richard osmund and his white horse approached great meadow. the year was at autumn, the year 1654. a considerable village, great meadow spread over the ancient meadow and a short way up the hill. meadow and hill had for a border a still, complacent river. the hill was crested by an old wood, and along the roadside stood huge, bronzing trees. a mile from town a stream turned a mill wheel. from the tall stone mill might be seen clustering houses with small bright dooryards, and the village green and an ancient church and churchyard.
richard osmund rode slowly, a steadfast man in a plain dress of brown. dress and his short-cut hair, and his uncocked hat, general demeanour as well, marked him for some shade of inhabitant of the puritan and parliamentary hemisphere. but within this general part of the globe it was hard to class him. he did not look mere church reform, nor yet presbyterian, nor precisely independent, not yet anabaptist nor leveller. certainly he must be a dissident of some sort, but of what sort?
he possessed strength and erectness, with a clean accuracy of bodily movement. perhaps he had been a soldier—ironside. but even thus he was not wholly classed. there seemed to shine from him a kind of wisdom; he looked a thinker. perhaps he was a member of that parliament sitting in london town, busy with english destinies. yet even in this time of the commonwealth, there should{390} be about him some little pomp and circumstance to mark him so important. there was not. so perhaps he was not important. he seemed about thirty.
it was a still autumn morning, of a vision-like lift and clearness. the white horse went at a walk, richard osmund thinking as he rode. he came by the stone mill. the mill stream gave forth a crystal sound, the water flashed over the wheel. a couple of men, two or three boys, busied themselves before the great door.
“good-day, friends!” said richard osmund, passing.
“good-day,” answered the men; then, straightening themselves from the grain sacks, looked at horse and rider more closely. said the miller, “that one, too, rides a white horse!”
osmund had passed the door. the miller’s helper called after him, “be richard osmund your name?”
the rider turned his head. “yes, friend! it is my name.”
the miller and the miller’s helper broke into laughter—not kindly laughter. “osmund on his white horse!” the laughter had in it a jeer, anger increased in it. the miller was a choleric man. he doubled his fists, he shouted to osmund: “throw you in the race! come here, and i’ll throw you in the race!”
the man to whom he cried regarded him and the mill wheel and the mill race with a certain patient whimsicalness. “flow race—turn wheel—fight with your sins, miller! not with me who bring them to your mind!”
he rode on, going with the same deliberateness as before. the road bending, the mill was hidden. he was going over a way chequered with light and shade. overhead rose a great noise of birds. the road mounting slightly; he saw, at a little distance, the village full before him like the{391} device upon a shield. richard osmund upon his white horse.
the horse had been his father’s. it was old, but strong yet. richard osmund had money, just enough to loosen the bonds of farm and of desk and to set him free to go through england from town to town and village to village, to clothe him as he was clothed, to give him plain lodging and plain food. he had not money for another horse, did he wish to change. loving his old white friend, the thing had not before occurred to him. but it was true that he was sooner known for the horse that he rode. where there grew hostility the bitter fruit fell oftener upon his head.... he might take white faithful back to the farm, and henceforth walk. that was in his mind as he rode.... halfway between the mill and the town he saw running through the fields the boys who had hung about the mill door. they were making for great meadow, and would be there as soon or sooner than he. “ho! coming into town, richard osmund—!”
white faithful and osmund plodded on.
he thought that he must have been in great meadow as a child, his father and mother coming this way from the north. and after marston moor he had ridden through the place, a young soldier in a troop of ironsides. he had remembered the mill, and now he thought that over all the landscape and the village like the boss of the shield there hung a sense of familiarity. he often had this brooding sense. “nor is this either strange to me!”
he approached the edge of the village. about him, among trees, stood some poor cottages. he spoke to an old man leaning upon a gate. “i want a lodging for two days or more. there is a tavern here{392}—”
“aye. once ’twas the king’s own, but now ’tis the green wreath.”
“tavern charges are too great. but i can pay fairly for myself and my horse.”
“over there, among the willows—diccon the thatcher may take you.”
“over there” showed a field away from the road. a lane led to it. down this turned osmund, riding beneath ancient trees. he crossed a stream, and came to a thatched house, long and low, willow-shaded, and open-doored. diccon the thatcher was building a shed. yes, he had a room to hire and a stable for a horse. so much it was.
osmund, dismounted, drew from pocket the sum named.
“the most pay when they go,” said the thatcher.
“i know. but accidents happen. best take it now, friend!”
