What think you now, sir?” Hartwell asked of Wesley when the latter had
descended the stairs and entered the little parlour of the house.
“I am too greatly amazed to think,” replied Wesley. “But since you put
thinking into my head, I would ask you if you think it unnatural that a
great ebb should follow an unusually high tide?”
It was plain that Hartwell was greatly perturbed.
“Unnatural? Why, has not everything that has happened for the past three
days been unnatural?” he cried. “Sir, I am, I thank God, a level-headed
man. I have seen some strange things in my life, both in the mines and
when seafaring; I thought that naught could happen to startle me, but I
confess that this last--I tell you, sir, that I feel now as if I were
in the midst of a dream. My voice sounds strange to myself; it seems to
come from someone apart from me--nay, rather from myself, but outside
myself.”
“'Tis the effect of the heat, dear friend,” said Wesley. “You should
have slept as I did.”
“I did sleep, sir; what I have been asking myself is 'Am I yet awake?' I
have had dreams before like to this one--dreams of watching the sea and
other established things that convey to us all ideas of permanence and
regularity, melting away before my very eyes--one dread vision showed
me Greta Cliff crumbling away like a child's mound built on the
sand--crumbling away into the sea, and then the sea began to ebb and
soon was on the horizon. Now, I have been asking myself if I am in the
midst of that same dream again. Can it be possible? Can it be possible?”
He clapped his hand to his forehead and hastened to the window, whence
he looked out. Almost immediately he returned to Wesley, saying:
“I pray you to inform me, sir, if this is the truth or a dream--is it
really the case that the sea has ebbed so that there is naught left of
it?”
“You are awake, my brother,” said Wesley, “and 'tis true that the sea
hath ebbed strangely; but from the upper windows 'tis possible to see a
broad band of it in the distance. I beseech of you to lie down on your
bed and compose yourself. This day has tried you greatly.”
The other stared at him for a few moments and then walked slowly away,
muttering:
“A mystery--a mystery! Oh, the notion of Dick Pritchard being a true
prophet! Was it of such stuff as this the old prophets were made? God
forgive me if I erred in thinking him one of the vain fellows. Mr.
Wesley's judgment was not at fault; he came hither to preach against
him; but not a word did he utter of upbraiding or reproof.”
Wesley saw that the man was quite overcome. Up to this moment he had
shown himself to be possessed of a rational mind, and one that was
not easily put off its balance. He had only a few hours before been
discussing Pritchard in a sober and unemotional spirit; but this last
mystery had been too much for him: the disappearance of the sea, which
had lately climbed up to the doors of Porthawn, had unhinged him and
thrown him off his balance. If the phenomenon had occurred at any other
time--under any less trying conditions of weather--he might have been
able to observe it with equanimity; but the day had been, as Wesley
said, a trying one. The intense heat was of itself prostrating, and
demoralising even to Wesley himself, and he had schooled himself to be
unaffected by any conditions of weather.
Suddenly Hartwell turned toward his visitor, saying:
“And if the man was entrusted to predict the falling away of the sea, is
there anyone that will say that the remainder of his prophecy will not
be fulfilled?”
“I entreat of you, brother, to forbear asking yourself any further
questions until you have had a few hours' sleep,” said Wesley.
“What signifies a sleep now if before this time to-morrow the end of all
things shall have come?” Hartwell cried almost fiercely. “Nay, sir, I
shall wait with the confidence of a Christian; I shall not be found as
were the foolish virgins--asleep and with unlighted lamps. There will be
no slumber for me. I shall watch and pray.”
“Let us pray together, my brother,” said Wesley, laying his hand on the
man's shoulder affectionately. He perceived that he was not in a mood to
be reasoned with.
It was at this moment that the door was opened and there entered the
room the miller and Jake 'Pullsford.
Wesley welcomed their coming; he had hopes that they would succeed in
persuading his host to retire; but before they had been in the room for
more than a few minutes Hartwell had well-nigh become himself again.
The newcomers were not greatly affected by anything that had happened.
They were only regretful that the mist of the morning had prevented them
from reaching the Red Tor in time for the preaching. They had started
together, but had stopped upon the way to help a party of their friends
who were in search of still another party, and when the strayed ones
had been found they all had thought it prudent to remain at a farm where
they had dined.
