir, shame, a parson's present in the room,” cried an elderly man, who was seated near Wesley.

The lilt was interrupted, and two or three fingers were pointed toward Wesley, who was half hidden from most of the people in the room. Now he stood up and faced them all.

“Hey, 'tis Wesley the preacher himself!” cried the surgeon, and expressions of surprise were uttered in various directions.

“You have come in good time to superintend the winding up of the world, Mr. Wesley. Nay, don't be over modest; 'tis one of your own children hath said it,” said another. “What, sir; would you disown your own offspring?”

Wesley had held up his hand twice while the man was speaking.

“Friends, I am John Wesley,” he said. “I have come sixty miles and better, having heard from Mr. Hartwell that I was needed in regard to this same Pritchard, but having been made acquainted with no points of detail. Sirs, since I entered this room I have, I believe, learned all that Mr. Hartwell forbore to tell me, and now I hasten to give you my assurance that I cannot countenance aught that this man Pritchard said. I deplore most heartily that he should be so far misled as to take upon him to utter a statement of prophecy touching the most awful event that our faith as believers takes a count of. Brethren, we are told that we know not the day nor the hour when that dread shall fall upon the world. That is the written Word of the Most High, and any man who, whether under the impulse of vanity or in the sincere belief that he possesses the gift of prophecy, is presumptuous, is likely to become a stumbling block and a rock of offence. That is all that I have to say at this time. I have said so much in the hope that all who hear me will refrain from attributing to the influence of my preaching or teaching, an act or a statement which I and my associates repudiate and condemn.”

He inclined his head slowly, and then, picking up his hat, left the room. But before he reached the door every man in the room had risen respectfully, though no word was spoken by anyone present. Even after his departure there was a silence that lasted for several minutes. Everyone seemed to have drawn a long breath as of relief.

“Gentlemen, I think you may breathe freely once more: the world will last over Monday after all,” said the surgeon.

“Ay, the master has spoken and disowned his pupil,” said another.

“Maybe that's because he feels chagrined that he lost the chance that Dick Pritchard grappled with,” suggested the pale youth.

“Boy,” said the traveller, with a contemptuous wave of the hand. “Boy, Mr. Wesley is a man of learning and a man of parts, not a charlatan in a booth at a fair.”

“Or one with the duck's instinct of seeking for water with a quack—ay, a quack with a quack,” said the surgeon.

“Well, if the world is not to expire on Monday, we would do well to drink her health, so hey for a gallon of old ale so far as it goes,” cried the man with the shaking head.

The opinion seemed to be all but general, that some sign of hilarity would not now be so much out of place as it seemed to be a quarter of an hour earlier, and the landlord was zealous in support of this view. He promised them a tipple worthy of the name, even if the world were to break up in a day or two!

But long before the company were satisfied Wesley was on his horse riding slowly down to Ruthallion Mill.

He felt deeply pained by his experience in the inn parlour. So this was what Mr. Hartwell had hinted at in his letter—this assumption of the divine gift of the prophet by Pritchard. And the subject of his prophecy was one that every charlatan who had existed had made his own! He himself could remember more than one such prediction being made by men who were both ignorant and vain. One of them had afterwards stood in the pillory and another—the more sincere—had gone to a mad-house. It seemed to him strange that they should have had a following, but beyond a doubt their prediction had been widely credited, and the men themselves had achieved a notoriety which was to them the equivalent to fame. They had had their followers even after the date which they named in their prophecies had gone by without any disaster to the world. It seemed that the people were so glad at escaping that they had no room in their thoughts for any reproach for the false prophet.

He knew, however, that in the case of Richard Pritchard, the same leniency would not be shown. He knew that his own detractors—and they were many who regarded his innovations as a direct menace to the Church—would only be too glad of the chance which was now offered to them of ridiculing him and his out-of-doors preaching, pointing out, as they most certainly would, that Richard Pritchard represented the first fruit of his preaching, and that his assumption of the authority of a prophet was the first fruit of his Methodism.

But it was not only by reason of the possible injury that would be done to the movement which he had inaugurated in Cornwall that he was vexed.

He had been greatly pained to observe the spirit in which the most awful incident on which the mind of man could dwell was referred to by the men in the inn parlour—men fairly representative of the people of the neighbourhood. The Day of Wrath had been alluded to with levity by some, in a spirit of ridicule by others; while one man had made it the subject of a wager, and another had made it an excuse for drunkenness!

He was grieved and shocked to reflect that it was Pritchard's connection with his mission that had produced this state of things. He felt certain that if the man had remained outside the newly founded organisation, he would not have taken it upon himself to speak as a prophet.

But he felt that he could not lay the blame for what had occurred at the door of anyone whom he had appointed to help him in his work, and who had advanced the claims of Pritchard, for who could have foreseen that a man who seemed abnormally modest and retiring by nature should develop such a spirit? Beyond a doubt the man's weak head had been turned. He had become possessed of a craving after notoriety, and now that he had achieved it, he would be a very difficult person to deal with. This Wesley perceived when he began to consider how to deal with the source of the affair.

The most difficult point in this connection was his feeling that the man was quite sincere in his belief, that upon him the spirit of prophecy had descended. He felt sure that the man was unaware of the existence of any motive in his own heart apart from the desire to utter a warning and a call to repentance to the people of the world, as Jonah the prophet, had done to the people of Nineveh.

That fact, Wesley perceived, made it a matter of great difficulty both to silence Pritchard, and to hold him up as a charlatan.

He was indeed greatly perplexed in mind as he rode down the valley path leading to the Mill.