by Leah Fleming
These pictures have chafed my mind like a scouring stone with knowing that I am all that is left of their sacrifice. I do not understand the ways of the Lord in saving such a wretch as I, a ‘hoyden girl’ of no consequence. What does He want of me?
Over and over Mistress Margery likes to salt my wounds with every detail of my unexpected coming. I turn my head from her inspection and mouth her words with my lips in mocking silence. I know that story off by heart. It hurts to be reminded that I am a burden left behind. Why did the Lord not complete his task and take me with them?
Then there is the burden of my name and the knowledge it was given with my father’s dying breath. Grace, Faith, Hope and Charity, even Temperance, Soberness, Comfort or Patience maybe, but Rejoice is hardly a fitting name for one who was orphaned at birth. I blush with shame every time I am called to account for it. At least there was no public announcement, for Seekers do not hold with baptismal naming ceremonies.
When I look at Roger, my guardian, I try to see my mother in him but he has a ruddy face, sandy brows and red eyes that water often. His hands are like spades, rough but gentle. I have no image of my father. In my mind he walks tall and straight, the handsomest of men. Aunt Margery said I smile like my mother but have a stubbornness all my own that will be a life’s work to curb.
I still do not understand why, when people see truth in different ways, there must be so much quarrelling and imprisonment and tell-tale spying in the district. Why could we not be allowed to get on with our lives in peace?
There was a clump of rosemary that sheltered beneath the orchard croft wall and nobody knew how it came to plant itself there, but it has always been my fancy that it is for remembrance of Alice and Matthew Moorside.
Sometimes I sat awhile when my spirit was low and stroked my fingers across the stem and sniffed the leaves, thinking about the two lovers buried within. They say the scent of rosemary feeds the soul with hope. From a tender age I tried to sense what they would wish of me, but no words came to my ears. It was hard to believe that I was ever anything but a nuisance, a motherless waif who did not quite fit in to Windebank farm, however hard Uncle Roger tried to include me.
Mall and Dilly had a place in their hearts that I did not, I feared. They had always done their duty by me, of that I had no qualms; but duty can be as chilly as bare feet on slate sometimes.
Mall walked the fields with his father, learning to rule the farm that would one day be his. Dilly sat close by her mother at their needlework, content to do her bidding while I looked on, further from the warmth and the light. Would it always be like this?
It was then that I prayed with fervour that one day I would find me a Matthew Moorside of my very own. It has ever been my opinion that true love in a marriage makes light everything that is heavy. How else can such sufferings as ours be borne?
3
Then came that fateful day when it was our turn to hold the gathering in the big barn. There were whispers across the dale that one of the ‘Valiant Sixty’, Mr Fox’s trusty preachers, was in the district and many would want to hear him. My aunt ran hither and thither like a weaver’s shuttle.
‘If you’ve time to stand about, Joy Moorside, you’ve time to clean about. There’s straw to be fetched and a floor to be swept. I don’t want strangers to think we keep a rough house here and if I see thee at that book again there’ll be trouble. How many times have I told thee no more skulking behind the door? Out into the barn with the besom and take Dilly. She’s not too young to make use of her arms to further the Lord’s will. Hearts to God and hands to work. Nan and me have a heap of pies to make, so shape thyself!’
However much I would be at my books, I dared not thwart her or she would stop my schooling altogether. Book learning was the joy of my life. I couldn’t wait to rush through my chores to turn the next page and dive to the bottom of it. Reading came easy to me, whereas poor Mallory struggled to bark out his letters and Dilly would rather clean the hen coop than sit at a table. It did not matter how many miles we had to walk down to the schoolmaster’s house in fog and hail, I was always first to be ready and eager to be off.
Uncle Roger was proud that I read off his accounts and copied them into his ledger with a fair hand. He said I was quick as a weasel with numbering and he patted my head with pleasure whilst my aunt shook hers with dismay.
‘Don’t encourage the lass in such vanity,’ she sneered. ‘What does it profit a girl to be a scholar and one that is so wilfully bent as this one?’