“an you will, i will,” said the thatcher and took the money. he looked the other over. “the gentry do not often come here. they go to the green wreath.”
“i am not gentry. perhaps,” said osmund, “it is right to tell you that i am not popular where i go.”
the thatcher gazed still, then he spoke and he seemed to quote some saying that he had heard. “‘a simple, proper-looking man riding a white horse.’—is your name osmund?”
“yes. richard osmund.”
the thatcher, who was a slow, deep man, studied the situation. “if strange doctrines killed men i reckon that england would be a desert to-day!... now, george fox. i was at reading, and i heard him witnessing before what he called the steeple-house. when he was done they beat and stoned him and took him away to gaol.... but{393} i didn’t taste poison in his words. i thought there was some honey in them.”
“so there is.—i will put white faithful in the stable then.”
“it is market day in great meadow. there will be a many about.”
“it happens sometimes to me as it does to george fox. if it happens so in great meadow, keep white faithful, until you hear from me. if you hear no more, keep him and use him, treating him well.”
they moved together toward the stable and the house. “great meadow,” said the thatcher, “is hard on new doctrines until somehow it drinks them down—and then it thinks the spring was always on its land! i’ve seen great meadow bishop and king—and i’ve seen it presbytery and parliament—and now it’s independent and oliver and the new commons. but it always cries ‘poison!’ at first.... keep your mouth shut till you see which way the creature’ll jump! that always seemed wisdom to me until i heard george fox.”
“and then?”
“i’m not so sure,” said the thatcher. “of course if you’re marching, and the thirst and heat are bad, and some one knows of a spring of water he ought to tell.... but your doctrine, now, isn’t religious.”
“isn’t it?” asked osmund. “i wonder.... i think that it is religious.”
“scorn and laughter are hard things to bear,” said the thatcher. “how did you strike out what you did?”
“the fire was in the flint for who had eyes to see,” said osmund. “also i was born of a woman.”
within the house margery the thatcher’s wife put bread{394} and ale upon a table. osmund sat down and ate and drank. when he had done this he took a book from his pocket and began to read. that was for rest after deep pondering, and to steady nerve and brain before he should rise and walk forth, deep into great meadow. a small, latticed window gave upon a small garden and a climbing hill. in the garden were sprinkled, as by a giant’s hand, clumps of red and gold and blue, gillyflower and larkspur and marigold. a woman, passing the window, looked for a moment into the room, then presently entered at the door. she crossed to a stair and mounting this disappeared. osmund looked up from his book. she was a young woman, of a darkness mixed with rose. almost immediately she was in the room again, upon her head the wide straw hat of the country women. she crossed to the door, vanished into the world without.
osmund, falling to his book again, read a little farther in its pages, then marked the place and shut the volume. he sat on in the clean, still room, elbows resting upon the table, his forehead in his hands. he sat very quiet, collecting the inner forces. at last he rose, and left the room and the cottage. he found the thatcher yet busy with the shed. “are you going now into great meadow? that is my cousin going ahead of you there. wait till she is gone. i said naught to her about you.”
osmund leaned against the shed and looked at a bird soaring above the stream and the trees. the thatcher spoke on. “as i said, there’ll be a many about in the town to-day—well-off and poor and old and young. and market days aren’t always the most peaceable! you know your own business best, but great meadow’ll be a quieter place to-morrow.{395}”
“but not so many people together. if you’ve a message,” said osmund, “that you want to give to the whole country—”
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 thou{396}sand 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{397} 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.
“great meadow, hearken! what is our english word to-day? liberty! then i speak to you of liberty. what have we done? we have said to the bishops, ‘god in us the ruler in his own matters—not you!’ we have said to the house of lords, ‘you have thought that you were born to rule over us—but you were not!’ we have said to the king, ‘only in the divine is there divine right!’ and the bishops rule no more, nor the lords, and the king has suffered death. now is the new commons sitting in london!”
his words made way against all difficulties. “aye, aye!” cried the crowd, arrested. “we in england rule ourselves! we and oliver rule ourselves!”
osmund laughed, standing on the churchyard steps. his laughter was not bitter, but clear and large. “so we say. ‘lo,’ we say, ‘england is free!’ freer than we were—that is sooth! but not free. no more so than is the prisoner who has broken one ward when there are twenty yet to break. yet is that prisoner freer by just that broken ward, and stronger to work on by the new hope that is in him! let him take courage and break ward after ward!{398}”
“what ward, now? now, what ward? now shall we have osmund’s doctrine!”
