A Maggot - John Fowles (51 page)

A. Yes.

Q. It is not by her husband's will, or her father's,
to please both or either? As is common in all religion, not only
yours?

A. No. She is of our faith of her own conscience, for
I have questioned her thereon, and my wife also, who knows her
better.

Q. Know you of her past - that she was whore in
London?

A. She hath repented.

Q. I ask again - are you cognizant of her former
life?

A. I have spoken to it with my brethren, and my wife
with our sistren, and we hope she shall be saved.

Q. But hope?

A. Jesus alone shall save, when the doom is done.

Q. You believe her sincere in repentance for her past
life?

A. Aye, most earnest for salvation.

Q. To wit, she fits your beliefs, and is fanatickal
in them?

A. I will not answer thee that. I come in peace.

Q. Did you not quit the Quakers upon this matter of
peace - were you not born one?

A. I was born a friend of truth, and shall die one,
but with this difference, praise the Lord, for Christ's word I must
fight. I treat not Christ's enemy as no business of mine, as they now
have wont to do. If such a one deny me in matters of the spirit, I
must deny him back.

Q. Did they not ban you from their meeting-house
here?

A. I might still go if I was silent. Such is to say,
a man may walk, if he will but wear chains. And I will not, for Jesus
Christ my master's sake.

Q. Were you not ejected by force from their meeting,
this two years past?

A. I would prophesy His coming, and they would not
bear it nor hear it.

O. Did you not say that civil authority was not to be
borne by such as yourself, what you called true Christians? And that
civil authority was most signal instance of the sins for which this
world is doomed?

A. I said 'twas not to be borne when civil authority
would make us do or swear against our conscience. I did not say it
was not to be obeyed in all else. Should I be before thee if I
believed other?

Q. I am told you would make all wealth and property
to be shared commonly, and have likewise spoken so.

A. I have prophesied it shall be so, when God's
vengeance is done, among those who are saved. I have not spoken it is
to be done now.

Q. You maintain, it would be a better world, if it
were done.

A. I maintain it shall be a better world, when it is
done; as it shall be, by God's will.

Q. This world shall be a better place when it is
overturned?

A. Christ overturned. We have good warrant.

Q. To bring riot and rebellion, is it not so?

A. Thee hast no proof for this, and there is none.

Q. You are how many here, of the French Prophets?'

A. Some forty or fifty, and some where I was born, in
Bolton. And in London some, also.

Q, Then you are not strong!

A. Many littles make a mickle. Christ had less, when
He began.

Q. Is not the reason you are not in seditious
rebellion this, you are too weak to bring it to success; but that you
should, if you were stronger?

A. Thee shan't snare me in thy cunning supposings,
master lawyer. We obey the civil law in all matters civil, we hurt no
man, unless it be in his conscience. We would make rebellion against
sin, yea, we will go sword in hand against sin, which is the soul's
saving. There is no law against that. And when we are strong, there
shall be no civil rebellion; for all will see we live in Christ and
shall join us. Then shall there be peace and true respect among men.

Q. The law demands obedience to the established
church and its authority, does it not?

A. Aye. And Rome was once the established church.

Q. The Protestant and established church of this
kingdom is as evil and corrupted as that of Rome, is it how you say?

A. I say all churches are made of men. Men are of
flesh, which is born corrupt. I do not say all men of the established
church are corrupt. Hast thee read A Serious Call? I will not judge
he that wrote it, William Law, that is of thy church, an evil man.
Nay, he puts most others in it to shame, that are blind as mouldwarps
to Christ's light.

Q. Which is to say they are not fit for what they
are. This is plain invitation to rebellion against them. Just so were
our forefathers made to fall into their errors and intolerance this
century past. You are damned of your own mouth, and of history
beside.

A. And thee of thine own, if thee'd make an evil man,
or a blind, fit to be what he is because he is what he is. Thee may
call the Devil good and fit, by such an argument. Thee'd not buy thy
meat off a bad butcher, nay, nor go to one of my trade that sewed
ill. But thee'll not qualm to hear the Word of Christ betrayed,
coined false as by any forger. For lo, if he wear bands, and carry a
dog's-tail of alphabet letters after his name, he may drink, he may
whore, he may do what he will, for he is fit.

Q. Is this your peace and respect among men? Mr
Fotheringay shall hear of it.

A. Is this thy no disputing upon my beliefs? And much
good may it do him.

Q. Enough. I will know this. Hath the woman Lee
prophesied at your meetings?

A. Nay.

Q. Hath she spoken in any way, publicly or privately,
of what brought her to her new piety?

A. Save she had grievous sinned and stood sore shent
by her past life.

Q. She hath not talked of any particular occasion to
make her change her ways?

A. Nay.

Q. Nor place nor day?

A. Nay.

Q. Nor of other persons present, if there were such
an occasion?

A. Nay.

Q. You are certain?

A. She is meek, as she should be; and lives now in
Christ, or would live in Him.

Q. How, would live? Is she not persuaded yet?

A. She is not yet moved to prophesy. Which comes by
Christ's grace, for which we pray.

Q. That she may rant with the best of you?

A. She may be given the glorious tongue of the light,
and proclaim it, as my wife doth, and others.

Q. She is till now deficient in this?

A. She hath not prophesied.

Q. May it not be that she deceives you?

A. Why should she deceive?

Q. To pretend she is no longer what she was, tho' at
heart she remain so.

A. She lives for Christ, so she may one day live in
Christ. She and her husband are poor, as bare stone are they poor, he
earns not enough for them to live by. Why should she feign to live
so, when she might live else, in luxuriousness and lechery, as she
did in thy Babylon?

