CHAPTER XII

For half an hour the four men in that room sat watching with painful interest the one who sat motionless in the chair at the end of the table. There was not one of them that had not a feeling of being a watcher by the side of a bed on which a dead body was lying. Not a word was exchanged between them. In the room there was a complete silence—the silence of a death chamber. The sound of the machinery of the mill—the creaking of the wooden wheels, and the rumbling of the grindstones—went on in dull monotony in the mill, and from the kitchen, beyond the oaken door, there came the occasional clink of a pan or kettle; and outside the building there was the clank of the horses of a waggon, and the loud voices of the waggoners talking to the men in one of the lofts, and now and again directing the teams. A cock was crowing drowsily at intervals in the poultry run, and once there was a quacking squabble amongst the ducks on the Mill race. And then, with the lowing of the cows that were being driven to the milking shed, came the laughter of a girl, passing the waggoners.

But in the room there was silence, and soon the dimness of twilight.

And then John Wesley prayed in a low voice.

Enough light remained in the room to allow those watchers to see when consciousness returned to the man's eyes: he was facing the window. But before the expression of death changed to that of life, his arm, that was still stiffly outstretched, and seeming all the more awkward since he had ceased to be on his feet, fell with a startling thud upon the edge of the table. It was as if a dead man had made a movement. Then his eyes turned upon each in the room in turn. He drew a long breath.

“You are among friends, Dick; how feel you, my man?” said Jake Pullsford, laying his hand upon Pritchard's that had fallen upon the table.

“I saw it again—clear—quite clear, Jake,” said Pritchard.

“What saw ye, friend Dick?” asked Jake.

“The vision—the Vision of Patmos. The heavens rolled together like a scroll—blackness at first—no mind o' man ever conceived of such blackness—the plague of Egypt was snow-white to compare. And then 'twas all flame—flame—flame. The smith's furnace hath but a single red eye of fire, but its sharp brightness stings like a wasp. But this—oh, millions upon millions of furnace eyes, and every eye accusing the world beneath. Who can live with everlasting burning?—that was what the Voice cried—I know not if it was the strong angel, or him that rode upon the White Horse, but I heard it, and all the world heard it, and the most dreadful and most unusuallest thing of all was the sight of that White Horse, plunging and pawing with all the fiery flames around it and above and below! And the Voice said, 'There shall be no more sea,' and forthwith all the tide that had been flowing in hillocks into Porthawn and teasing the pebbles where the shallows be, and lapping the Dog's Teeth reef, wimpling around the spikes—all that tide of water, I say, began to move out so that every eye could see it move, and the spikes o' the reef began to grow as the water fell, till the bases of the rocks appeared with monstrous weeds, thick as coiled snakes, and crawling shells, monstrous mighty that a man might live in; and then I saw the slime of the deep, thick as pitch and boiling and bubbling with the heat below, even as pitch boils over the brazier when the boats lie bottom up on the beach. And then I saw a mighty ship lying in the ooze—a ship that had become a wreck, maybe a hundred years agone, half the timbers rotted from the bends so that she was like some monster o' the deep with its long ridges of ribs showing fleshless as a skeleton. And then the Voice cried, 'The Sea gave up its Dead.'... You shall see it for yourselves on Monday—ay, all that came before mine eyes.'Twas Mr. Wesley preached on the great moving among the dry bones—they were dry in that valley, but in the dread secret depths where the sea had been these were damp with the slime of ages, and they crawled together, bone unto bone, throwing off the bright green seaweeds that overlaid them like shrouds of thin silk. They stood up together all in the flesh, and I noted that their skin was the yellow pale skin of the drowned, like the cheeks of a female who holds a candle in her hands and shades the flame with one of her palms. Flame—I saw them all by the light of the flaming sky, and some of them put up their saffron hands between their faces and the flame, but the light shone through their flesh as you have seen the sun shine through a sere leaf of chestnut in the autumn.”

He stopped suddenly and drew a long breath. For some moments he breathed heavily. No one in the room spoke. A boy went past the door outside whistling.

When the man spoke again it was in a whisper. He turned to Wesley.

