Jem (and Sam)

by Ferdinand Mount

  Also thus it came to pass in the same year that one Jeremiah Mount, a young gentleman, hearing that God had spoke to John Reeve, and that he had damned several of his acquaintance, he came to us to discourse about those things.

  The Acts of the Witness of the Spirit of Lodowick Muggleton

  There is a tavern on the south side of the Minories towards the Tower end, the Five Bells, which was also a victualling house, and kept by a most ferocious Ranter whose name was George Quill. And there I became acquainted with one Captain Clark, a young man who had fought for the Parliament and lost an eye and who was thereby esteemed to be the author of the Ranters’ tract A Single Eye, though it was in truth written by Mr Clarkson, no kin of his but also to be found at the Five Bells, for he said that a tavern was the House of God. This Clarkson had a wife in Suffolk with a quiverful of children but he gave his body to other women, having told us that there was no sin but as man esteemed it sin and therefore none can be free from sin till in purity it be acted as no sin, which I esteemed a convenient doctrine.

  Today if these Ranter folk are at all remembered it is as severe preachers calling down hellfire upon the rich and proud, but in truth they were a merry crew and I was happy to hear them tell of the end of the world which was to come next Tuesday, or if not, the Tuesday following. We were free-born Englishmen and we might think as we pleased and do as we pleased too, which was another convenient doctrine.

  I was taking a glass at the Five Bells when there was a commotion at the door and a huge man with red hair flaming like the archangel’s came in and behind him a little man with long black hair who, though so much smaller than the other, yet bore an air of authority.

  We are come to bear witness, said the red-haired man, for this is John Reeve whom the Lord hath appointed his Last Messenger, and I am chosen as his Mouth. Thus he and I are the two witnesses and there is no other true witness that the Lord hath chosen. My name is Lodowick Muggleton.

  At first I thought that the company would laugh at the two men, for we had much experience of travelling preachers and some of our number were of a cynical humour. But the man’s voice was so strong and melodious and had so little of the Ranter in it that we were quietened and listened closely as the smaller man explained how God had chosen him John Reeve his Last Messenger for a great work unto this bloody and unbelieving world, and in his First Message had given him understanding of the Scriptures above all men in the world.

  For fourteen centuries, he told us, there hath not been one true prophet nor minister sent with a commission from the Lord. All the ministry in this world with all the worship taught by them is a lie and an abomination unto the Lord. There will be no more commission but ours until the end of the world, then God will appear suddenly after we have delivered this dreadful message and Christ will make it evident that he hath sent us.

  On that first visit to the Five Bells, even the most disputatious Ranters were silenced, for they were curious. One of them said to the two men that he wanted them to come and discourse every week, and Muggleton said:

  If you will hear the message, then it is our commission to deliver it. If you will each club twelve pence a week, then we shall come.

  But when the Two Witnesses came next week, the most disputatious of the topers came there also, prepared to mock them and call their teaching Blasphemy, the voice of the Devil and such like.

  At this John Reeve stood upon a chair, for he was a little man, and stretched out his hand upon them and said:

  For that you deny God’s Messenger and his Mouth, you deny Christ himself and seeing God hath sent me in his place here upon earth to give judgment upon those froward spirits who rebel against his word, and do blaspheme against the Holy Ghost, therefore I do pronounce you – and here he took the nearest man by the shoulders, for he did not know his name – cursed and damned, soul and body, from the presence of God, elect men and angels to eternity.

  Then he took the man next to him by the shoulders and damned him too, and so on with half a dozen more.

  But one of the men he damned, a pustulent man of a choleric temper, said he would be truly damned if he allowed this little usurper to curse him and he would wring his neck, and ran at John Reeve so violently that five or six men could hardly keep him off, his fury was so hot.

  Then John Reeve said to the people standing by: Friends, I pray you stand still on both sides of the room, and let there be a space in the middle. And I will lay down my head upon the ground and let this furious man tread upon my head.