“break ward after ward! said christ jesus, ‘put not new wine into old bottles, nor new cloth upon the old garment.’—o english folk, let us deepen and widen and heighten freedom until there stands the new vessel for the new wine, and for the patched the whole, fair, shining garment! nowhere yet—no, not by many a ward—full freedom, full escape! not in england, not upon earth. freedom in part—light in part! your task and mine never to rest until the whole is come and the part melts within it!”
“osmund’s doctrine! ‘let women rule, too!’ he always begins something like this, and then he ends, ‘let women rule, too!’”
“be sure he leads a lewd life!”
the more violent sort broke forth again. “pull him down! have away with him! in warwick it was gaol for him, and in coventry cart tail and pillory! heinousness! heinousness and blasphemy!” clamour arose and a movement from within the throng toward the steps and osmund upon them. then appeared the great meadow constable and his men. “order—order here, in the name of the commonwealth!”
osmund cried on. “men are not free to-day, and women are less free! were women as free to-day as are men, still would men and women have many a thousand wards to break, as many well-nigh as the sands of the sea! we use the word ‘freedom,’ but we are to be freedom! so i do not end, great meadow, with ‘let women rule, too!’ but in this hour i preach, ‘what freedom there is, let us share and share alike! what freedom there is, let it be for{399} women as for men! what freedom there is, let it run healthily through the whole body!’”
“he is a friend! he is a quaker! he and george fox are birds of a feather!”
osmund’s voice rose above the uproar. “what, shall not a woman learn, and if she will, teach? what, shall we give only to men the good fruit, learning? shall we build schools, uphold universities, for men only? and what, great meadow! if a woman having sought and found god, wishes to speak and teach of her travel thither, of the ocean and the ship across and the haven and the new world, shall she not have freedom to do so? a man, having made that voyage and knowing the pricelessness of that land, displayeth his charts and persuadeth others to become travellers! shall not woman, voyager and pilgrim as is man, have here man’s liberty? so cry george fox and the people called friends and they are right!”
“ha, ha!” cried the rougher folk. “he looks like a man, but mayhap he is a woman! a woman preaching!” a hand went down to earth, picked up a stone and flung it. it missed osmund, struck the church gate. there arose gross laughter.
“we have overthrown the king and the lords. they may come again, because they are not out of our nature. but now we say that they are overthrown! and we say that the commons of england are to be supreme. we say, ‘they govern because we choose them, and if they govern not aright, we may take them back!’ we say, ‘they are ourselves, sitting there; we have chosen them ourselves from ourselves.’... but all are men, chosen by men. o england, there should be women there no less than{400} men! women and men should be there, chosen by women and men!”
the more hostile element uttered a kind of roar. a second stone was thrown. the constable and his men consulted among themselves if they should at once arrest osmund.
“the king!—what use to kill one king, when, as many men as are in england, so many kings! kings over children—but children grow up and pass from under! but kings over women—from the woman child to the woman, white-haired in her coffin! generation after generation, thousand years after thousand, sometimes kindly and sometimes not, and always unjust! foolishness when we cry, ‘we will have no king!’ then, going home, stamp foot upon the threshold, crying, ‘here am i king!’ mockery when we cry, ‘the land is without kings!’ and lo, the law gives everywhere the woman to the man, saying, ‘here is the king!’”
rose a voice. “it is enough! he is speaking against law and good manners! in the name of the commonwealth!”
“we have sinned. we the men, and we the women, we the one—”
the constable’s hand fell upon osmund’s arm.... “making a disturbance and stirring up sedition! come away you to justice thorne....”
he and his men came about osmund, pushed him from the steps. ere he went, he saw suddenly, in a great rift of the angry cloud, the woman, darkness mixed with rose, of the thatcher’s cottage. her lips were parted, her brows drawn inward and upward, and many a thing was written upon her face.
at the foot of the steps he lost sight of her. here the{401} violent among the crowd would have taken hold of him. but the constable was a huge, brawny fellow, and he and his helpers beat off the throng. “let him alone! let him to justice thorne! he ain’t a friend to such, now is he?”
justice thorne lived in the town, in a stone house where the street mounted the hill. here went richard osmund, about him the staves of the constable and his men. behind came a part of that black cloud, and it laughed and jeered and cried hard names. the way was not long. here was the house, and the justice’s parlour and the justice—an old, shrivelled man with a hawk nose and cold, dim eyes.