“Mr. Wesley, I knew not that I had the gift until I heard you preach,” he said. “I only suspected now and again when I felt the twitchings of the twig between my hands when I was finding the water, that I was not as other men; but when I heard you preach and saw how you carried all who listened away upon your words as though they were not words, but a wave of the sea, and the natural people the flotsam of the waste, I felt my heart swell within me by reason of the knowledge that I had been chosen to proclaim something great beyond even all that you could teach. And now 'tis left for you to stand by my side and tell all that have ears to hear to prepare for the Great Day. It is coming—Monday. I would that we had a longer space, Sir, for, were it so, my name would go forth through all the world as yours has done—nay, with more honour, for a prophet is ahead of the mere preacher. But you will do your best for the world in the time allowed to us, will you not, Mr. Wesley?”

He laid his hand on one of Wesley's, firmly and kindly.

“My poor brother!” said Wesley gently. “God forgive me if I have been the means of causing hurt to even the weakest of my brethren. Let us live, dear brother, as if our days in the world were not to be longer than this week, giving our thoughts not to ourselves, but to God; seeking for no glory to attach to our poor names, but only to the Name at which every knee must bow. Humility—let us strive after humility. What are we but dust?”

The man looked at him—there was still some light in the room—and after the lapse of a few moments he said:

“You have spoke a great truth, Mr. Wesley. Humility is for all of us. Pray that I may attain it, brother. It should come easy enough to some that we know, but for such as you and me, especially me, dear brother, 'tis not so easy. The gift of prophecy surely raises a humble man into circumstances so lofty that he is above the need for any abject demeanour. Ay, now that I reflect on't, I am not sure that I have any right to be humble. 'Twould be like flouting a gift in the face of the giver. 'Twould be like a servant wearing a ragged coat when his master hath provided him with a fine suit of livery.”

He had risen from his place, and now he remarked that the evening had come and he had far to travel. He gave Wesley his hand, nodded to the others and went through the door without another word.

The men whom he left in the room drew long breaths. One of them—the farmer—made a sound with his tongue against his teeth as one might do when a child too young to know better breaks a saucer. The miller gave an exclamation that went still further, showing more of contempt and less of pity. Mr. Hartwell, the mine-owner, who was a quiet, well-read man, said:

“I have heard of cases like to his; I have been reading of revivals, as some call such an awakening as has taken place through Mr. Wesley's preaching, and every one of them has been followed by the appearance of men not unlike Dick Pritchard in temper—men who lose themselves in their zeal—get out of their depth—become seized by an ambition to teach others before they themselves have got through the primer.”

“For me, I call to mind naught but the magic men of Egypt,” said Jake Pullsford. “They were able to do by their traffic with the Evil One all that Moses did by miracle. I always had my doubts about the power that Dick Pritchard professed—finding water by the help of his wand of hazel—as 'twere a wizard's wand—maybe the staves of the Egyptian sorcerers were of hazel—I shouldn't wonder. And now he falls into a trance and says he sees a vision, equalling himself to St. John at Patmos! For myself I say that I never knew of a truly godly man falling into a trance. My grandfather—you are old enough to remember him, farmer?”

“I mind him well—pretty stiff at a bargain up to the end,” said the farmer with a side nod of acquiescence.

“We be talking of the same man,” resumed the miller. “Well, I say that he told me of one such mystical vision seer that came from Dorset in his young days, and he saw so many things that he was at last tried for sorcery and burnt in the marketplace. Ah, those were the days when men wasn't allowed by law to go so far as they do now-a-days. Why, 'tis only rarely that we hear of a witch burning in these times.”

Wesley held up his hand.

“I had my misgivings in regard to Pritchard from the first,” he said. “And when I got news that he had been causing you trouble I felt that he had indeed been an agent of the Evil One. But now—God forbid that I should judge him in haste. I scarce know what to think about him. I have heard of holy men falling into trances and afterwards saying things that were profitable to hear. I am in doubt. I must pray for guidance.”

“The man is to be pitied,” said Mr. Hartwell.

“You heard the uplifted way he talked at the last—like a fool full of his own conceit? Have you heard yet, Mr. Wesley, what an effect his prediction has had upon the country?”

“I heard naught of it until I had entered the parlour at the inn where I dined to-day, but I think I heard enough to allow of my forming some notion of the way his prediction was received. Some were jocular over it, a few grave, and a large number ribald.”