“On our way hither we met with one who had been to the preaching,” said
Jake. “He told us something of what we had missed.”
“Were you disappointed to learn that no reference had been made to the
very matter that brought me back to you?” asked Wesley.
Jake did not answer immediately. It was apparent that he had his own
views on this matter, and that he had been expounding them to his
companion on their walk from the farm to the coast.
“Mr. Wesley, 'tis plain to me that the skill at divination shown by that
man comes from below, not from above,” he said. “And do you suppose that
our enemies will take back any of the foul things they have said about
our allying ourselves with sorcery when they hear of the wonderful
things that are now happening?”
“Brother,” said Wesley, “if the principles of the Truth which we have
been teaching are indeed true, they will survive such calumnies--nay,
they will take the firmer hold upon all who have heard us by reason of
such calumnies. The gold of the Truth has oft been tried by the fire of
calumny and proved itself to be precious.”
“You saw the man play-acting in his sackcloth?” said the carrier.
Wesley shook his head sadly.
“'Twas deplorable!” he said. “And yet I dare not even now speak against
him--no, not a word.”
“What, sir, you do not believe that he is a sorcerer and a soothsayer?”
cried Jake.
“I have not satisfied myself that he is either,” replied Wesley. “More
than once since I saw how much evil was following on his predictions I
have felt sure that he was an agent of our Arch-enemy, but later I have
not felt quite so confident in my judgment. No, friend, I shall not
judge him. He is in the hands of God.”
“And I agree with Mr. Wesley,” said the miller.
Jake Pullsford, with his hands clasped behind him and his head craned
forward, was about to speak, when Hal Holmes entered the room. He was
excited.
“Have you seen it?” he cried before he had greeted anyone. “Have you
seen it--the vision of his trance at the Mill--the tide sliding away as
it hath never done before within the memory of man?--the discovery of
the bare hollow basin of the sea? Have you been within sight of the
Dog's Teeth?”
“We--Mr. Hartwell and I--have not been out of doors for six hours; but
we are going now,” said Wesley. “We have seen some of the wonders that
have happened; we would fain witness all.”
“Oh, sir,” said the blacksmith, “this one is the first that I have seen,
and seeing it has made me think that we were too hasty in condemning
poor Dick Pritchard. We need your guidance, sir. Do you hold that a
man may have the gift of prophecy in this Dispensation, without being a
sorcerer, and the agent of the Fiend?”
“Alas! 'tis not I that can be your guide in such a matter,” said Wesley.
“You must join with me in seeking for guidance from above. Let us go
forth and see what is this new wonder.”
“'Tis the vision of his trance--I saw it with these eyes as I passed
along the high ground above the Dog's Teeth Reef--the reef was well-nigh
bare and naked,” said Hal. “Who is there of us that could tell what the
bottom of the sea looked like? We knew what the simple slopes of the
beach were--the spaces where the tide was wont to ebb and flow over
are known to all; but who before since the world began saw those secret
hidden deeps where the lobsters lurk and crabs half the size of a
man's body--I saw them with these eyes a while agone--and the little
runnels--a thousand of them, I believe, racing through channels in the
slime as if they were afraid to be left behind when the sea was ebbing
out of sight--and the sun turned all into the colour of blood! What does
it all mean, Mr. Wesley--I do not mean the man's trance-dream, but the
thing itself that hath come to pass?”
“We shall go forth and be witnesses of all,” said Wesley.
He was not excited; but this could not be said of his companions; they
betrayed their emotions in various ways. Mr. Hartwell and the miller
were silent and apparently stolid; but the carrier and the smith talked.
Very few minutes sufficed to bring them to the summit of the cliff that
commanded a full view seaward. At high tide the waves just reached
the base of these cliffs, and the furthest ebb only left bare about a
hundred feet of sand and shingle, with large smooth pebbles in ridges
beyond the groins of the out-jutting rocks. But now it was a very
different picture from that of the ordinary ebb that stretched away to
the horizon under the eyes of our watchers.
