It was to Drawwell Farm that George Fox came with his hosts Thomas and John Blaykling, on Whitsun Wednesday evening in June 1652, at the end of Sedbergh Fair. From Drawwell he accompanied them to Firbank Chapel, the following Sunday forenoon. There, high up on the opposite fell, he was moved, as he says in his Journal, to 'sit down upon the rock on the mountain' and 'discourse to over a thousand people, amongst whom I declared God's everlasting Truth and word of life freely and largely, for about the space of three hours, whereby many were convinced.'
More than once in after days, George Fox returned again thankfully to Drawwell, seeking and finding rest and refreshment for soul and body under its hospitable, low, stone roof, as he went up and down on those endless journeys of his, throughout the length and breadth of England, whereby he 'kept himself in a perpetual motion, begetting souls unto God.'
Many hallowed memories cling about Drawwell Farm,—as closely as the silvery mist clings to every nook and cranny of its walls in damp weather,—but none more vivid than that of the Undisturbed Meeting of 1665.
George Fox was not present that day. His open-air wanderings, and his visits to the home under the great fells were alike at an end for a time, while in the narrow prison cells of Lancaster and Scarborough he was bearing witness, after a different fashion, to the freedom of the Spirit of the Lord. George Fox was not among the guests at Drawwell. No 'mighty Meeting,' as often at other times, was gathered there that day. There was only a company of humble men and women seated on forms and chairs under the black oak rafters of the big barn that adjoins the house, since the living-room was not spacious enough to hold them all with ease, although their numbers were not much above a score.
The Master and Mistress of Drawwell were present of course. Good Farmer Blaykling, with his ever ready courtesy and kindness, looked older now than on the day, thirteen years before, when he and his father had brought the young preacher back with them from the Fair. He himself had known latterly what it was to suffer 'for Truth's sake,' as some extra furrows on his brow had testified plainly since the day when 'Priest John Burton of Sedbergh beat John Blaykling and pulled him by the hair off his seat in his high place.' Happily that outbreak had passed over, and all seemed quiet this Sunday morning, as he took his place in the big barn. His wife sat by his side; around them were their children (none of them young), the farm lads and lasses, and several families of neighbouring Friends. But it chanced that the youngest person present, one of the farm lasses, was well into her teens.
'Surely it was the loving-kindness of the Lord' (motherly Mistress Blaykling was wont to testify in after years) 'that brought the ordeal only upon us, grown men and women, and not upon any tender babes.' The Meeting began, much like any other Meeting in that peaceful country, where Friends ever loved to gather under the shadow of the hills and the yet mightier overshadowing of the Spirit of God. The Dove of Peace brooded over the company. Even as the unseen water bubbled in the dark depths of the old draw-well close by, so, in the deep stillness, already some hearts were becoming conscious of—
'The bubbling of the hidden springs,
That feed the world.'
Soon, out of the living Silence would have been born the fresh gift of living speech....
When suddenly, into all this peace, there came the clattering of horses' hoofs along the stony road that leads to the farm, followed by loud voices and a pistol shot, as a body of troopers trotted right up to the homestead. Finding that deserted and receiving no answers to their shouts, they proceeded to the barn itself in search of the assembled Friends. The officer in charge was a young Ensign, Lawrence Hodgson, a very gay gentleman indeed, a gentleman of the Restoration, when not only courtiers but soldiers too, knew well what it was to be courtly.
He came from Dent, 'with other officers of the militia and soldiers.' Now Dent was a place of importance, in those days, and looked down on even Sedbergh as a mere village. Wherefore to be sent off to a small farm in the outskirts of Sedbergh in search of a nest of Quakers was a paltry job at best for these fine gentlemen from Dent. Naturally, they set about it, cursing and swearing with a will, to shew what brave fellows they were. For here were all these Quakers whom they had been sent to harry, brazening out their crime in the full light of day. By Act of Parliament it had been declared, not so long ago either, that any Quakers who 'assembled to the number of five or more persons at any one time, and in any one place, under pretence of joining in a religious worship not authorised by law, were, on conviction, to suffer merely fines or imprisonment for their first and second offences, but for the third, they were to be liable to be transported to any of His Majesty's plantations beyond seas.' A serious penalty this, in those days second only to death itself, and a terror to the most hardened of the soldiery; but here was a handful of humble farmfolk, deliberately daring such a punishment unafraid.