Women of Courage

by Tim Vicary

  5

  “EXODUS CHAPTER 4, verse 9. ‘Now, therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me; and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress us.’“

  The strident roar of Israel Fuller’s great preaching voice filled the little barn like thunder, defying any man to ignore it. The last murmurs and scuffles were stilled as the preacher paused to let his text sink home. Ann felt the words ring slowly quieter in her head, and then fade at last out of the echoing barn into the twilit woodland beyond, where a few birds still sang the final challenges of their evensong.

  From where she sat with Tom and her brother Simon near the open door, she could see one of the lookouts sitting silently under a tree, watching the gathering dusk in the valley to the south. She wondered if he could hear the reverend Fuller’s sermon from there. But even if he could, she knew the lookout’s duty tonight was to listen to more than that - to the sound of the wood settling down in the dusk, to the birdsong and the sigh of the wind and the unexplained, mysterious rustles in the grass, and to reassure himself that they were all as normal, that there was no sudden cry of a disturbed blackbird followed by the clink of horses’ hooves on stone, or the regular rustle and tramp of marching men. If there was, the congregation would leave, instantly, and almost certainly escape; for the barn, a few yards into a wood on a hilltop between Colyton and Axminster, was easily approached and left by three different roads, all obscured from each other. Only if they had been betrayed would the dissenters be caught.

  Someone coughed in the silence in front of her, and the preacher began his exposition of the text.

  “So spake the Lord unto Moses, when He sent him into Egypt to rescue His chosen people from the oppression of the unbeliever. For long years they had writhed under the tyrant’s yoke, forbidden to meet for worship, yea, forbidden to gather together in the sight of the Lord! They were leaderless, oppressed, dejected. The might of the tyrant’s power was ranged against them. Many, no doubt, believed themselves abandoned by their leaders abroad, forgotten, hopeless, in despair. Some, we know, became faithless, and even sought the company of the enemy, prospering in the paths of sin ...”

  His voice lowered to a menacing, scornful whisper as he spoke the last words, and his dark, glittering eyes searched the faces in front of him. Ann shivered as she thought his eye paused on her, but then his glance passed on.

  “In such a case, brethren, do we also find ourselves today. We too are oppressed, in thrall to the religion of the heathen, forced to meet in secret to worship our Lord. Nay, in some part ...”

  Relieved that the secrets of her soul were not yet discovered, Ann found her attention wandering from the obvious analogy the preacher was drawing. She glanced at Tom as he sat beside her, his dark head nodding earnestly in agreement with the sermon, his great hand resting on the knee of his serge breeches. The hand was massive and simple and strong, the thumbs thick and spatulate, the veins pulsing with the unconscious, vigorous power that at once attracted and repelled her. This was the man she had said she would marry. Unless ...

  He felt her watching him, and turned, with a half-smile that became a frown as he saw her mind was wandering; but as she forced her attention back to the sermon she saw a hint of dark guilt cross his eyes, as though he too was troubled by a thought he should not have had. Then, as the sermon reached its first crescendo, Tom’s great hand clenched until the bunched knuckles were white, and pounded up and down on his knee in a way that made her shudder again, far more than at any word Israel Fuller had said.

  “... our chapels and conventicles burnt down before our very eyes amidst the laughter and mockery of the heathen; forced to swear vile oaths of allegiance to a Papist King, and to worship in churches which are defiled every week with with the superstitious idolatry of Rome! Nay, brethren, I tell you verily, our plight today is worse even than that of the children of Israel in Egypt; for they were held but in a foreign land, whereas we are oppressed in the very land of our birth!”

  Israel Fuller paused, amid a deep, solemn murmur of approval from the congregation gathered around him. There were about fifty, all told; mostly men, in solemn clothes and tall black hats - though there was a fair sprinkling of women. The majority were mature people, from Colyton or Axminster, with families of their own. Some, like Adam, had brought their older children with them. Nearly all were of the artisan class - weavers and dyers and saddlers and shoemakers, with a few small merchants like Adam - townsfolk rather than countryfolk, who plied their craft for their own profit, rather than for a wage from others. Independent-minded folk, of a type not easily ruled.