Q. Do you not supply to their needs?

A. When I may, and her brothers and sisters in Christ
also.

Q. Is this charity particular, or given to all in
need?

A. To all. For so said George Fox and the blessed
first brothers, the soul's tabernacle must be decent fed and clothed
before the light of truth may pierce to the soul itself. And I'll
tell thee why they said, they saw about them the greatest most of
mankind live in misery, worse than brutes; and saw also those who
might and should relieve them, they that had more than sufficient to
clothe and feed themselves and theirs, did not, from their selfish
vanity and greed. And further, how this lack of charity did stink as
a carrion in the Lord Jesus Christ's nostrils, and shall damn all who
are so blind. Now call us rebels if thee will, for yea, we are rebels
in this, and call our giving most good and fellowly, and best mirror
of Jesus Christ's true commonwealth. Call us rebels, thee call Him
rebel also.

Q. Christ gave in compassion. This is not your case.
You give to suborn they who know no better from their rightful
station.

A. Is rightful station to starve and go in rags? Why
man, thee should walk in the street where the sister lives. Thee's
eyes, hast thee not?

Q. Eyes to see she is well hid behind your
coat-skirts, and provided for, in this miserable town.

A. So well hid, thee's found her.

Q. She has been sought many months.

A. Here, I have a guinea upon me I was paid but
yesterday for two coats I have made. Lay one of thine to it, and I
will give both in Toad Lane to those thee think in their rightful
station, that yet starve and live worse than beggars. What, thee
won't? Don't thee believe in charity, master?

Q. Not in such charity that goes to the nearest
gin-shop.

A. Nor tomorrow, neither. I see thee's a careful man.
Look thee, did Jesus Christ not give for thee, and far more than a
guinea's worth? Think'st thee He was so careful as theeself and said,
Mayhap I'd best not redeem this man, he is weak, my blood shall go to
the gin-shop?

Q. You grow insolent, I will not have it.

A. Nor I thy guinea. We are well matched.

Q. I say, there is possibility she did great crime.

A. She has done no great crime, save she was born
Eve. Thee knows it well as I.

Q. I know she is most suspicious close to a great
liar.

A. Come, I know thee by thy repute. They say thee a
fair man, though strict in thy master's service. Thee'd deny repute
with me, so be it, I am well used to such. Thee'd break me and all
who believe as I upon thy books of law, that are eleven inches in
their foot no more than custom made iron to wall the rich against the
poor. We shall not be broke, nay, try thy worst, it shall never be.
All thy rods shall be but flails, to make us the better grains of
wheat. I'll tell thee now a tale of my father's time, in the year of
Monmouth, that was also of my birth, '85. For Jesus be praised, he
was a Friend of Truth ever since he had met George Fox, who first saw
the light, and his wife at Swarthmoor; and was brought to gaol upon a
trumpery charge at Bolton. Where while he lay there came one Mr
Crompton, who was magistrate and to judge him, and would exhort him
to mend his ways and adjure the fellowship of the Friends. Whereat my
father would not be swayed, and spake so well of his beliefs that in
the end 'twas the magistrate was left the more shaken in his own. For
in the end he spake to my father aside and said this: there are two
justices in this world, and in one was my father innocent, which was
the justice of God; and guilty only by the other, that was men's. And
three years after was this magistrate cause of great scandal, for he
threw off his chains and came to us, tho' it cost him dear, great
loss in many things of this world. Who did greet my father thus when
first they did encounter in fellowship, saying, It is now for thee to
judge me, friend, that I wove so poor a piece before; yet now I know
justice without light is warp without weft, and will never make fair
cloth.

Q. The bench was well rid of him. A nation is lost
which distinguisheth not law from sin. Crime is of fact, that may be
proven or not. Sin is for God alone to judge.

A. Thee's blind to truth.

Q. And thou art blind to what all men other have
judged and think. Once sin is made crime, gross tyranny doth ensue,
such as the Inquisition hath plainly shown among the Papists.

A. Inquisition sits well in thy mouth, master lawyer.
Men think, men think - aye, most men think. And most to this life,
and what shall best suit their sinning lives in it. And little to
that court above, where all shall be charged. There shall thee find
whether sin is judged of a farthing's weight beside thy law, that is
given of Antichrist.

Q. No more. Thou art a most obstinate fellow.

A. And ever shall be, so long as I am Christian,
praise the Lord.

Q. I will tomorrow have no
unrest from thee or thy sectaries, is it understood? No, nor standing
there below. I warn thee, cool thy mischievous temper. Else will I
summon Mr Fotheringay straight, who knows what I am about, and my
enquiry just and proper. Be off.

* * *

Historical Chronicle October 1736

EARLY THE NEXT morning Rebecca is ushered into
Ayscough's presence, in the same room as the previous day. It is
quite a large one, with a massive and bulbous-legged
seventeenth-century table also. This is not a converted bedchamber,
but used for an occasional dining-room, club-room, private
meeting-place as the inn requires. Rebecca's place is six feet of
polished oak from that of her interlocutor. Most surprisingly he
stands to greet her, almost as if she were a lady. He does not bow as
he would have done to such a person, yet faces her and gives her a
small nod of acknowledgement, and gestures her to her seat. Already a
bone tumbler of water waits on the table before it; need there, it
seems, is foreseen.

'You are well rested, mistress, you have broke your
fast?'

'Yes.' '

'You have no complaint of your lodging?'

'No.'