The first three peaceful days after the Fair were spent by the young
preacher at Drawwell Farm, knitting up a friendship with its inmates
that neither time nor suffering was able thereafter to unravel.
'The house inhabited by the Blayklings may still be seen. Its thick
walls, small windows and rooms, with the clear well behind, must be
almost in the same condition as in the week we are remembering.'[6]
In later days many a 'mighty Meeting' was to be held in the big barn
that adjoins the small whitewashed house with its grey flagged roof.
Drawwell is situated about two miles away from Sedbergh, on the sunny
slope of a hill overlooking the River Lune, that here forms the
boundary between the two counties of Westmorland and Yorkshire.
There, under the shadow of the great fells, George Fox had time for
many a quiet talk with his hosts, in the days that followed the
Whitsuntide Fair. John Blaykling, the farmer's son, was a man of
strong character. He was afterwards to become himself a powerful
preacher of the Truth and to suffer for it when persecution came.
Moreover, 'he was a great supporter of them that were in low
circumstances in the world, often assisting them in difficult cases to
the exposing of himself to great hazards of loss.'
He had also an especial care for the feelings of others. On the Sunday
after the Fair he was anxious to take his guest to Firbank Chapel,
where the Seekers' service was to be held, high up on the hill
opposite Drawwell. Yet he seems to have had some misgivings that his
guest might be too full of his own powerful message to remember to
behave courteously to others, who, although in a humbler way, were
still trying to declare the Truth as far as they had a knowledge of
it. Fox writes in his Journal:
'And the next First day I came to Firbank Chapel, where Francis
Howgill and John Audland were preaching in the morning, and John
Blaykling and others came to me and desired me not to reprove
them publicly, for they was not parish teachers but pretty sober
men, but I would not tell them whether I would or no, though I
had little in me to declare publicly against them, but told them
they must leave me to the Lord's movings. The chapel was full of
people and many could not get in. Francis Howgill (who was
preaching) said he thought I looked into the Chapel, but I did
not. And he said that I might have killed him with a crab-apple,
the Lord's power had so surprised him.
'So they had quickly done with their preaching to the people at
that time, and they and the people went to their dinners, but
abundance stayed till they came again. And I went to a brook and
got me a little water, and so I came and sat me down atop of a
rock, (for the word of the Lord came to me that I must go and
sit upon the rock in the mountain, even as Christ had done
before).
'And in the afternoon the people gathered about me with several
separate teachers, where it was judged there was above a
thousand people. And all those several separate teachers were
convinced of God's everlasting truth that day, amongst whom I
declared freely and largely God's everlasting truth and word of
life about three hours. And there was many old people went into
the chapel and looked out of the windows and thought it a
strange thing to see a man to preach on a hill or mountain, and
not in their church as they called it. So I was made to open to
the people that the steeple-house and the ground whereon it
stood was no more holier than that mountain ... but Christ was
come who ended the temple and the priests and the tithes, and
Christ said, "Learn of me," and God said, "This is my beloved
Son, hear ye Him."
'For the Lord had sent me with His everlasting gospel to preach,
and His word of life so that they all might come to know Christ
their Teacher, their Counsellor, their Shepherd to feed them,
and their Bishop to oversee them, and their Prophet to open to
them, and to know their bodies to be temples of God and Christ
for them to dwell in.... And so, turning the people to the
Spirit of God, and from the darkness to the light, that they
might believe in it and become children of light.'