  But Israel Fuller ruled them, Ann thought, as the preacher began again. Or at least, at times like he this seemed to, when in the full flood of his oratory he articulated their religion for them. They gazed at him, rapt — some few sitting on tree stumps or logs like Ann, the rest standing, arms folded, watching the tall bony figure as he stood at the end of the barn on the four-wheeled haycart that served him for both altar and pulpit. A few tallow candles sputtered in the gloom near him, and their light made his dark, impassioned eyes glitter above the thick black beard that covered most of his face. As he spoke he jabbed with his great bony fingers at the text of his Bible, or waved the black book in the air in wild, uncoordinated fury to emphasise a point; and the black clothes and hat that covered his body threw huge shadows on the wall behind him. But it was not so much his eyes or his arms that held his audience enthralled, as his voice: that mighty roar in which he conducted most of his sermons. Occasionally it fell into a hushed, hoarse whisper, or a wheedling, mocking whine as he described the arguments of his enemies; but always his audience knew that this was only a pause, that the voice would inexorably rise again into the shattering, zealous thunder of unforgiving certainty that sounded to many of them like the very voice of God himself.

  “And the Lord took himself unto Pharoah, and hardened Pharoah’s heart, so that when Moses and Aaron came unto him, with fair and reasonable arguments, he would not let the children of Israel go. How like unto our Pharoah, my brethren! Has not this Pharoah hardened his heart against us! Has he not been given most fair and reasonable arguments why it is impossible, why it is clean against all reason and justice for England to have a Catholic King? And hath he hearkened? Nay, not one jot nor one tittle hath he hearkened! One might as well speak reason to a mule, or golden calf, as to this James!”

  Tom laughed suddenly, a short, angry laugh that was shared by most of the men in the barn. Ann wondered if he remembered, as she did, the very different laughter there had been that morning, in the Anglican church in Colyton, which they all had to attend, by law. The young vicar, William Salter, had been struggling to preach his sermon on the duty of obedience to the King, his nervous high voice competing with the continual mutter and movement of the folk at the back. The young man had been just about to reach the climax of his speech, when, clear above the murmur and rustle in the nave, William Clegg’s voice had been heard saying to his neighbour in deliberately broad dialect: “‘Er be proper fine sermon, too, John, I says! ‘Tis a shameful pity no-one thought to tell the boy ‘is King do worship in Rome now, bain’t it?” The vicar had not quite understood the accent, or known who spoke, but the laughter all around had destroyed his sermon. He had fumbled his way pitifully through the rest of the service, blushing, painfully aware that the congregation were not with him, but not knowing what to do.

  Israel Fuller knew what to do. As his powerful cadences thundered towards their conclusion, Ann saw the fervour smouldering in the eyes of everyone about her, and a grim, solemn look in the eyes of the older men, as though they were ready to stride out and rebuild the world of their youth, the Commonwealth of Cromwell’s time, brushing aside all who opposed them. There was no muttering, yawning, or shuffling of feet here; the younger men - Tom, and Simon beside her - were as eager as the rest.

  Their ferocity frightened Ann. She looked for William Clegg - her godfather, the man who ha
d made the remark in church this morning. Surely he would not look so grim, so solemn? A poor weaver, with a wife and eight children to feed, William Clegg was a thin, wiry, nervous man, with a threadbare coat and grey shoulder-length hair. The restless blue eyes in his wrinkled face missed little of what went on around him and were always ready to sparkle with amusement at what they saw. Nothing ever seemed to depress him; his quick tongue was always ready with a joke that had his little round wife holding her sides with laughter, and there was often a cheerful, light-hearted gathering outside his tiny, crowded cottage on summer evenings. Yet he was a religious man for all that, and now he stood stern as any man, arms folded, intently listening, apparently filled with as resolute and righteous indignation as the rest as he heard of the justice of their cause.