“You have described what I myself have noticed, sir,” said Mr. Hartwell. “Only so far as I can see there are a large number who are well-nigh mad through fear. Now what we may be sure of is that these people, when Monday passes, will turn out open scoffers at the truth. And you may be certain that your opponents will only be too glad of the opportunity thereby afforded them of discrediting your labours; they will do their best to make Methodism responsible for the foolishness and vanity of that man?”

“I perceived that that would be so the moment I got your letter,” said Wesley. “And yet—I tell you, brethren, that I should be slow to attribute any imposture to this man, especially since I have heard him speak in this room. He believes that he has been endowed by Heaven with the gift of prophecy.”

“And he only acknowledges it to boast,” said Mr. Hartwell. “It is his foolish boasting that I abhor most, knowing, as I do full well, that every word that comes from him will be used against us, and tend to cast discredit upon the cause which we have at heart.”

Wesley perceived how true was this view of the matter, but still he remained uncertain what course to adopt in the circumstances. He knew that it was the fervour of his preaching that had affected Pritchard, as it had others; he had heard reports of the spread of a religious mania at Bristol after he had preached there for some time; but he had always succeeded in tracing such reports to those persons who had ridiculed his services. This wras the first time that he was brought face to face with one who had been carried away by his zeal to a point of what most people would be disposed to term madness.

He had known that there would be considerable difficulty dealing with the case of Pritchard, but he had also believed that the man would become submissive if remonstrated with. It had happened, however, that, so far from becoming submissive, Pritchard had reasserted himself, and with so much effect that Wesley found himself sympathising with him—pitying him, and taking his part in the face of the others who were apparently but little affected by the impassioned account the man had given of his vision when in the trance.

It was not until the night had fallen that they agreed with Wesley that it might be well to wait for a day or two in order that he should become acquainted with some of the effects of the prediction, and thus be in a position to judge whether or not he should take steps to dissociate himself and his mission from the preaching of the man Pritchard.

He had not, however, gone further than Port-hawn the next day before he found out that the impression produced by the definite announcement that the Day of Judgment was but forty-eight hours off was very much deeper than he had fancied. He found the whole neighbourhood seething with excitement over the prophecy. It had been made by Pritchard, he learned, in the course of a service which had been held in a field on the first Sunday after Wesley's departure, and it had been heard by more than a thousand of the people whom Wesley's preaching had aroused from lethargy to a living sense of responsibility. Religious fervour had taken hold upon the inhabitants of valley and coast, and under its influence extravagance and exuberance were rife. Only at such a time would Pritchard's new-found fervour have produced any lasting impression, but in the circumstances his assumption of the mantle of the prophet and his delivery of the solemn warning had had among the people the effect of a firebrand flung among straw. He had shouted his words of fire to an inflammable audience, and his picture of the imminent terror had overwhelmed them. The shrieks of a few hysterical women completed what his prediction had begun, and before the evening the valley of the Lana was seething with the news that the world was coming to an end within the month.

All this Wesley heard before he left the Mill, and before he had ridden as far as the coast village he had ample confirmation of the accuracy of the judgment of his friends, who had assured him that the cause which they had at heart was likely to suffer through the vanity of Pritchard. He also perceived that the man had good reason for being puffed up on observing the effect of his deliverance. In a moment he had leaped into notoriety from being a nonentity. It seemed as if he had been ashamed of hearing his own voice a short time before, and this fact only made him appear a greater marvel to himself as well as to the people who had heard him assume the character of a prophet of fire and brimstone. It was no wonder, Wesley acknowledged, that the man's head had been turned.

The worst of the matter was that he was referred, to by nearly all the countryside as Wesley's deputy. Even the most devoted of Wesley's hearers seemed to have accepted Pritchard as the exponent of the methods adopted by Wesley to get the ears of the multitude. In their condition of blind fervour they were unable to differentiate between the zeal of the one to convey to them the living Truth and the excess of the other. They were in the condition of the French mob, who, fifty years later, after being stirred by an orator, might have gone to think over their wrongs for another century had not a madman lighted a torch and pointed to the Bastille.

It was only to be expected that the opponents of the great awakening begun by Wesley should point to the extravagance of Pritchard and call it the natural development of Methodism. Wesley's crusade had been against the supineness of the Church of England, they said; but how much more preferable was this supineness to the blasphemy of Methodism as interpreted by the charlatan who arrogated to himself the power of a prophet!