  So the people stood still and made a space. Then John Reeve pulled off his hat and laid his face flat to the ground and said, do what you will. And the man came running at him full tilt and lifted up his foot to tread upon John Reeve’s neck, but then he turned back as though some force were pulling him and said, no, I will not, I scorn to tread upon a man lying down, and began scratching his head like a man waking up from a dream.

  John Reeve got up and continued his preaching.

  From that moment I believed and accepted the Two Witnesses as true Messengers of God’s word, and they became very friendly to me, for I was one of the first of our crew to see the light as they saw it. And I was flattered by their friendship and was glad to bear the expense of printing some of their epistles and pamphlets, addressing the Lord Mayor (who had put them in Newgate), and other high personages (who disapproved their preaching). But the expense was not great, for they knew printers who were of their faith and would take no payment for their labour but only for the paper and ink. And they were most grateful to me not only for my generosity but, I fancy, because they thought I was a gentleman and their other disciples were mostly common folk.

  How could I have believed such stuff, I who am no man’s gull, and was before that day in the Five Bells of a strict sceptical temper, though the Mouth took me for a Ranter? I can but plead that I was young and lonely and lacked a rudder to guide me through life’s storms.

  You are a good servant of the Lord, Jeremiah, one or other of them would say, the printer wants but five shillings to bring out another hundred copies of my Remonstrance to the Quakers, which is much called for.

  And I would give the money with a gladsome heart. So it went on for some months until I was brought to see the error of my faith. It was during a disputation in another tavern, between John Reeve and a pale little fellow I did not know, that doubt began to assail my soul.

  How far off is Heaven? asked the pale little fellow.

  It is some six miles up, John Reeve answered.

  And are the sun and the stars very big?

  No, they are not much larger than they appear to the eye.

  And God, how big is God?

  Oh he is of the dimension of a middle-statured man with all parts as a man hath.

  Taller than Your Worship, is he?

  He is much of my height (John Reeve was not much above five feet tall).

  Of mine too then? said the pale little fellow, pleased by this intelligence.

  An inch or so taller perhaps, Reeve replied. Jeremiah, my throat grows dry from this discourse.

  I fetched him a glass of ale, but the worm of doubt had begun to eat at my faith. A five-foot tall God? Heaven no further away than Hounslow?

  At first I thought that John Reeve was jesting as preachers may do to show the folly of those who question them. But then I heard him say the same to others of his following, and I could see that he believed these things to be true.

  Thus, but only by slow steps, I came to be cured of my delusions and it was Astronomy that cured me, for I had always been curious about such things and had read one or two of Mr Hignell’s books upon the matter although he thought me a poor scholar.

  Yet I still lacked the courage of my disbelief and durst not challenge the Two Witnesses, for I feared their cursing which had made stronger men than me faint and tremble. My strategy was rather to absent myself from these taverns and other meeting-places which they frequented.

  You are diligent of late, Jer
emiah, Mr Fisher said, clapping me upon the back as I carried a dozen reams of fresh sheets into the back store.

  Thank you, sir, I returned prettily from beyond the door.

  At that instant, I heard the noise of customers. My master was so garrulous that it was often five minutes before any purchaser had space to tell him of his wishes: A fine day is it not, though the wind is keen, you must excuse the condition of the shop, we have been taking in a new edition all day and we have not an inch left to spare, etc., etc.

  Yet some instinct warned me that I must pay heed. It was not the words the customer said – Good-day to you sir – but the sonorous manner of his delivery, like the music from a bass-viol that is afar off, that told me that the Prophet Muggleton had come to call, with or without the Other Witness.

  You have, I believe, a young gentleman in your shop, a Jer– But by then I was out of the back door and running on tiptoe down the lane.

  It may seem ungrateful that I should have made such stir to escape those who had been kind to me and done me honour, but the truth was that I feared they wanted only money out of me and I did not see why the earnings that had come to me by the sweat of my brow should vanish down the Prophet’s throat, for being a Materialist in philosophy he did not shrink from those delights which the Lord has rained down upon us, viz. food and drink.