  “For the Lord in His great wisdom hath hardened the heart of Pharoah so that His children should see the usurper for what he was, and resolve never to ruled by such a tyrant again! And so, brethren, just as Moses came to the children of Israel and led them against their oppressor, so now, our leader shall come to us. And when that day comes, we shall cast out these abominators, and uproot this second Pharoah as Moses did the first! He shall quail before the might of God our Father, and we, the chosen people of the Lord, shall live in righteousness in this land once more!”

  The end of the sermon was met by a deep-throated growl of approval. Tom turned to Ann, a smile of fierce elation shining in his eyes; but as he spoke Ann saw the oddly troubled, anxious look of her father beyond him, and in her surprise she did not hear what Tom said.

  “And now, brethren, I ask you all to join with me in a psalm.”

  A few bent and well-worn prayer books or Bibles came out of coat pockets, but most did not need them. The barn rang with a hearty, joyful rendering of the vengeful 94th psalm, so loud that Ann thought it could have been heard as far as Taunton; yet the old timbers of the barn and the leaves of the wood outside absorbed the sound, so that - to those who were listening no more than half a mile away - the loud fervour of fifty throats sounded like little more than the distant lowing of cattle, or the surge of foam on the shore.

  When the psalm was over, Ann and Simon gathered around the preacher, with their father and a group of the older and more respected men.

  “A fine sermon, Israel,” said John Spragg. A stocky, heavily built stonemason, his round, open face came little above Israel Fuller’s shoulder, but his strong voice rumbled from a chest as deep as any man’s. “It sounds as though ‘ee might have some more news about our leader’s coming?”

  “I have that, John. Ask friend Roger here. The messenger of the Lord came to him.”

  The others looked at Roger Satchell, a tall, lean man who was standing quietly by the haycart, chewing a piece of straw thoughtfully between his thin lips. His old, faded coat and boots made him look like a farmer, which he was, in a sense; but a farmer who owned more than one farm in Colyton and over towards Honiton. Roger Satchell could have had a life of relative ease had he wished, for he was wealthier than any other man in the barn that night. But he was known for a plain, hardworking, religious man, not given to fine clothes or display, and Ann guessed that it was probably true that he felt more at home in his farms and the meeting-houses of the dissenters than in the mansions of his Tory neighbours or in his private pew in the church. He took the straw out of his mouth slowly as he looked round at those who were listening, checking that he knew them all before he spoke.

  “Aye, friends. I’ve had a letter from Thomas Dare of Taunton, who’s been over to Holland these past few months, as some of you know. It says we shall have a good hay harvest this year.”

  “So? What do Thomas Dare know about hay harvests? He’s a goldsmith, isn’t he?” rumbled John Spragg.

  “Just so, John. But he couldn’t write more plain in a letter, now, could he, when all the magistrates have been opening the mails these months past? ‘Twas a code agreed between us afore he went. He says too, that in Holland they don’t go to cut a hayfield straight across, from one side to t’other, like we do; they goes about it different. One lot of reapers starts from the west, and another from the north, and they do work towards each other to meet in the centre.” He stopped, and smiled at the puzzled faces around him.

  “And what do you suppose ‘e means by all that, then?” asked John Clapp, a big, red-faced man who stood next to Adam and like him earned his living as a small mercer and carrier. “To tell us that the ale in Holland be too strong for ‘is brains?”

  “No, not that, John - ‘tis a code, I told ‘ee. The ones that start in the north, they’ll be the Scots, won’t they? The duke of Argyll, as I do guess, who’s been over to Holland these past few months, looking for men. And those that start in the west - that’s us, isn’t it?” Roger Satchell smiled, a thin, cautious smile in his lean brown face, and drew the folded letter from his pocket.

  “He says more, see, and to the point - he reckons the end of June or the first week in July do be the best time for this sort of harvesting, for that’s when it’s easiest to get the two lots of mowers to start together. So folks as might want to harvest the Dutch way should start sharpening their scythes now, and fixin’ ‘em to longer poles, too. And more - he hopes to bring a friend over from Holland about that time, to show us how to do it. ‘Tis plain enough what he means now, is it not, friends?” Roger Satchell smiled triumphantly, and looked around for confirmation.