The sandy breadth, with its many little ribs made by the waves, sloped
into a line of sparse sea weed, tangled tufts of green and brown, and
some long and wiry, and others flat with large and leathery bosses, like
the studs of a shield. But beyond this space the rocks of the sea-bed
began to show, There they were in serrated rows--rocks that had never
before been seen by human eyes. Some lay in long sharp ridges, with
here and there a peak of a miniature mountain, and beyond these lines
of ridges there was a broad tableland, elevated in places and containing
huge hollow basins brimming over with water, out of which every now and
again a huge fish leaped, only to find itself struggling among the thick
weeds. Further away still there was a great breadth of ooze, and then
peak beyond peak of rocks, to which huge, grotesque weeds were clinging,
having the semblance of snakes coiled round one another and dying in
that close embrace.
Looking over these strange spaces was like having a bird's-eye view
of an unexplored country of mountains and tablelands and valleys
intersected by innumerable streams. The whole breadth of sea-bed was
veined with little streams hurrying away after the lost sea, and all the
air was filled with the prattling and chattering that went on through
these channels.
And soon one became aware of a strange motion of struggling life among
the forests of sea weed. At first it seemed no more than a quivering
among the giant growths; but soon one saw the snake's head and the
narrow shoulders of a big conger eel, from five to seven feet long,
pushed through the jungle of ooze, to be followed by the wriggling body;
there were congers by the hundred, and the hard-dying dog-fishes by the
score, flapping and forcing their way from stream to stream. Stranded
dying fish of all sorts made constant movements where they lay, and
whole breadths of the sea-bed were alive with hurrying, scurrying
crabs and lobsters and cray-fish. Some of these were of enormous size,
patriarchs of the deep that had lurked for ages far out of reach of the
fisherman's hook, and had mangled many a creel.
The weirdness of this unparalleled picture was immeasurably increased
by its colouring, for over all there was spread what had the effect of a
delicate crimson gauze. The whole of the sea-bed was crimson, for it was
still dripping wet, and glistening with reflections of the red western
sky. At the same time the great heat of the evening was sucking the
moisture out of the spongy sea weeds, and there it remained in the form
of a faint steam permeated with the crimson light.
And through all that broad space under the eyes of the watchers on
the cliff there was no sign of a human being. They might have been the
explorers of stout Cortez who stared at the Pacific from that peak in
Darien. It was not until they had gone in silence for a quarter of a
mile along the cliff path that they saw where the people of the village
had assembled. The shore to the westward came into view and they saw
that a crowd was there. The sound of the voices of the crowd came to
their ears, and above it the hard, high monotone like that of a town
crier uttering the words that Wesley had heard while yet in his room:
“There shall be no more sea. Repent--repent--repent.”
Once more they stood and looked down over the part of the coast that
had just been disclosed--the eastern horn of Greta Bay, but no familiar
landmark was to be seen; on the contrary, it seemed to them that they
were looking down upon a new and curious region. The line of cliffs was
familiar to their eyes, but what was that curious raised spine--that
long sharp ridge stretching outwards for more than a mile on the
glistening shore?
And what was that strange object--that huge bulk lying with one end
tilted into the air on one shoulder of that sharp ridge?
All at once Wesley had a curious feeling that he had seen all that
before. The sight of that mighty bulk and the knowledge that it was the
heavy ribbed framework of a large ship seemed familiar. But when or how
had he seen it?
It was not until Hartwell spoke that he understood how this impression
had come to him.
“You see it--there--there--just as he described it to us when he awoke
from his trance?” said Hartwell.
And there indeed it was--the fabric of the East Indiaman that had been
wrecked years before on the Dog's Teeth Reef, and there was the Dog's
Teeth Reef laid bare for the first time within the memory of man!
It was the skeleton of a great ship. The outer timbers had almost wholly
disappeared--after every gale for years before some portion of the
wreckage had come ashore and had been picked up by the villagers; but
the enormous framework to which the timbers of the hull had been bolted
had withstood the action of the waves, for the ship had sunk into a
cradle of rock that held her firmly year after year. There it lay like
the skeleton of some tremendous monster of the awful depths of the
sea--the Kraken--a survival of the creatures that lived before the
Flood. The three stumps of masts which stood up eight or ten feet above
the line of bulwarks gave a curious suggestion to a creature's deformed
legs, up in the air while it lay stranded on its curved back.