  Thus I commenced to lead an economical life, knowing not which tavern the Two Witnesses might choose to visit and so I avoided them all and drank small beer in the back store.

  But there was other entertainment to be had that was closer to home and cost not a farthing.

  Here is Mary Court. You remember Mary, don’t you? She said she knew you a little at home in Kent. She is from Elmstead too and we Elmsteadites must stick together like burrs.

  Oh yes indeed, I remember Mary.

  And so I did, for I had tried in vain to kiss her and, as I have said, though she was tall as a lily she was scarcely fifteen years old then and she had cried out, but now . . . I kissed her hand like a Frenchman and gazed into her pale eyes like an astronomer at the stars.

  London has made you silly, I see, she said, and to Ralph: I hope you have not been so corrupted.

  I fear I have too little time for diversion, Mary. The bookseller’s trade is a deep study.

  So it must be, Ralph. She looked at him gravely and I could see him thinking, here is a serious girl who will be well suited to be my life’s partner, for he was a thinker-ahead and never paused on the way to pick the flowers. He wearied her already with his endless recitals of tonnages and longitudes and latitudes and octavos and duodecimos. It was not for such discourse that she had come to London, and I resolved to suit her fancy as best I could. Fluff might have her in the end but I was resolved she should see something of the great world first.

  Do you care for ballads, Mary? Wiggins and Ponder have given me some of Garland’s latest airs. I remember you have a voice like a nightingale.

  More like a jay. She laughed but was touched by my offer.

  And if you should need lace or pomanders or any such trifles, the girls at the Three Spanish Gypsies will gladly let me have any article at half the price.

  I have very little money, alas, she said. I’m in service with my aunt in Islington and she can’t afford to pay me, except my board and lodging.

  Well then for nothing, to you.

  I could not accept such gifts.

  Oh it will be but Kentish kindness, I said airily. There is no time like the present, let us go now – for I knew that Ralph was needed back at our master’s and could not go with us in the afternoon.

  So we walked through the City, the two of us, and the pavements being narrow I had to hold her to keep her from being splashed by the carriages or falling into the mire, and she was happy to take my arm in a simple country fashion. At the Gypsies I loaded her down with ribbons and silk which were in truth trumpery stuff but gaudy.

  We must celebrate your finery. There is a tavern nearby where they serve only beer from Kentish hops.

  Oh I couldn’t go to a tavern, besides I’m unused to liquor.

  Well then, he has the best canary too and that’s a true ladies’ drink, I don’t know a lady of fashion that does not drink canary (I did not tell her it was stronger than beer – there are some things we must discover for ourselves).

  She trembled upon the step of the Three Tuns. I shall not forget how she trembled and turned her pale face to me as though I were her confessor and she was asking absolution for the sin that I hoped she was about to commit.

  It is a worthy inn, I said, a superior establishment, Sir Edward Hyde himself lodged here when he was parleying with the Lord Mayor.

  Is that true, Jem?

  You may ask the Lord Mayor, for he is often to be found here too. The Guildhall is but next door.

  Oh Jem, she said and tapped me on the shoulder as though to knight me for my wit.

  And so we went on into the Three Tuns which was in truth a dark and smoky place as all such taverns are, but she did not care and sat down on the bench by the fire as though she had been frequenting taverns all her life. And I took her hand and told her fortune: You shall meet a tall dark man, etc., and then I kissed her hand, then kissed her lightly upon the neck.

  Oh this canary is strong, I do not think I –

  It is but lemonade, Mary, everyone drinks it by the gallon.

  And she tossed it back bravely and I kissed her on the neck again, on her long white neck, and a strange fierceness overcame me.

  Jem, do not hold me so, don’t, oh –

  She pushed me off and jumped to her feet.

  I am very sorry, I said, and began to shower down repentances on her, yet there was no repentance in my heart but a savage longing that had no love in it. I wanted to be revenged – upon Ralph, upon Nan who had left me, upon the whole world, and long pale Mary was to be the scapegoat for them all.