He was pained as he had rarely been since his American accusers had forced him to leave Georgia, when he found what a hold the prediction had got on the people. He had evidence of the extent of Pritchard's following even during his ride to Port-hawn. At the cross roads, not two miles from the Mill, he came upon a large crowd being preached to by a man whom he had never seen before, and the text was the Judgment Day. The preacher was fervid and illiterate. He became frantic, touching upon the terror that was to come on Monday; and his hearers were shrieking—men as, well as women. Some lay along the ground sobbing wildly, others sang a verse of a hymn in frenzy.

Further along the road a woman was preaching repentance—in another two days it would be too late; and in the next ditch a young woman was making a mock of her, putting a ribald construction upon what she was saying. Further on still he came to a tavern, outside which there was a large placard announcing that the world would only last till Monday, and having unfortunately a large stock of beer and rum in fine condition, the innkeeper was selling off the stock at a huge reduction in the price of every glass of liquor.

Wesley had no difficulty in perceiving the man's generosity was being appreciated. The bar was crowded with uproarious men and women, and some were lying helpless on the stones of the yard.

On the wall of a disused smithy a mile or two nearer the coast there was chalked up the inscription:

“The Methodys have bro' about the Ende of the World. Who will bring about the Ende of the Methodys? Downe with them all, I saye.”

He rode sadly onward, with bowed head. He felt humiliated, feeling that the object for which he lived was humiliated.

And the worst of the matter was, he saw, that these people who were making a mock of the Truth, some consciously, others unconsciously, were not in a condition to lend an ear to any remonstrance that might come from him. The attitude assumed by Pritchard was, Wesley knew, typical of that which would be taken up by his followers, and the mockers would only be afforded a new subject for ridicule.

“Is it I—is it I who am an unprofitable servant?” he cried out of the depth of his despondency. “Is it I that have been the cause of the enemy's blasphemy? What have I done that I should be made a witness of this wreckage of all that I hoped to see accomplished through my work?”

For some time he felt as did the man who cried “It is enough! I am not better than my fellows.”

He let his rein drop on his horse's neck when approaching the house where he was to be a guest. The day was one of grey mists rolling from the sea through the valley, spreading wisps of gauze over the higher slopes, which soon whirled into muslin scarfs with an occasional ostrich plume shot through with sunshine. At times a cataract of this grey sea vapour would plunge over the slopes of a gorge and spread abroad into a billowy lake that swirled round the basin of the valley and then suddenly lifted, allowing a cataract of sunshine to pour down into the hollows which were dewy damp from the mist.

It was a strange atmosphere with innumerable changes from minute to minute.

“For me the shadows of the mist—the shadows touched by no ray of sunshine,” he cried when he felt the cold salt breath of the vapour upon his face.

And then he bowed his head and prayed that the shadows might flee away and the Daystar arise once more to lighten the souls of the people as he had hoped that they would be enlightened.

When he unclosed his eyes, after that solemn space in which a man stretches out weak hands, “groping blindly in the darkness,” hoping that they will touch God's right hand in that darkness and be guided into a right path, he saw the tall figure of a man standing on a crag watching him.

The man had the aspect of a statue of stone looking out of a whirl of sea-mist.

Wesley saw that it was Bennet, the man by whom he had been met when he was walking through this Talley for the first time with Nelly Polwhele. He had heard a great deal about the man during the few weeks that he had sojourned in the neighbourhood. He found that he was a man of some education—certainly with a far more intimate knowledge of the classics than was possessed by most of the parsons west of Exeter. He had been a schoolmaster in Somerset, but his erratic habits had prevented him from making any position for himself. He had become acquainted with Nelly Polwhele at Bristol, and his devotion to her amounted almost to a madness. It was all to no purpose that she refused to listen to him; he renewed his suit in season and out of season until his persistence amounted to persecution. Of course Nelly found many self-constituted champions, and Bennet was attacked and beaten more than once when off his guard. When, however, he was prepared for their assault he had shown himself to be more than a match for the best of them. The fact that he had disabled for some weeks two of his assailants did not make him any more popular than he had been in the neighbourhood.

