A Book of Quaker Saints

by L. V. Hodgkin

Little James, from his perch on the parapet, had drunk in greedily every word of this conversation. Directly the bridge was clear he crept down and followed the deacon like a shadow. They passed over the silver Eden and up the main street of the city, paved with rough, uneven stones, and with an open sewer flowing through the centre of it. Right across the busy market-place they passed, before the deacon halted beneath the castle walls.

Full of noise and hubbub was Carlisle city that day; yet, as the two entered the courtyard of the castle, James was aware of another sound, rising clear above the tumult of the town—strains of music, surely, that came from a fiddle. As they stepped under the inner gateway and approached the Norman Keep, the fiddler himself came in sight playing with might and main, under a barred window about six feet from the ground. By the fiddler's side, urging him on, was a huge, burly man with a red face. Whenever the fiddler showed signs of weariness the man beside him raising a large tankard of ale to his lips would force him to drink of it, saying, 'Play up, man! Play up!'

The thin, clear strains of the fiddle rose up steadily towards the barred window, but, above them, James caught another sound that floated yet more steadily out through the bars: the firm, full tones of a deep bass voice within, singing loud and strong.

Though he could not see the singer, something in the song thrilled James through and through. Forgetting his weariness he knew that he was near his journey's end at last. As he listened, he noticed a handful of people, listening also, under the barred window.

Loud jeers arose: 'Play up, Fiddler!' 'Sing on, Quaker!' or even, 'Ply him with more ale, Gaoler: the prisoner is the better musician!'

At these cries the fat man's countenance grew ever more enraged. He looked savage and huge, 'like a bear-ward,' a man more accustomed to deal with bears than with human beings. Finally, in his wrath, he turned the now empty tankard upon the crowd and bespattered them with the last drops of the ale, and then called lustily for more, with which he plied the fiddler anew. So the contest continued, but at last, the ale perhaps taking effect, the fiddler's head dropped, his bow swept the strings more wearily, while the strong notes inside the dungeon grew ever more firm and loud. The gaoler seeing, or rather hearing, himself worsted, caught the bow from the fiddler's hand and cracked it over his skull. The fiddler, seizing this chance to escape, leapt to his feet and dashed across the courtyard, followed by the gaoler and the populace in full chase. Even the sombre Baptist deacon gathered up the skirts of his long coat and bestirred his lean legs. The singing ceased. A face appeared at the window: only for an instant: but one glance was enough for James.

Timidly he approached the window, but he had only taken two steps towards it when he found himself firmly elbowed off the pavement and pushed into the gutter. Someone else also had been watching for the crowd to disperse, in order to have a chance of speaking with the prisoner. The new-comer was a portly lady in a satin gown, a much grander person than James had expected to find in the near neighbourhood of a dungeon. She carried a large, covered basket, and, as soon as the way was clear, she set it down on the pavement and began to take out the contents carefully: bread and salt, beef and elecampane ale. Without looking up from her work she called to the unseen figure at the window above her head: 'So thou hast stopped their vain sounds at length with thy singing?'

'Aye,' answered the deep voice from within. 'Thou mayest safely approach the window now, for the gaoler hath departed. After he had beaten thee and the other Friends with his great cudgel, next he was moved to beat me also, through the window, did I but come near to it to get my meat. And as he struck me I was moved to sing in the Lord's power, and that made him rage the more, whereat he fetched the fiddler, saying he would soon drown my noise if I would not cease.'

'Eat now, Dear Heart,' the woman interrupted, 'whilst thou hast the chance.' So saying, she handed some of the dishes up to the prisoner, standing herself on tiptoe beneath the prison window in order to reach his hand stretched out through the bars.

Here James saw his chance.