And the crimson sunset shot through the huge ribs of this thing and
spread their distorted shadows sprawling over the sands at the base of
the reef and upon the faces of the people who stood looking up at this
wonder.
“There it is--just as he saw it in his trance!” said Hal Holmes. “He saw
it and related it to us afterward. What are we to say to all this, Mr.
Wesley? All that he predicted so far has come to pass. Are we safe in
saying that yonder sun will be setting over a blazing world to-morrow?”
“I do not dare to say anything,” replied Wesley. “I have already
offered my opinion to Mr. Hartwell, which is that there may be a kind of
sympathy between the man and the earth, by whose aid he has been able
to discover the whereabouts of a spring in the past and to predict these
marvels of tides.”
“That is a diviner's skill derived from the demons that we know inhabit
the inside of the earth,” cried Jake Pullsford. “He has ever had
communication with these unclean things.”
“That works so far as the tides are concerned,” said the smith. “It
stands to reason that the demons of the nether world must know all
about the ebb and flow; but how did he foresee the laying bare of yonder
secret?” He pointed to the body; of the wreck.
“Was it not the same demons that dragged the ship to destruction on the
reef, and is't not within their province to know all that happens below
the surface of the sea?” said the carrier.
“Doubtless,” said the smith. “But I find it hard to think of so
moderately foolish a fellow as Dick Pritchard being hand in glove with
a fiend of any sort, and not profiting more by the traffic--as to his
secular circumstances, I should say.”
“And I find it hard to think of him as urging men to repent, if he be an
ally of the Evil One,” said Hartwell.
“This is not a case in which the wisdom of man can show itself to be
other than foolishness,” said Wesley. “But I am now moved to speak to
the people who have come hither to see the wonder. Let us hasten onward
to the highest ground. My heart is full.”
He went on with his friends to a short spur of the cliff about twenty
feet above the shingle where groups of men and women were straying;
most of them had been down to the wreck and nearly all were engaged
in discussing its marvellous appearance. Some of the elder men were
recalling for the benefit of the younger the circumstances of the loss
of the great East Indiaman, and the affluence that had come to a good
many houses in the Port, when the cargo began to be washed ashore before
the arrival of the Preventive men and the soldiery from Falmouth.
But while the larger proportion of the people were engaged in
discussing, without any sense of awe, the two abnormal tides and the
story of the wreck, there were numbers who were clearly terror-stricken
at the marvels and at the prospect of the morrow. A few women were
clinging together and moaning without cessation, a girl or two wept
aloud, a few shrieked hysterically, and one began to laugh and gibber,
pointing monkey hands in the direction of the wreck. But further on half
a dozen young men and maidens were engaged in a boisterous and an almost
shocking game preserved in Cornwall and some parts of Wales through
the ages that had elapsed since it was practised by a by-gone race
of semi-savages. They went through it now in the most abandoned and
barbaric way, dancing like Bacchanalians in a ring, with shouts and wild
laughter.
John Wesley, who knew what it was to be human, had no difficulty in
perceiving that these wretched people were endeavouring in such excesses
to conceal the terror they felt, and he was not surprised to find a
number of intoxicated men clinging together and singing wildly in the
broad moorland space that lay on the landward side of the cliffs.
“This is the work of Pritchard the water-finder, and will you say that
'tis not of the Devil?” cried Jake Pullsford.
“Poor wretches! Oh, my poor brothers and sisters!” cried Wesley. “Our
aim should be to soothe them, not to denounce them. Never have they been
subjected to such a strain as that which has been put upon them. I
can understand their excesses. 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we
die'--that is the cry which comes from all hearts that have not been
regenerated.'Tis the cry of the old Paganism which once ruled the world,
before the sweet calm of Christianity brought men from earth to heaven.
I will speak to them.”
He had reached the high ground with his friends. There was a sudden spur
on the range of low cliffs just where the people were most numerous.
They had come from all quarters to witness the wonders of this lurid
eve, and, as was the case at Wesley's preaching, everyone was asking of
everyone else how so large an assembly could be brought together in a
neighbourhood that was certainly not densely populated. On each side
of him and on the beach below there were crowds, and on every face the
crimson of the sinking sun flamed. He went out to the furthest point of
the cliff-spur and stood there silent, with uplifted arms.