‘Don’t take on so,’ he argued back. ‘Joy is quick to catch on. Why should a girl not be a scholar? All are equal in the eyes of the Lord.’
I could have rushed over and knelt at his feet in gratitude but thought the better of it in case it gave Aunt Margery further cause against me. I decided to be extra diligent with the scrubbing.
The new slate roof over the barn was finished hurriedly but there were gaps that needed stuffing with moss to keep out the draughts. Planks of hard wood and hay bales made enough seating so there were seats for the older folk. We had hoped to remodel the house to make more rooms for sleeping aloft but what with the hearth tax and fines that are put upon all who will not attend the church, my uncle feared it would be foolhardy to spend on such an extravagance.
As we scurried about our chores I felt such a rush of excitement to think that our stone barn would be the centre of such a great stirring up of the Friends of Truth.
Dilly hovered round me like a buzzing bee and I wanted to shoo her away. She was such a fanciful child. When I told her a story about silver grey wolves roaming in the forest who try to catch little girls, she would not go kindling with me in the copse and when I told her about the hobgoblin who lives at the bottom of our well she wouldn’t draw water and got a beating and I did feel so mean-spirited.
I don’t know where these fancies came from. They bubbled up from nowhere. Sometimes I could make everyone laugh with my imaginings and then I’d be overcome with strange forebodings so fearsome that I daren’t shut my eyes. I rode the nightmare shouting and screaming, waking the whole household with my racket and my aunt would take a strap to me but for Uncle staying her hand.
‘The child is afeared. What ails thee?’ he said half asleep, listening to my mutterings of half-remembered dreams of blood and death. How could I make sense of them?
‘Spare the rod and spoil the child is what is written, Roger. She disturbs us all with her nonsense. We must bridle her wild spirit. There’s work to do in the morning,’ yawned my aunt, who never could understand my fears.
‘True believers mustn’t ponder over evil deeds of the imagination, Joy, but think on things of beauty and light. Go to sleep. Tomorrow is a big day for Windebank. Fret not, it will soon be sun-up.’ His words must have comforted me for I slept in and woke to the bustle in the yard.
We were thronged with worshippers, strangers and Friends who had tramped half the night to gather on the First Day. There had been no bother from the steeple-house for many months but now there was a new incumbent, called Parson Protheroe, who was afire with indignation that half his congregation attended worship elsewhere. There were fears he might cause trouble in the district and demand his dues more fervently than the last priest who had been old and sick, enfeebled in mind and body.
I have never understood why Seekers were so reviled. We went about our lives in peace and charity, harming no man or woman. Nor could I understand why Constable Swinstey and his proxy, Morton, took such pleasure in robbing our fellowship.
Widow Bowlby had the very drapes ripped from her bed and all its covers when she lay in fever unable to defend herself. Tom Thwaite had his milk cow taken and his pig, and him with six small children to feed.
Ambrose Swinstey and his gang of rough boys pelted us with stones and called us names when we left the schoolmaster’s house. Did he not know the priest would never allow any Dissenters’ children to attend his charity school? Did they think they would stop us from gathering each First Day?
They might as well command the sun from shining or the tide from turning as to think they could stop us Seekers from following the Light of Truth as we see it. Sometimes I wanted to fling those rough boys into the dewpond and call them names, but our schoolmaster said that must not be our way of doing things.
‘A soft answer turns away wrath,’ he chided me. ‘You childer are not empty pots to be filled with hatred and lies but fires to be lit, candles in the dark to shine out in the darkness.’
If it were not for Christopher Sampson, our schoolmaster, my week would be wearisome and without relief, but he opened his door every day to teach all those who were free to study for just a few pence. I don’t know how he kept his household on the little that we brought in coinage. Uncle Roger tried to pay him in kind for the keeping of meeting house records, drawing up wills, accounts and certificates.
His wife, Isabel, helped us girls with samplers and stitchery. Without her tuition I would never have made my way in the world, but at that time I found it boring and frustrating.
