More than the words, something vaguely familiar in the tones of the voice and the piercing gaze that fell upon her out of the flood of sunlight, awoke in her the memory of that long ago Sunday of her childhood, of her theft of the cherries, of her 'disremembering,' and then of her mother's words, 'You, a Purefoy, to forget to be worthy of your name.'
Alas! where was her Pure Faith now? The preacher seemed to be speaking to her, to her alone: yet, strangely enough, to almost every heart in that vast congregation the message went home. Did the building itself rock and shake as if filled with power? The real Joyce was reached again: the real Joyce, though hidden now under the weight of years of self-pleasing, a heavier burden than any childish finery. Certainly reached she was, though Lady Darcy preserved through it all her cynical smile, and made sport of her friend's earnestness. Nevertheless Lady Darcy went to France alone. Lady Danvers returned to her husband—too much accustomed to be left alone, poor man, to have been seriously disquieted by her absence. For the remainder of his short life his wife did her best to tend him dutifully. But she did leave him for an hour or two the day after her return, in order to go and throw herself on her knees beside kind old Justice Hotham, and confess to him how nearly she had deserted her post.
'And then what saved you?' enquired the wise old man, smoothing back the wavy hair from the wilful, lovely face that looked up to him, pleading for forgiveness.
'I think it was an angel,' said Joyce simply—'an angel or a spirit. It rose up in Beverley Minster: it preached to us of the wonderful things of God: words that burned. The whole building shook. Afterwards it passed away.'
Little she guessed that George Fox, the Weaver's son, the Judge's guest, seated in a deep recess of the long, panelled library, was obliged to listen to every word she spoke. Joyce never knew that the angel who had again enabled her to keep her 'Faith pure' was no stranger to her. Neither did it occur to him, whose thoughts were ever full of weightier matters than wilful woman's ways, that he had met this 'great woman of Beverley,' as he calls her, long before.
Only waiting-maid Cecily, who had prayed for an angel; Cecily, who had recognised the Weaver's son the first moment she saw him at the inn door; Cecily who had found in him, also, the messenger sent by God in answer to her prayer—wise Cecily kept silence until the day of her death.
George Fox says in his Journal:
'I was moved of the Lord to go to Beverley steeple-house, which was a place of high profession. Being very wet with rain, I went first to an inn. As soon as I came to the door, a young woman of the house said, "What, is it you? Come in," as if she had known me before, for the Lord's power bowed their hearts. So I refreshed myself and went to bed. In the morning, my clothes being still wet, I got ready, and, having paid for what I had, went up to the steeple-house where was a man preaching. When he had done, I was moved to speak to him and to the people in the mighty power of God, and turned them to their teacher, Christ Jesus. The power of the Lord was so strong that it struck a mighty dread among the people. The Mayor came and spoke a few words to me, but none had power to meddle with me, so I passed out of the town, and the next day went to Justice Hotham's. He was a pretty tender man and had some experience of God's workings in his heart. After some discourse with him of the things of God he took me into his closet, where, sitting together, he told me he had known that principle these ten years, and was glad that the Lord did now send his servants to publish it abroad among the people. While I was there a great woman of Beverley came to Justice Hotham about some business. In discourse she told him that "The last Sabbath day," as she called it, "an Angel or Spirit came into the church at Beverley and spoke the wonderful things of God, to the astonishment of all that were there: and when it had done, it passed away, and they did not know whence it came or whither it went; but it astonished all, priests, professors and magistrates." This relation Justice Hotham gave me afterwards, and then I gave him an account that I had been that day at Beverley steeple-house and had declared truth to the priest and people there.'