It was a most uncomfortable First Day morning. The children looked at
each other and wondered what would happen next, as they stood in the
small bedroom under the thatched roof. Dorcas, the eldest, already
half dressed, held Baby Stephen in her arms; but the twins, Tryphena
and Tryphosa, were running about the floor with bare feet and only
their petticoats on, strings and tapes all flying loose. Baby was
crying, whilst the Twins shouted with mischievous glee. Something must
be done. So Dorcas seated herself in a big chair and tried to dress
Baby. But Baby was hungry. He wanted his breakfast and he did not at
all want to be dressed! Oh, if only Mother was here! Where was Mother
all this long time? Had she and Father really been taken to prison?
Dorcas felt heart-sick at the thought. Happily the Twins and Baby were
too little to understand. She herself was nearly ten and therefore
almost grown up. She understood now all about it quite well. This was
what Mother had meant when she bent down to kiss her little girl in
bed last night, saying that she was going out to a Meeting at Friend
Curtis' house, hoping to be back in an hour or two. 'But if not'--here
Dorcas remembered that Mother's eyes had filled with tears. She had
left the sentence unfinished, adding only: 'Anyway, I know I can trust
thee, Dorcas, to be a little mother to the little ones while I am
away.' 'But if not....' Dorcas had been too sleepy last night to
think what the words meant, or to keep awake until Mother's return. It
seemed as if she had only just closed her eyes for a minute or two;
and yet, when she opened them again, the bright morning sunlight was
filling the room.
'But if not....' After all, there had been no need for Mother to
finish the sentence. Now that Dorcas was wide awake she could complete
it for herself only too well. For Dorcas knew that at any moment a
Meeting of five or more persons who met to practise a form of worship
not authorized by law might be rudely interrupted by the constables,
and all the Friends who were sitting in silence together dragged off
to prison for disobeying the Quaker Act. Since that Act had been
passed in this same month of May 1662, Quaker children understood that
this might happen at any moment, but of course each child hoped that
it would not happen just yet, or at least not to his own Father and
Mother. But now apparently it had happened here in peaceful Reading
beside the broad Thames.
Last night's Meeting had been fixed at an unusually late hour. For, as
the late Spring evenings were lengthening, the Reading Quakers had
wished to take advantage of the long May twilight to gather together
and meet with a Friend, one of the Valiant Sixty, who had come in for
a few hours unexpectedly on his way to London. So the children had
fallen asleep as usual, fully expecting to find their parents beside
them when they woke. But now the empty places and the unslept-in beds
told their own tale.
'Be a mother to the little ones, Dorcas,' Mother had said. Well,
Dorcas was trying her very best, but it was not easy. Baby had many
strings to tie and many buttons to fasten, and just as she was getting
the very last button safely into its button-hole the Twins came
running up to say that they had got into each other's clothes by
mistake and could not get out of them again. This was serious; for
though Phenie's frock was only a little too big for Phosie, Phosie's
frock was much too small for Phenie.
Dorcas was obliged to put Baby down to attend to them; but this
reminded Baby that he had still not been provided with his
much-desired breakfast, whereupon he began to howl, till Dorcas took
him up in her arms again, and dandled him as Mother did. This made him
crow for happiness, just as he did when Mother took him, so for a few
minutes Dorcas was happy too, till she saw that the Twins were now
beginning to squabble again, and to tear out each other's hair with
the comb. At that unlucky moment up came brother Peter's big voice
calling from below, 'Dorcas, Dorcas, what are you all doing up there?
Why is not breakfast ready? I have milked the cow for you. You must
come down this very minute; I am starving!'
It was an uncomfortable morning; and the worst of it was that it was
First Day morning too. Dorcas had not known before that a First Day
morning could be uncomfortable. Usually First Day was the happiest day
in the whole week. Mother's hands were so gentle that, though the
children had been taught to help themselves as soon as they were old
enough, still Mother always seemed to know just when there was an
unruly button that needed a little coaxing to help it to find its
hole, or a string that wanted to get into a knot that ought to be
persuaded to tie itself into a bow.
Then breakfast was always a pleasant meal, with the big blue bowls
full of milk, warm from the cow, set out on the wooden table, and
Father sitting at one end raising his hand as he said a silent Grace.