and richard osmund was a disturber of the peace, a pestilent, notorious fellow, a railer against law and good manners. justice thorne made short work. “thou fool and rogue! thou shalt stand three hours in pillory! then shalt thou be flung out of town, and if thou comest this way again, thou shalt find yet worse fare!—take him away, constable, and let me to my dinner and my book!”
down again to the heart of great meadow went law and prisoner and the attending, triumphing rabble. so richard osmund was set in the pillory.
three hours he stood there while great meadow turned to its business of that market day. at first boys pelted him with clods, but they tired after a time and rested from that. persons passed him continually. some paused to bestow ridicule and abuse, some stared without speaking, some passed, with turned or lowered heads. and still the day shone high and still and clear, with a sky of even sapphire.
diccon the thatcher came by. he looked around and found it safe to speak. “i knew ’twould happen so!{402} thunder in thunder clouds, and danger in telling people what they don’t want to know! it’s george fox over again!—when you’re put out of great meadow, will you be going on to greenfield?”
“yes.”
“there’s an old grange with a tower two miles this side greenfield. friendly people live in it. i’ll get your white horse there to-night.”
“thank you heartily, friend!”
“i’m going home now.... a strange thing i notice,” pursued the thatcher, “and that is that men like george fox and you aren’t cast down. to have light and food where there is no light and food, and still to stand, though men have cast you down—that, it seems to me, is a marvellous and a darling thing!”
nodding his head, he went on by, going toward his cottage east of town.
osmund stood patiently in the pillory in the middle of great meadow. in the year and more of this travelling up and down in england he had not infrequently tasted treatment in this like. sometimes it had been better, sometimes worse. he was glad that this time it was not imprisonment. the festering gaols were the worst things. at no time was there sense in flinching or being melancholy. so he put off shuddering of flesh and dismalness of mind. pinioned there he was not unhappy. in great meadow, even, he had in part said his say. it might live, that seed, bearing fruit when he was dead and gone. a day would come when many more than he would see that freedom and follow it simply. just as there were many freedoms that richard osmund could not yet see, but would one day see.... his spirit stood light and steady. he{403} had much to think of, much to remember, he had faith, hope, and charity, he had vision.
the first hour went by, the second was not far from being gone. the spectacle was become trite to great meadow. the chaffering, the buying and selling, had long been resumed. only now and then came a wave toward the pillory. one or two or more persons might linger about, staring, silent or abusive, but compared with the first half-hour there was solitude. osmund stood as though he were chained to a desert rock. houses, booths, the square church tower dissolved in light. there rolled a golden desert, there quivered tops of palm trees.
came by the thatcher’s cousin, the woman of a darkness mixed with rose. most women passed the pillory quickly, with heads turned aside or down bent. this woman stood still, her hands straight by her sides, her head lifted. her eyes gazed into osmund’s eyes. then came between a drift of idle folk. when he could see beyond them, she had vanished. there rolled the golden desert, there waved the fronds of palm.
the second hour was over, the third hour fast waning. it ebbed, it went away with a ringing of church bells. here now were the constable and his helpers. as the church bells clanged, great part of great meadow turned from market and other business to see richard osmund put out of town.
great meadow was not so great that it was far to its outermost confine. many hands upon him, with gibes and abusive laughter, osmund was thrust by the green, by the chief street, toward the town edge. it was the rim opposite the rim through which he had entered. he had been deep into great meadow; that which he taught had perhaps{404} traced a path, a faint guiding line, making easier the next treading. men could push out that which they called richard osmund, but to push out what mind has brought into mind—that is a different thing! they thrust along osmund’s body. here was the edge of great meadow and beyond these last houses a barren, uneven field with a ragged copse by a thread of a stream, and across all went the westward stretching high road.
and here too was a black cloud with harm in its bosom. a part of this throng had come along with constable and prisoner, and a part had dropped employment merely to see what was to be seen, streaming out, men and women, from the various ways and lanes, and a part, when the hour struck, had hurried out ahead into the wild field that mounted here to the hill and descended there to the river. and this last group had furnished itself with sticks and stones. the constable loosened his hold of osmund. “now you’re out of great meadow bounds! my duty by you is done. trudge!”
the constable turned his back. as if to get the law out of the way, he drew off with his helpers. osmund shook himself, took breath, and made to step soberly forward upon the onward going road. he saw the dark third of great meadow with its sticks and stones and knew that the law did not mean at once or soon to interfere.
