The Vision from the Hill-top.
And so we passed on warning people as we met them of the day of the Lord that was coming upon them, and as we went I spied a great hill called Pendle Hill, and I went on the top of it with much ado it was so steep. But I was moved of the Lord to get atop of it. And when I came atop of it I saw Lancashire sea (and there atop of the hill I was moved to sound the day of the Lord), and the Lord let me see atop of the hill in what places he had a great people, and so on the hill’s side I found a spring of water and refreshed myself, for I had eaten little and drunk little for several days.
(C. J., 1652, p. 40.)
A Blow from a Bible.
And I went out of the meeting to the steeple-house and the priest and most of the heads of the parish was got up into the chancel and so I went up to them and when I began to speak they fell upon me and the clerk up with his Bible as I was speaking and hit me in the face that my face gushed out with blood, that I bled exceedingly in the steeple-house, and so the people cried, “Let’s have him out of the church” (as they called it) and when they had me out they exceedingly beat me and threw me down and threw me over a hedge and after dragged me through a house into the street stoning and beating me, and they got my hat from me which I never got again and I was all over besmeared with blood.
(C. J., 1652, p. 36.)
A Mobbing.
A company of rude fellows as fishermen and the like with their fishing poles and the like fell upon me as soon as I was come to land, and beat me down to the ground and bruised my body and head and all over my shoulders and back that when I was sensible again I looked up and a man was lying over my shoulders and a woman was throwing stones at my face so I got up and I could hardly tell whether my head was cloven to pieces it was so bruised. Nevertheless I was raised up by the power of God and they beat me with their fishing-poles into the sea and thrust me into the sea a great depth and thought to have sunk me down into the water; and so I thrust up amongst them again and then they tumbled me in a boat, and James Lancaster went with me and carried me over the water and when I came to the town where the man had bound himself with an oath to shoot me all the town rose up against me, some with muck forks and some with flayles and forks and cried knock him on the head, I should not go through the town and they called for a cart to carry me to the graveyard and cried, Knock him on the head, but they did not, but guarded me a great way with their weapons but did not much abuse me and after a while left me, so when I came to some water I washed me. I was very dirty and much bruised.
(Short Journal, pp. 41, 42.)