Father never said any words at these times. But he bent his head as if
he were thanking Someone he loved very much, Someone close beside him,
for giving him the milk and bread to give to the children and for
making him very happy. So the children felt happy too. Dorcas thought
that the brown bread always tasted especially good on First Day
morning, because Father was at the head of the table to cut it and
hand it to them himself. On other, week-day, mornings he had to go off
much earlier, ploughing, or reaping, or gathering in the ripe corn
from the harvest-fields behind the farm. Also, Peter never teased the
little ones when Father was there. But to-day if there were no
breakfast, (and where was breakfast to come from?) Peter would be
dreadfully cross. Yet how could Dorcas go and get breakfast for Peter
when the three little ones were all wanting her help at once?
'I'm coming, Peter, as fast as ever I can,' she called back, in answer
to a second yet more peremptory summons. But, oh! how glad she was to
hear a gentle knock at the door of the thatched cottage a minute or
two later.
'Come in! come in!' she heard Peter saying joyfully as he opened the
door, and then came the sound of light footsteps on the wooden stairs.
Another minute, and the bedroom door opened gently, and a sunshiny
face looked into the children's untidy room.
'Why, it is thee, Hester!' Dorcas exclaimed, with a cry of joy. 'Oh, I
am glad to see thee! And how glad Mother would be to know thou wert
here.'
The girl who entered was both taller and older than Dorcas. She was a
well-loved playfellow evidently, for Tryphena and Tryphosa toddled
towards her across the room at once, to be caught up in her arms and
kissed.
'Of course, it is I, Dorcas,' she answered promptly. 'Who else should
it be? Prudence and I determined that we would come over and try to
help thee as soon as we could. We brought a basket of provisions too,
in case you were short. Prudence is helping Peter to set out breakfast
in the kitchen now, so we must hasten.'
Life often becomes easy when you are two, however difficult it may
have been when you were only one! With Hester to help, the dressing
was finished at lightning speed. Yet, when the children came down to
the kitchen, Prudence and Peter already had the fire blazing away
merrily; the warm milk was foaming in the bowls. The hungry children
thought, as they drank it up, that never before had breakfast tasted
so good.
'Hester, what made thee think of coming?' Dorcas asked a little later,
when, Baby's imperious needs being satisfied, she was able to begin
her own breakfast, while he drummed an accompaniment on the back of
her hand with a wooden spoon. 'How did the news reach thee? Or have
they taken thy Father and Mother away too? Have all the Friends gone
to gaol this time?'
Hester nodded. Her bright face clouded for a moment or two. Then she
resolutely brushed the cloud away.
'Yea, in truth, Dorcas,' she answered. 'I fear much that only we
children are left. Anyhow, thy parents and mine are taken, and the
others as well most like. My Father had warning from a trusty source
that he and other Friends had best not meet in Thomas Curtis' house
last night. But he is never one to be turned aside from his purpose,
thou knows. So he took me between his knees and said, "Hester, dear
maid, thy mother and I must go. 'Tis none of our choosing. If we are
taken, fear not for us, nor for thyself and Prue. Only seek to nourish
and care for the tender babes in the other houses, whence Friends are
likely to be taken also." Therefore I hastened hither to help thee,
Dorcas, bringing Prudence with me, partly because I love thee, and
thou art mine own dear friend, but also because it was my Father's
command. If I can be of service to thee, perhaps he will pat my head
when he returns out of gaol and say, as he doth sometimes, "I knew I
could trust thee, my Hester."'
'Will they be long in prison, dost thou think?' asked Dorcas, with a
tremor in her voice. She was always an anxious-minded little girl, and
inclined to look on the gloomy side of things, whereas Hester was
sunshine itself.
'Who can say?' answered Hester, and again even her bright face
clouded. 'The Justices are sure to tender to them the oath, but since
they follow Him who commanded, "Swear not at all," how can they take
it?'
'Then, if they refuse, they will be said to be out of the King's
protection, and the Justices and the gaolers may do with them as they
will,' added Peter doggedly.
At these words Hester, seeing that Dorcas looked very sorrowful and
almost ready to cry, checked Peter suddenly, and said, 'At any rate,
we can but hope for the best. And now we must hasten, or we shall be
late for Meeting.'
'Meeting?' Dorcas looked up in surprise. 'I thought thou saidst that
all the Friends had been taken.'
