The thatcher took hold of a beam to lift it into place. Osmund helping him, together they raised and set it, then stood back to breathe. “Well, yours is the strangest message!” said the thatcher. “I’m coming into town myself after a little. I’ve heard George Fox. As I look at it, a man can afford to hear more than ordinarily he does hear.”
“I think that he can,” said Osmund.
The woman had disappeared from the lane going to Great Meadow. Richard Osmund, crossing the stream, took the same narrow way, bronzed by autumn, with the birds flying up from the hedges, up and afar into the deep, blue heaven.
Short was the distance into Great Meadow. It seemed that every one was out of doors; he heard the market clack and hum. Persons passed him and he passed persons, men and women and children. Some did not notice him; others spoke or not as the mood was in them. It was not until he had come in sight of the market stalls and the village green that any recognized him. Then came tilt against him one of the boys who had been at the mill and had run through the fields. The boy looked, then turned and ran crying to a knot of young men at a corner: “Here he is now! Here he is now!” Richard Osmund passed by to loud laughter and hard words.
The Green Wreath had about it numbers of villagers and country folk. Drovers and farmers were in town. The tavern, the church, the market booths all gave upon the green. The day was at noon, the sun strong, the air full of sound. In the circle of Great Meadow were a thousand people and more.... All over England stood such hives of people.... To place within these hives an idea new to them, to leave it there to live and work, or to seem to die, smothered and trodden underfoot, to seem to die and yet to work on.... Ways to place ideas. The writing way, the book way, was one. And Richard Osmund’s book might serve the idea, and he hoped as much from it. To speak out in England to-day was the other way that he could see, and, seeing, took.
Broad, rounded steps led from the green to the churchyard gate. Here was goodly space for standing, and many a speaker to Great Meadow had stood here. Now Osmund stood. “Folk of Great Meadow—”
Buyers and sellers, men and women, left the market. The men left the Green Wreath. There came together a mob, increasing from every side. In part it was curious and wished to hear, in part it was angry and wished but to loose its own passion. Here and there in the mass might stand a forward-looking soul, interested rather than curious, not inclined to mere fury against the new. But these were few set over against the many.
Osmund stood, a resolute man, striving to cause an inner light to shine outward. He looked at the throng pressing around, close to the steps. He saw that it made a black and heavy cloud that might turn to a storm that should beat him down. By now he could well gauge these crowds that would listen so long as it pleased them to do so, and then would lift the arm of a phrenetic. Yet always, even in the midst of the darkest cloud, he could see, like stars in narrow rifts, listening faces, kindred eyes. But this was a heavy cloud and would surely break in storm.
He opened his lips. “I have a call to speak to the people of England!—England, England, thou hast heard many calling to thee, and sometimes thou harkenest, and sometimes thou turnest upon thy side. ‘Let me alone! A little more slumber and a little more sleep!’ And sometimes thou stainest thyself purple with the blood of those who cry!”
In the crowd was a score of mere barbarians. These began at once to shout against him. “Richard Osmund! Pull him down! Have away with him!” Others withstood these. “Wait till he speaks! We want to hear—” The crowd worked and seethed. The sun beat down upon flushed faces.