In a moment the whisper spread:
“Mr. Wesley has come--Mr. Wesley is preaching!”
There was the sound of many feet trampling down the pebbles of the
beach. The people flowed toward him like a great wave slowly moving over
that place now forsaken by the waves. The young men and maidens who had
been engaged in that fierce wild dance among the wiry herbage flocked
toward him, their faces shining from their exertions, and stood catching
their breath. The old men who had been staring stolidly through the
great ribs of the hulk, slouched through the ooze and stood sideways
beneath him, their hands, like the gnarled joints of a thorn, scooped
behind their ears lest they should lose a word. The women, with
disordered hair, tears on their faces, the terror of anticipation
in their eyes, waited on the ground, some kneeling, others seated in
various postures.
Then there came a deep hush.
He stood there, a solitary figure, black against the crimson background
of the western sky, his arms still upraised. It might have been a statue
carved out of dark marble that stood on the spur of the cliff.
And then he began to speak.
His hands were still uplifted in the attitude of benediction; and the
words that came from him were the words of the Benediction.
“The Peace of God which passeth all understanding.”
The Peace of God--that was the message which he delivered to that
agitated multitude, and it fell upon their ears, soothing all who heard
and banishing their fears. He gave them the message of the Father to His
children--a message of love, of tenderness--a promise of protection, of
infinite pity, of a compassion that knew no limits--outliving the life
of the world, knowing no change through all ages, the only thing that
suffered no change--a compassion which, being eternal, would outlive
Time itself--a compassion which brought with it every blessing that man
could know--nay, more--more than man could think of; a compassion that
brought with it the supreme blessing that could come to man--the Peace
of God which passeth all understanding!
He never travelled outside this message of Divine Peace, although he
spoke for a full hour.
And while he spoke the meaning of that message fell upon the multitude
who listened. They felt that Peace of which he spoke falling gently
upon them as cold dew at the close of a day of intolerable heat. They
realised what it meant to them. The Peace descended upon them, and they
were sensible of its presence. The dread that had been hanging over them
all the day was swept away as the morning mist had been dispersed. The
apprehension of the Judgment was lost in the consciousness of a Divine
Love surrounding them. They seemed to have passed from an atmosphere of
foetid vapours into that of a meadow in the Spring time. They drank deep
draughts of its sweetness and were refreshed.
When he had begun to speak the sun was not far from setting in the
depths of a crimson sky, and before he had spoken for half an hour the
immense red disc, magnified by the vapours in the air, was touching the
horizon. With its disappearance the colour spread higher up the sky and
drifted round to the north, gradually changing to the darkest purple.
Even then it was quite possible for the people to see one another's
features distinctly in the twilight, but half an hour later the figure
of the preacher was but faintly seen through the dimness that had fallen
over the coast. The twilight had been almost tropical in its brevity,
and the effect of the clear voice of many modulations coming out of the
darkness was strange, and to the ears that heard it, mysterious. Just
before it ceased there swept upon the faces of his listeners a cool
breath of air. It came with a suddenness that was startling. During all
the day there had not been a breath. The heat had seemed to be so solid,
and now the movement of the air gave the impression of the passing of a
mysterious Presence. It was as if the wings of a company of angels were
winnowing the air, as they fled by, bringing with them the perfume of
their Paradise for the refreshing of the people of the earth. Only for
a few minutes that cool air was felt, but for that time it was as if the
Peace of God had been made tangible.
When the preacher ended with the words with which he had begun, the
silence was like a sigh.
The people were on their knees. There was no one that did not feel that
God was very nigh to him.
And the preacher felt it most deeply of all. There was a silence of
intense solemnity, before the voice was heard once more speaking to
Heaven in prayer--in thanksgiving for the Peace that had come upon this
world from above.
He knew how fully his prayer had been answered when he talked to the
young men and maidens who had been among his hearers. The excitement of
the evening had passed away from all of them. At the beginning of his
preaching there had been the sound of weeping among them. At first it
had been loud and passionate; but gradually it had subsided until at the
setting of the sun the terror which had possessed them gave place to the
peace of the twilight, and now there was not one of them that did
not feel the soothing influence that comes only when the angel of the
evening hovers with shadowy outspread wings over the world.