'All the men and women, yes,' answered Hester; 'but we children are
left. We know what our Fathers and Mothers would have us do.'
Here Peter broke in, 'Yes, of course, Dorcas, we must go to show them
that Friends are not cowards, and that we will keep up our Meetings
come what may. Dost thou not mind what friend Thomas Curtis' wife,
Mistress Nan, has often told us of her father, the Sheriff of Bristol?
How he was hung before his own door, because men said he was
endeavouring to betray the city to Prince Rupert, and thus serve his
king in banishment. Shall we be less loyal than he?'
'Loyal to our King, Dorcas,' added Hester gently.
Dorcas hesitated no longer.
'Thou art right, Hester,' she answered, 'and Peter, thou art right
too. We will go all together. I had forgotten. Of course children as
well as grown-up people can wait upon God.'
* * * * *
The children arrived at the Friends' usual meeting place, only to find
it locked and strongly guarded. They went on, undismayed, to Friend
Lamboll's orchard, but, there also, two heavy padlocks, sealed with
the King's seal, were upon the green gate. An old goody from a cottage
hard by waved them away. 'Be off, children! Here is no place for you,'
she said; adding not unkindly, 'your parents were taken near here
yester eve, and the officers of the law are still prowling round. This
orchard is sure to be one of the first places they will visit.'
Then seeing the tired look on Dorcas' face, as she turned to go, with
heavy Stephen in her arms: 'Here, give the babe to me,' she said,
'I'll care for him this forenoon. Thy mother managed to get a word
with me last night as the officers dragged her away, and I promised
her I would do what I could to help you, though you be Quakers and I
hold to the Church. See, he'll be safe in this cradle while you go and
play, though it is forty years and more since it held a babe of my
own.'
Very thankfully Dorcas laid Stephen, now sleeping peacefully, down in
the oaken cradle in the old woman's flagged kitchen. Then she ran off
to join the others assembled at a little distance from the orchard
gate. By this time a few more children had joined them: two or three
girls, and four or five older boys.
Where were they to meet? The sight of the closed house, and the sealed
gate, even the mention of the officers of the law, far from
frightening the children, had only made them more than ever clear
that, somewhere or other, the Meeting must be held.
At length one of the elder boys suggested 'My father's granary?' The
very place!--they all agreed: so thither the little flock of children
trooped. The granary was a large building of grey stone lighted only
by two mullioned windows high up in the walls. In Queen Elizabeth's
days these windows had lighted the small rooms of an upper storey, but
now the dividing floor had been removed to make more room for the
grain which lay piled up as high as the roof over more than half the
building. But, at one end, there was an empty space on the floor, and
here the children seated themselves on scattered bundles of hay.
Quietly Meeting began. At first some of the children peeped up at one
another anxiously under their eyelids. It felt very strange somehow to
be gathering together in silence alone without any grown-up people.
Were they really doing right? Dorcas' heart began to beat rather
nervously, and a hot flush dyed her cheek, until she looked across at
Hester sitting opposite, and was calmed by the peaceful expression of
the elder girl's face. Hester's hood had fallen back upon her
shoulders. Her fair hair, slightly ruffled, shone like a halo of pale
gold against the grey stone wall of the granary. Her blue eyes were
looking up, up at the blue sky, far away beyond the high window.
'Hester looks happy, almost as if she were listening to something,'
Dorcas said to herself, 'something that comforts her although we are
all sad.' Then, settling herself cosily down into the hay, 'Now I will
try to listen for comfort too.'
A few moments later the silence was broken by a half-whispered prayer
from a dark corner of the granary, 'Our dear, dear parents! help them
to be brave and faithful, and make us all brave and faithful too.'
None of the boys and girls looked round to see who had spoken, for
the words seemed to come from the deepest place in their own hearts.
Swiftly and speedily the children's prayer was answered. Help was
given to them, but they needed every scrap of their courage and faith
during the next half-hour. Almost before the last words of the prayer
died away, a loud noise was heard and the tramp of heavy feet coming
round the granary wall. The officers of the law were upon them: 'What,
yet another conventicle of these pestilential heretics to be broken
up?' shouted a wrathful voice. The next moment the door was roughly
burst open, and in the doorway appeared a much dreaded figure, no less
a person than Sir William Armorer himself, Justice of the Peace and
Equerry to the King. None of the children had any very clear idea as
to the meaning of that word 'equerry'; therefore it always filled them
with a vague terror of unknown possibilities. In after years, whenever
they heard it they saw again an angry man with a florid face, dressed
in a suit of apple-green satin slashed with gold, standing in a
doorway and wrathfully shaking a loaded cane over their heads.