  “Plain enough indeed,” said Adam cautiously. “Let’s hope the letter wasn’t opened on the way.”

  “No fear of that, Adam. ‘Tis his own seal, and unbroken.”

  “Then he means for us to arm, and be ready,” said John Spragg firmly. “But do ‘e go so far as to say exactly where these friends of his will land?”

  “No,” said Roger Satchell, putting the letter away. “No word of that, other than ‘twill be somewhere in the west. But that’s where it should be, for the Duke has most support here, they say.”

  “Let’s hope he comes with a strong force then, that we may make hay quickly,” said Adam, and felt at once that the fervency with which he had said the words was somehow too great, too strongly felt. But no-one seemed to notice. His old friend William Clegg smiled at him, his leathery face creasing in a mass of wrinkles.

  “He’ll do that all right, Adam, if he’s thinking of cutting a hayfield as big as Roger says. But I reckon this new way of haymaking won’t take too long to learn - and then us’ll get up and show they Timewells and Poles summat!”

  “He will have the Lord on his side,” intoned Israel Fuller firmly. “He will send the chariot of the Lord of Hosts among them, and they shall be scattered, even as leaves before the winds of autumn.”

  “Let us pray so.”

  “Amen ... amen ... amen.”

  The small group of men bowed their heads for a moment, their black hats nodding together in prayer, and then moved apart to join the others.

  Slowly the meeting was breaking up, people moving in twos and threes towards the door. They were careful not to be seen leaving all at once, but most travelled home in a large enough group to give each other at least some protection against footpads, or officious magistrates’ bullyboys — an old precaution, born of long practice. Ann stood with Tom and Simon for a moment, and then Adam came up, talking to Tom’s mother, Martha Goodchild, his face abstracted and serious. John Clapp joined them, and all six left together.

  Outside, each group set off at intervals down one of the three roads leading from the barn, so that they were soon lost to each other in the dusk, and the fierce gathering had melted without trace into the grey woods and valleys around.

  6

  ANN LOVED riding at night. Although it was after eleven, there was still a soft velvet blue in the sky to the west. The moon, half-full, washed the fields and paths with pale silver, and split the woods and hedges into sharp jigsaw patterns, jet black shadows, and pallid, angular trees and branches. The air was still warm with the fragrance of midsummer, and the li
ght breeze wafting across the dark woods and hills, carried a silence to the riders from as far away as the sea. The occasional bark or bleat of a distant dog or sheep and the nearer creaks of their saddles were sanctified with a texture and beauty all of their own, sounds that travelled alone like solitary pilgrims across the vast quiet of the night.

  The riders all felt this, the more so because of the contrast from the loud, earnest talk and enclosed space of the barn. It was as though they had come suddenly out of the society of men, into the society of God; and for a time Ann’s party rode in silence, each perhaps weighing in his soul the balance between the fierce earnestness of the religious meeting, and the holy calm and peace which, the night reminded them, also came from their Lord.

  Tom and Ann slowly fell a little behind the main party, and for once Ann did not resent Tom’s company. They were riding south along a high ridgeway towards the sea, and the others ahead of them, sober figures in their black cloaks and hats, seemed like tiny silhouettes against the immense background of the stars. Quiet murmured talk had begun to pass between them, and the continued silence between Tom and Ann drew them together, as though only they were witnesses of the majesty of the night. At last Tom spoke.

  “I shall be out many more nights like this, I trust, if the Lord sends our leader to us, as Israel says He will.”

  She glanced sideways at him. His hat cast a shadow across his eyes, and the moonlight caught his teeth oddly as he smiled, reminding her suddenly of a skull she had once seen unearthed in the churchyard. She shivered, and reassured herself by concentrating on the familiar tall, strong figure sitting heavily astride the borrowed horse.