The gentry of the neighbourhood as well as the country folk for miles around come flocking to the annual hiring of farm lads and lasses, which is the main business of the Fair. Thoughts of profit and the chance of making a good bargain fill the heads of the older generation. But the youths and maidens come, eager-eyed, looking for romance. At the Fair they seek to guess what Fate may hold in store for them during the long months of labour that will follow hard on their few hours of jollification.
'All manner of finery was to be had' at the Fair; 'there were morris and rapier dances, wrestling and love-making going on,' and plenty of hard drinking too. 'The Fair at Sedbergh' was the emphatic destination of many a prosperous farmer and labourer on a Whitsun Wednesday morning; but it was 'Sebba Fair' he cursed thickly under his breath as he reeled home at night.
In truth seventeenth-century Sedbergh was a busy place, not only in Fair week, but at other times too, with its stately old church and its grammar school; to say nothing of the fact that, in these days of Oliver's Protectorate, it boasted no less than forty-eight different religious sects among its few hundred inhabitants. Only the sad-eyed Seekers, coming down in little groups from their scattered hamlets, exchanged sorrowful greetings as they met one another amid all the riot and hubbub of the Fair; for they had tried the forty-eight sects in turn for the nourishment their souls needed, and had tried them all in vain.
Until this miraculous Whitsuntide of June 1652, when, suddenly, in a moment, everything was changed.
The little groups of Seekers stood still and looked at one another in astonishment as they came out from the shadow of the narrow street of grey stone houses into the open square in the centre of the town. For there, opposite the market cross and under the spreading boughs of a gigantic yew-tree, they saw a young man standing on a bench, and preaching as they had never heard anyone preach before. Behind him rose the massive square tower, and the long row of clerestory windows that were, then as now, the glory of Sedbergh Church. The tall green grass of the churchyard was already trampled down by the feet of hundreds of spell-bound listeners.
Who was this unexpected Stranger who dared to interrupt even the noisy business of the Fair with the earnestness and insistence of his appeal? He was a young and handsome man, with regular features and hair that hung in short curls under his hat-brim, contrary to the Puritan fashion; big-boned in body, and of a commanding presence. The boys of the grammar school, determined to make the most of their holiday, thought it good sport at first to mock at the Stranger's garb. As he stood there, lifted up above them on the rough bench, they could see every detail of the queer leather breeches that he wore underneath his long coat. His girdle with its alchemy buttons showed off grandly too, while the fine linen bands he wore at his neck gleamed out with dazzling whiteness against the dark branches of Sedbergh's majestic old yew-tree.
The preacher's words and tones and his piercing eyes quickly overawed his audience, and made them forget his outlandish appearance. Even the boys could understand what he was saying, for he seemed to be speaking to each one of them, as much as to any of the grown-up people. And what was this he was telling them? With outstretched hand he pointed upwards, insisting that that church, the beautiful building, the pride of Sedbergh, was not a church at all. It was only a steeple-house; they themselves were the true church, their own souls and bodies were the temples chosen by the Spirit of God for His habitation. No wonder the schoolboys, and many older people too, became awed and silent at the bare idea of such a Guest. None of the eight-and-forty sects of Sedbergh town had ever heard doctrine like this before. Possibly there might not have been eight-and-forty of them if they had.
Once during the discourse a Captain got up and interrupted the Stranger: 'Why do you preach out here under the yew-tree? Why do you not go inside the church and preach there?'
'But,' says George Fox, 'I said unto him that I denied their church.
'Then stood up Francis Howgill, a separate preacher, that had not seen me before, and so he began to dispute with the Captain, but he held his peace. Then said Francis Howgill, "This man speaks with authority, and not as the Scribes."