'Yet more of ye itching to be laid by the ears in gaol!' shouted this
apparition as he entered and slammed the heavy wooden door behind him.
But an expression of amazement followed when he was once inside the
room.
'Brats! By my life! Quaker brats! and none beside them!' he exclaimed
astonished, as he looked round the band of children. 'Quaker brats
holding a conventicle of their own, as if they were grown men and
women! Having stopped the earth and gaoled the fox, must we now deal
with the litter? Look you here, do you want a closer acquaintance
with this?'
With these words, he pointed his loaded stick at each of the children
in turn and drew out a sharp iron point concealed in one end of it,
and began to slash the air. Then, changing his mind again, he went
back to the door and called out to his followers in the passage
outside, 'Here, men, we will let the maidens go, but you must teach
these lads what it is to disobey the law, or I'm no Justice of His
Majesty's Peace.'
Even in that moment of terror the children wondered not only at the
loud angry voice but at the unfamiliar scent that filled the room. The
air, which had been pure and fragrant with the smell of hay, was now
heavy and loaded with essences and perfumes. Well it might be, for
though the children knew it not, the flowing lovelocks of the curly
wig that descended to the Justice's shoulders had been scented that
very morning with odours of ambergris, musk, and violet, orris root,
orange flowers, and jessamine, as well as others besides. The stronger
scents of kennel and stable, and even of ale and beer, that filled the
room as the constables trooped into it were almost a relief to the
children, because they at least were familiar, and unlike the other
strange, sickly fragrance.
The constables seized the boys, turned them out into the road, and
there punched and beat them with their own staffs and the Justice's
loaded stick until they were black in the face. The girls were driven
in a frightened bunch down the lane. Only Hester sat on in her place,
still and unmoved, sheltering the Twins in her bosom and holding her
hands over their eyes. Up to her came the angry Justice in a fine
rage, until it seemed as if the perfumed wig must almost touch her
smooth plaits of hair. Then, at last, Hester moved, but not in time to
prevent the Justice seizing her by the shoulder and flinging her down
the road after the others. Her frightened charges, torn from her arms,
still clung to her skirts, while the full-grown men strode along after
them, threatening to duck them all in the pond if they made the
slightest resistance, and did not at once disperse to their homes.
It certainly was neither a comfortable thing nor a pleasant thing to
be a Quaker child in those stormy days.
Nevertheless, pleasant or unpleasant, comfortable or uncomfortable,
made no difference. It was thanks to the courage of this handful of
boys and girls that, in spite of the worst that Mr. Justice Armorer
could do, in spite of the dread of him and his constables, in spite of
his angry face, of his scented wig and loaded cane, in spite of all
these things,--still, Sunday after Sunday, through many a long anxious
month, God was worshipped in freedom and simplicity in the town by
silver Thames. Reading Meeting was held.
Meantime, throughout these same long months, within the prison walls
the fathers and mothers prayed for their absent children. Although
apart from one another, the two companies were not really separated;
for both were listening to the same Shepherd's voice. Until, at last,
the happy day came when the gaol-doors were opened and the prisoners
released. Then, oh the kissing and the hugging! the crying and the
blessing! as the parents heard of all the children had undergone in
order to keep faithful and true! That was indeed the most joyful
meeting of all!
Thankfulness and joy last freshly through the centuries, as an old
letter, written at that time by one of the fathers to George Fox still
proves to us to-day: 'Our little children kept the meetings up, when
we were all in prison, notwithstanding that wicked Justice when he
came and found them there, with a staff that had a spear in it would
pull them out of the Meeting, and punch them in the back till some of
them were black in the face ... his fellow is not, I believe, to be
found in all England a Justice of the Peace.'
* * * * *
'For they might as well think to hinder the Sun from shining, or the
tide from flowing, as to think to hinder the Lord's people from
meeting to wait upon Him.'