There he stood looking at Wesley, and there he remained for several minutes, looking more than ever like a grey stone figure on a rough granite pedestal.

It was not until Wesley had put his horse in motion that the man held up one hand, saying:

“Give me one minute, Mr. Wesley. I know that you are not afraid of me. Why should you be?”

“Why, indeed?” said Wesley. “I know not why I should fear you, seeing that I fear no man who lives on this earth?”

“You came hither with a great blowing of trumpets, Mr. Wesley,” said the man. “You were the one that was to overthrow all the old ways of the Church—you were to make such a noise as would cause the good old dame to awake from her slumber of a century. Well, you did cause her to awake; but the noise that you made awoke more than that good mother, the Church of England—it aroused a demon or two that had been slumbering in these valleys, and they began to show what they could do. They did not forget their ancient trick—an angel of light—isn't that the wiliest sorcery of our ancient friend, the Devil, Mr. Wesley?”

“You should know, if you are his servant sent to mock me,” said Wesley.

“You have taught the people a religion of emotion, and can you wonder that the Enemy has taken up your challenge and gone far beyond you in the same direction? He found a ready tool and a ready fool in your ardent disciple with the comical Welsh name—Richard Pritchard, to wit. He has shown the people that you were too tame, and the water-finder hath found fire to be more attractive as a subject than insipid water. You are beaten out of the field, Mr. Wesley. As usual, the pupil hath surpassed the master, and you find yourself in the second place.”

Wesley sat with his head bent down to his horse's neck. He made no reply to the man's scoff; what to him was the scoffing of this man? When one is sitting in the midst of the ruins of his house what matters it if the wind blows over one a handful of dust off the roadside?

“John Wesley, the preacher, hath been deposed, and Pritchard, the prophet, reigns in his stead,” the man went on. “Ay, and all the day you have been saying to yourself, 'What have I done to deserve this? What have I done to deserve this?' Dare you deny it, O preacher of the Gospel of Truth?”

Wesley bowed his head once more.

“Mayhap you found no answer ready,” Bennet cried. “Then I'll let you into the secret, John Wesley. You are being rightly punished because you have been thinking more of the love of woman than of the Love of God.”

Wesley's head remained bent no longer.

“What mean you by that gibe, man?” he cried.

“Ask your own heart what I mean,” said the man fiercely. “Your own heart knows full well that you sought to win the love of the woman who walked with you on this road little more than a month ago, and who ministered to you on the day of your great preaching—you took her love from those to whom she owed it, and you have cherished, albeit you know that she can never be a wife to you.”

“The Lord rebuke thee,” said Wesley, when the man made a pause.

“Nay, 'tis on you that the rebuke has fallen, and you know it, John Wesley,” cried Bennet, more fiercely than ever. “Nelly Polwhele would have come to love me in time had not you come between us—that I know—I know it, I tell you, I know it—my love for her is so overwhelming that she would not have been able to hold out against it. But you came, and—answer me, man: when it was written to you that you were to return hither in hot haste to combat the folly of Pritchard, did not your heart exult with the thought singing through it, 'I shall see her again—I shall be beside her once more'?”

Wesley started so that his horse sprang forward and the man before him barely escaped being knocked down. But Bennet did not even pretend that he fancied Wesley intended riding him down. He only laughed savagely, saying:

“That start of yours tells me that I know what is in your heart better than you do yourself. Well, it hath made a revelation to you now, Mr. Wesley, and if you are wise you will profit by it. I tell you that if you think of her again you are lost—you are lost. The first rebuke has fallen upon you from above.'Tis a light one. But what will the second be? Ponder upon that question, sir. Know that even now she is softening toward me. Come not between us again. Man, the love of woman is not for such as you, least of all the love of a child whose heart is as the heart of the Spring season quivering with the joy of life. Now ride on, sir, and ask your reason if I have not counselled you aright.”

He had spoken almost frantically at first; but his voice had fallen: he had become almost calm while uttering his last sentences.

He took off his hat, stepped to one side, and pointed down the road. He kept his arm stretched out and his fingers as an index, while Wesley looked at him, as if about to make a reply.

But if Wesley meant to speak he relinquished his intention. He looked at the man without a word, and without breaking the silence, urged his horse forward and rode slowly away.