A Book of Quaker Saints. L. V. Hodgkin
an even greater thing than saving her body from death. Many other prisoners did Fox help and comfort in Derby Gaol;[2] but though he could soften the sufferings of others he could not shorten his own. Once again Justice Bennett sent his men to the prison, this time with orders to take the Quaker by force and compel him to join the army, since he would not fight of his own free will.
'But I told him,' said Fox, '"that I was brought off from outward wars." They came again to give me press money, but I would take none. Afterwards the Constables brought me a second time before the Commissioners, who said I should go for a soldier, but I said I was dead to it. They said I was alive. I told them where envy and hatred is, there is confusion. They offered me money twice, but I refused it. Being disappointed, they were angry, and committed me a close prisoner, till at length they were made to turn me out of Gaol about the beginning of winter 1651, after I had been a prisoner in Derby almost a year; six months in the House of Correction, and six months in the common gaol.'
Thus at length Derby prison was left behind; but the seeds that the prisoner had planted in that dark place sprang up and flourished and bore fruit long after he had left.
Eleven years later, the very same Gaoler, who had been cruel to Fox at the first, and had then had the vision and repented, wrote this letter to his former prisoner. It is a real Gaoler's love-letter, and quite fresh to-day, though it was written nearly 300 years ago.
'DEAR FRIEND,' the letter begins,
'Having such a convenient messenger I could do no less than give thee an account of my present condition; remembering that to the first awakening of me to a sense of life, God was pleased to make use of thee as an instrument. So that sometimes I am taken with admiration that it should come by such means as it did; that is to say that Providence should order thee to be my prisoner to give me my first sight of the truth. It makes me think of the gaoler's conversion by the apostles. Oh! happy George Fox! that first breathed the breath of life within the walls of my habitation! Notwithstanding that my outward losses are since that time such that I am become nothing in the world, yet I hope I shall find that these light afflictions, which are but for a moment, will work for me a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. They have taken all from me; and now instead of keeping a prison, I am waiting rather when I shall become a prisoner myself. Pray for me that my faith fail not, and that I may hold out to the death, that I may receive a crown of life. I earnestly desire to hear from thee and of thy condition, which would very much rejoice me. Not having else at present, but my kind love to thee and all friends, in haste, I rest thine in Christ Jesus.
'THOMAS SHARMAN.
'Derby, the 22nd of the fourth month, 1662.'
This Gaoler was one of the first people whose Tiger spirits were tamed by George Fox. But he certainly was not the last. Fox himself had told the soldiers in Derby market-place that he could not fight, because he 'lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars.' As a friend of his wrote, after his death many years later: 'George Fox was a discerner of other men's spirits, AND VERY MUCH A MASTER OF HIS OWN.'
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Two men who were executed for small offences he could not save, but 'a little time after they had suffered their spirits appeared to me as I was walking, and I saw the men was well.'
V. 'THE MAN IN LEATHER BREECHES'ToC
'As I was walking I heard old people and work people to say: "he is such a man as never was, he knows people's thoughts" for I turned them to the divine light of Christ and His spirit let them see … that there was the first step to peace to stand still in the light that showed them their sin and transgression.'—G. FOX.
'Do not look at but keep over all unnaturalness, if any such thing should appear, but keep in that which was and is and will be.'—G. FOX.
'Wait patiently upon the Lord; let every man that loves God, endeavour by the spirit of wisdom, meekness, and love to dry up Euphrates, even this spirit of bitterness that like a great river hath overflowed the earth of mankind.'—GERRARD WINSTANLEY. 1648.
'Blessed is he who loves Thee, and his friend in Thee, and his enemy for Thy sake.'—AUGUSTINE.
'Eternity is just the real world for which we were made, and which we enter through the door of love.'—RUFUS M. JONES.
V. 'THE MAN IN LEATHER BREECHES'
22nd Dec. 1651.
'Rough Moll, the worst-tempered woman in all Yorkshire.' It was thus her neighbours were wont to speak behind her back of Mistress Moll, the keeper of the 'George and Dragon' Inn at Hutton Cranswick near Driffield in the East Riding. Never a good word or a kind deed had she for anyone, since her husband had been called away to serve in King Charles's army. In former days, when mine host was at home, the neighbours had been encouraged to come early and stay late at night gossipping over the home-brewed ale he fetched for them so cheerily; for Moll's husband was an open-hearted, pleasant-mannered man, the very opposite of his shrewish wife. But now, since his departure for the wars, the neighbours got to the bottom of their mugs with as little delay as possible, vowing to themselves in whispers that they would seek refuge elsewhere another night, since Moll's sour looks went near to give a flavour of vinegar even to the ale she brewed. Thus, as speedily as might be, they escaped from the reach of their hostess's sharp tongue.
But the lasses of the inn, who were kept to do the rough work of the house, found it harder to escape from the harsh rule of their mistress. And for little Jan, Moll's four-year-old son, there was still less possibility of escape from the tyrant whom he called by the name of Mother.
Nothing of true mother-love had ever yet been kindled in Rough Moll's heart. From the very beginning she had fiercely resented being burdened with what she called 'the plague of a brat.' Still, so long as his father remained at home, the child's life had not been an unhappy one. As soon as ever he could stand alone he drew himself up by his father's trousers, with an outstretched hand to be grasped in the big fist. As soon as he could toddle, he spent his days wandering round the Inn after his daddy, knowing that directly he grew tired daddy would be ready to stop whatever he might be doing, in order to lift the small boy up in his arms or to give him a ride on his knee.
'Wasting your time over the brat and leaving the Tavern to go to rack and ruin'—Moll would say, with a sneer, as she passed them. But she never interfered; for the husband who had courted her when she was a young girl was the only person for whom she still kept a soft spot in the heart that of late years seemed to have grown so hard.
Truth to tell, tavern-keeping was no easy business in those unsettled times, and Moll had ever been a famous body for worrying over trifles.
'"The worry cow
Would have lived till now,
If she had not lost her breath,
But she thought her hay
Would not last the day,
So she mooed herself to death."
'And all the time she had three sacks full! Remember that, Moll, my lass!' Jan's father would say to his wife, when she began to pour out to him her dismal forebodings about the future.
But since this easy-going, jolly daddy had left the Inn and had gone away with the other