When he read to us I found my eyes drawn to the fresh darning in his dark stockings, where the colour of the mending did not match the faded rest. His britches were patched with loving kindness in neat stitches but nothing could disguise how threadbare their circumstances were. His legs were crooked, and Mall said you could drive a dog through them like a tunnel but that was cruel.
I sensed he suffered with rheumaticks but showed little of his discomfort to us. Sometimes when he bent to inspect our work I saw him wince and he gripped the board to steady himself.
Once he had been a man of the cloth, who became convinced of the Seekers’ truth when it first came into these parts with Mr Fox. He lost his living in the steeple-house and now lived on his learning and the goodwill of others.
Our master could teach Latin but no one wanted to learn it from him. There must be a library of books within him. How could his head contain such knowledge, I wondered? He liked to linger after meeting for a warm brew of herbs and ale which Aunt Margery packed with honey and goose grease fortified with spirit to ease his chest.
We hovered as he sat warming himself, telling us tales of long ago: how he’d grown up in London and recalled the funeral of Queen Bess. How the great barge sailed down the river, attended by Lords and Ladies in black cloth. There was a procession to the big steeple-house and many lined the streets to get a last view of such an excellent monarch. He had seen two more kings on their thrones and the last one torn off it. Then Charles’s son was returned to the land but I didn’t understand why there was so much fighting in our district still.
‘I’d like to travel abroad and see such sights,’ I sighed, but my aunt tutted, shaking her head at me.
‘There’s enough mischief and misdoings in these moors, Rejoice. Be not giddy. Let your light shine on the darkness here, never mind gallivanting into strange parts out of curiosity. We don’t have far to go to find our sorrows.’
I hated it when she called me by my full name. It set me apart from the others. I hoped that it would be forgotten in favour of Joy, which sits much softer on the tongue. Seeing my discomfort, Master Sampson tried to ease my blushes.
‘You do well to have a curious mind, child. I may have travelled far in this life but let me tell you there’s nothing to compare with the beauty of our purple hills and green dales, the glow of the stone walls at sunset and the rushing power of rivers and waterfalls. Here the air is clean and fresh, not foul with pestilence. They may be few of us but heaven is within these walls when we are forgathered to wait on the Lord.
‘The prisons of London and Lancaster, York and Leeds are full of our Friends in Light. There may be wonder in foreign places but there is infamy and injustice too, so fret not young lass. Be wary what you wish for in life. I fear your turn will come to be a witness to trials and sufferings soon enough.’
We all fell silent at his warning and I shivered, suddenly sobered by the thought that I might have to share the fate of my mother and father. I turned to my posset cup with relief, letting the juice trickle down my throat, and prayed I’d have a brave heart for such suffering when it came.
Friends filled the track to Windebank. It promised to turn out a fine enough day for walking across hill and dale. Sitting in the draughts could be chilly but once the barn was packed tight with bodies amid the smell of cow byres and steaming dung, we soon warmed up.
It was my duty to see that Dilly didn’t disturb the quiet with her wriggling and fidgeting. Soon she leaned her starched cap across my lap and sucked her thumb so my aunt couldn’t see. She found great comfort in her little secret and I hid her vice from prying eyes with my apron.
There was a brazier of logs burning by the door so that those who’d tramped the furthest could warm their hands and feet for a while but as usual on First Day, one of the constables watched the comings and goings from behind the great ash tree that marks the northernmost part of our farmstead.
The ash towered above the track, sheltering the farmstead from the worst the north wind can blow. I liked to watch its keys fluttering down at leaf fall when we played with them. To me this tree was a great giant that shielded our hall from the blast but not that day. We could all see Ambrose Swinstey with his father and Morton about their business, spying on our gathering as usual.
My uncle ran a great risk by holding a meeting in our barn for an act of worship which the authorities would call an unlawful Conventicle. Like many others he took each summons and fine with fortitude but on that fateful day, my aunt wore a pinched and worried look.