They all walked slowly to their homes; some belonged to Porthawn and
others to the inland villages of the valley of the Lana, as far away as
Ruthallion, and the light breeze that had been felt during the preaching
became stronger and less intermittent now. It was cool and gracious
beyond expression, and it brought with it to the ears of all who walked
along the cliffs the soothing whisper of the distant sea. The joyous
tidings came that the sea was returning, and it seemed that with that
news came also the assurance that the cause for dread was over and past.
And all this time the preacher had made no allusion to the voice that
had sounded along the shore in the early part of the evening predicting
the overthrow of the world. All that he had done was to preach the
coming of Peace.
“You may resume your journeying, Mr. Wesley, as soon as you please. May
he not, friend Pullsford?” said Hartwell when he had returned to his
house. “There is no need for us to keep Mr. Wesley among us when we
know that he is anxious to resume his preaching further west. You never
mentioned the man's name, sir, and yet you have done all--nay, far more
than we thought it possible for you to accomplish.”
“There is no need for me to tarry longer,” replied Wesley. “But I pray
of you, my dear friends, not to think that I do not recognise the need
there was for me to return to you with all speed. I perceived the great
danger that threatened us through Pritchard, and I was glad that you
sent for me. I hope you agree with me in believing that that danger is
no longer imminent.”
“I scarce know how it happened,” said Hartwell; “but yesterday I had
a feeling that unless you preached a direct and distinct rebuke to
Pritchard, the work which you began here last month would suffer
disaster, and yet albeit you did no more than preach the Word as you
might at any time, making no reference to the things that have happened
around us, I feel at the present moment that your position is, by the
Grace of God, more promising of good than it has ever been.”
“Ay,” said Jake Pullsford. “But I am not so sure that the vanity of that
man should not have been crushed. There is no telling to what length
he may not go after all that has happened. The people should ha' been
warned against him, and his sorceries exposed.”.
“Think you, Jake, that the best way to destroy the vanity of such as
he would be by taking notice of what he said and magnifying it into a
menace?” said Hartwell. “Believe me, my friend, that Mr. Wesley's way is
the true one. Dick Pritchard's vanity got its hugest filip when he heard
that Mr. Wesley had come back to preach against him. It will receive its
greatest humiliation when he learns that Mr. Wesley made no remark that
showed he knew aught of him and his prophecies.”
“He will take full credit to himself for what has happened--of that you
may be sure,” said Jake, shaking his head. “Ay, and for what did not
happen,” he continued as an afterthought. “Be certain that he will claim
to have saved the world as Jonah saved the Ninevites. He will cling to
Jonah to the end.”
“I am glad that I came hither when you called for me, my brethren,”
said Wesley. “Let us look at the matter with eyes that look only at the
final issue. I would fain banish from my mind every thought save one,
and that is spiritual blessing of the people. If they have been
soothed by my coming--if even the humblest of them has been led to
feel something of what is meant by the words 'the Peace of God,' I give
thanks to God for having called me back. I have no more to say.”
And that was indeed the last word that was said at that time respecting
Pritchard and his utterances. Wesley and his friends felt that, however
deeply the people had been impressed by the natural phenomena which had
followed hard on his predictions of disaster to the world, he would not
now be a source of danger to the work which had been begun in Cornwall.
Wesley had, by his preaching, showed that he would give no countenance
to the man. Those who thought that it would be consistent with his
methods and his Methodism to take advantage of the terror with which the
minds of the people had become imbued, in order to bring them into the
classes, that had already been formed, were surprised to find him doing
his utmost to banish their fears. He had preached the Gospel of Peace,
not of Vengeance, the Gospel of Love, not of Anger.
Awakening shortly after midnight, Wesley heard the sound of the washing
of the waters on the pebbles at the base of the cliffs. There was no
noise of breaking waves, only the soft, even lisp and lap of the last
ripples that were crushed upon the pebbles--grateful and soothing to his
ears.
Suddenly there came to him another sound--the monotone of the watchman
calling out of the distance:
“Repent--repent--repent! The Day of the Lord is at hand. Who shall abide
the Day of His Wrath? Repent--repent--repent!”