  It was kind of you to give me all these things – she began to sob – but we are strangers to each other and I am –

  Oh, Mary, I would not for a fortune have you weep. You’re so beautiful that my passion got the better of me, it won’t happen again, I wouldn’t for all the world distress you. Please take another glass, as a sign that you forgive me? You must not return to your aunt’s so distressed.

  Thus in the end she took another glass and we discoursed long (and it must be said tediously) of her family and her aunt, and her desire to learn Italian and the flageolet and her mother’s hope that she might eventually marry Ralph. So I walked her back to her aunt’s and we were friends again but the kiss I gave when we parted at the door (a mean dwelling next the Angel) was a lover’s kiss, full and long, not a friend’s kiss. And I knew I had planted the seed of passion, one that Ralph would never in a millennium plant.

  The next day I took her on a boat, a blue wherry with red oars, and I rowed her down to a quiet place under the willows below Greenwich and after a bottle of wine and two beef pasties I pulled up her skirts and had her with as little feeling as though I were plucking a chicken. When I went in, she cried out twice but not loud, as though she were calling for aid but feared to rouse the enemy, and then was quiet and I could not tell what she thought. Afterwards, she wept but not much and there was not much blood either.

  Will you always love me, Jem?

  Yes, I said, I will, but not meaning it, nor did she in her heart think I did.

  Yet though I did it out of lust and revenge, that savagery did have something of love in it after all, though perverted, and I think of it often now, more often than other, kinder scenes: Mary lying against the headboard with her skirts still disarranged and spilling over the side, and the path of the tear still wet on her cheek and the sweet soreness I had and the red oars slapping the water piano. And summoning up this recollection, I come to wondering whether I would have fared better if I had been truly in love with her or had at any rate made some simulation of love such that she would have married me and we would have made an honest pair
keeping pigs and sheep in Elmstead – but it was only a dream, for even in the thinking of it the serpent Tedium would creep into the image and I knew I could never have borne such a life. Meanwhile, to draw up the account: I had done her, Ralph could have her. There was other business to be carried forward.

  I forgot to say that I had carried on my former trade with the ingenious chests and found twice as many acceptances as I had in Dover, so that I was the most prosperous prentice on Tower Hill and much respected by my fellows who dubbed me Gorgeous Jem. Yet I knew full well that I was yet but in a small way of business, for I lacked connections with those great sluice-engines which pump wealth into the pockets of their operators, viz. the Admiralty and the Treasury. Mr Fisher had no notion of how to get on in the world, being but a simple tradesman resolved to buy cheap and sell dear. He was full of honest saws: quality will always tell, a bad workman blames his tools, penny wise pound foolish and the like. There was no great future to be had in his shop, and I was determined to leave after I had served my articles.

  It was in the spring at the time of the Dutch wars and the Pool of London was crammed with men-o’-war like herrings in a barrel. It was harvest time for us, for many of the tarpaulins newly promoted to captain had no knowledge of the North Sea and the French waters beyond Portland, while we had an unrivalled collection of Dutch maps. In fact, all our maps were copies of the finest Amsterdam charts with our own crest and legend superinscribed upon them, for though Mr Fisher was a pious man and went to church twice upon the Lord’s Day, in matters of trade he was a veritable pirate and quite unashamed. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery was another of his saws.

  Thus one morning I called upon the Vanguard lying at St Katharine’s and begged to wait upon the captain with a bundle of the latest charts of supreme quality (no ingenious boxes on this visit, for I fancied there would be no time for such diversion when the cannon were roaring). While I stood upon the deck, I heard a seaman speak to his fellow upon the land: He’s a rare commander though he’s but a landlubber. Not a sailor then? the fellow inquired. Lord bless you, never been to sea in his life before this trip except as a passenger, knows no seamen’s terms. When we’d say tack about, he cries wheel to the left, or the right. The quartermaster says that when he asks for instructions – larboard or starboard as you might say – the Admiral just shouts aye, aye, boys, let’s board them. You never saw such a thing in your life, but he knows how to fight, and fighting’s fighting.