‘How many more cows and sheep will we surrender, how many more twenty-pound fines must we bear before the constables come for my pewter and pottery, oats and stock to beggar the Windebanks for this disobedience?’ she muttered under her breath.
Even I knew it was only a matter of time before Parson Protheroe in his zeal would have Uncle Roger before the Justice and sent to York Castle alongside half the men of this dale.
Joseph Swinstey was cunning. No matter how often we changed the time and the place of First Day worship, he knew where to come. I think he kept guard on certain cottages to follow the faithful of the township like a hound after a fox.
There were so many worshippers that day crowding the barn door it would not shut. The yard was full and the visitors walked amongst us in silence. The men in their leather britches and high hats were no strangers to the dungeons and one bore a red weal across his cheeks where he had been lashed with a whip. His wife was standing by his side with worried eyes and sunken cheeks.
They sat as our guests and the meeting began as every other in watchful silence. The air was cold so I saw the breaths like vapour of those who were chilled by the fresh breeze outside.
One day perhaps if the Lord willed it would be wonderful to have our own meeting house with walls big enough to contain everyone, seats and shutters to keep out the chill, windows with glass, sure in the knowledge that all can freely worship as they choose; but that time was far off, I feared. Mr Fox had said many times that God doesn’t dwell in temples of wood and stone, but in people’s hearts; but I thought it was good to have a settled place to meet.
Suddenly there was a commotion outside, a stirring and shouting. ‘Out Out. Everyone out of this barn!’
No one moved but Dilly stirred awake and I held her tight. ‘What’s afoot?’ she asked, suddenly alert.
‘Nothing, just Ambrose Swinstey’s father at his mischief again,’ I sighed.
‘I demand the key to this building in the name of the King against this riotous assembly,’ said the other constable, his eyes narrow with venom to have caught the meeting at worship again.
‘The door is open and there is no key, as well you know,’ said Uncle Roger. ‘We do no harm. There is no riot here.’
‘Out, out . . . Not another word, Roger Windebank. You are in enough trouble as it is. Have you not been warned time and time again against this unlawful gathering?’
The constable
was red in the face and called in strangers I had never seen before to clear the barn. They pulled old Mary Thwaite off the bench as roughly as if she was a sack of ragged wool.
‘Don’t do that!’ I screamed. Morton turned and eyed me with contempt.
‘Shut your mouth, Joy Moorside or it will be the worse for you.’
Suddenly my heart was full of anger and I wanted to lash out. How dare he disturb our worship. ‘The Lord sees all,’ I cried. ‘Watch your step, Master, or it will be the worse for thee!’ I heard myself spit out strange words. ‘The Lord sees all. His will is not thwarted. Watch thy step!’
‘Shut thy gob, Rejoice!’ warned my aunt, her eyes blazing with fear. ‘Let him do his will. It is no matter.’
‘But it’s not fair,’ I cried. ‘There’s no harm in this.’
‘There must be great danger in this if simple folk are not allowed to think as they wish according to their truth,’ whispered the Schoolmaster. ‘Let me take your arm, for my leg is playing up again.’ He guided me firmly out of the door where there was a line of soldiers waiting with stern faces. Men with hungry eyes that stared ahead, their ears deaf to pleas for mercy.
Swinstey picked out his neighbours as elders of the congregation, pushing them into a huddle apart from their wives and children and I could see Uncle Roger in the middle as they were herded like cattle away from us.
‘What are you doing with them?’ said Aunt Margery with a softness that belied her fear. Dilly started to cry and call for her father and I had to hold her back from running after him.
‘They will go to the proper place of worship at the appointed hour and there the Parson will admonish them for leading simple people astray,’ said Swinstey. ‘You are a stubborn people.
You heap coals of fire over yer own selves!’
No one protested but bowed their heads and turned towards the path of the arrested men. There was not a stave or dagger or implement of war amongst us but the air was afire with indignation and disappointment as the tall hats bobbed slowly out of sight.