the sun stood low in the west. a faint red light lay like a veil over earth. that part of great meadow gathered here without great malice, or without malice at all, hung a moment, then began to dissolve into the village. arose an uncertain murmur with, more loudly, voices and counter-voices. a young man, too often at the green wreath, lifting a ragged staff, struck osmund. an older{405} man behind him cried with a bull voice: “who says woman is equal with man denies scripture! among men and women only witches and wizards have equal learning and power! be sure he is a wizard and leads a lewd and fearful life!” with that the storm broke. the hesitants, men and a few women, stiffened, stayed to see what would do the dark core of the mob.
out of this fringe of spectators came a woman. she did not come slowly, she came swiftly. osmund, beaten by stave and fist to his knee, found her beside him, the woman of the thatcher’s cottage.... around and around, suddenly again, stretched wide space, wide, clear and golden. above and below time changed into eternity. form, frame and tissue seemed to move, expand. it was as if two released spirits met in a larger world.... then, with a thunder clap, here was the close to-day and a hand’s-breadth of english field.
he rose beside her. “ah, the great cowards!” she cried. “ah, the wrong for so long that the wish for the right must be reborn! ah, men! and ah, you women who are here! ah, you women, you greater cowards! ah, women, women! you and i—cowards, cowards!—but now will i turn on fear!”
the crowd raised its voice against her. “who is it?—it is miriam donne, diccon the thatcher’s gypsy cousin!”
her look, her raised arm held them. “what will you do to this man? why do you beat him down? because he cries to you, ‘slaver, cease to enslave!’ you men, i cry the same! and you women, unstirring—watching harm done and unstirring! never were souls enslaved, but those souls enslaved themselves—”
great meadow, out there upon the edge of great mea{406}dow, burst into a roar: “a lewd man and a lewd woman! a wizard and a witch!” but one of the women—there were not many women—cried shame upon the mob, and to let the two alone, and to let them go. but the mob began to throw stones and to lash itself into a more reckless rage. a woman lifted a shrill voice: “she is a strange woman—a witch! none of us could make her out! she came to great meadow just a week ago. be sure they have been together!” a man midway the crowd cried, “fornicators!” voices rushed together into a roar, “fornicators! wizard! witch!” led by the young man who had been too often to the green wreath the wave broke in fury upon osmund and miriam.
the constable, quite within the town bounds, but with his head over his shoulder, found that he must return with his helpers. he threatened sending for justice thorne.... when it would, the rabble desisted. it did not want to kill, it only wanted to make life sore and afraid. it thought that it must have accomplished that.
the sun was beginning to go down, the air growing darker and cooler. the day and all its adventures was over.... let them go!
the village mob, more silent than it had been, began to withdraw into great meadow. its lust for fighting with hands against an idea was glutted; it thought that the idea was dead. the crowd drifted fast away. amber light was upon the ragged field and the westward-flowing road.
the man and woman, who had been sore beaten, rose from earth to their knees, to their feet. torn and bruised, stained with dust and blood, they leaned against a trampled bank, they drew breath, with their hands they pressed the mist from their eyes. the red sun was half down, the copse{407} by the stream was shaking and sighing. “if you can walk, you had better be gone!” advised the constable. “ten miles to greenfield!” he looked aslant at the dark woman. “diccon the thatcher used to be in good repute enough, but ’tisn’t so now! he’s took to going to foxite meetings. if you’d win to his house again, you’d better go by the field and the water and the backside o’ town. but i don’t mind telling you that it’s my belief that trouble for you in great meadow is just begun!”
miriam donne drew her loosened long hair over her shoulder and began to braid it with swift fingers. her eyes and osmund’s met in a long look. “richard osmund and i will walk together. here we will find life and here we will find death, here we will find grace and here we will find bitter herbs, for that is the way the world is strewn!... but, master constable, i would have you wit that my cousin diccon knows little of me and my ways, seeing that i came to his house but a week ago. do not touch him for ways of mine. and now, farewell, great meadow!”
she stood straight, her hair braided, her eyes clear. osmund put out his hand. she laid hers in it. they moved across the trampled place; as the red sun vanished, they took the high road. behind them a lingering edge of great meadow shouted and gibed. a stone that was flung went by, stirring the dust before them. they walked on, following the sun.
the road crossed the stream. when they had gone over the bridge, the copse and the twilight somewhat hid from them great meadow. sound died away, the village left the circle of consciousness. a plain lay before them pierced by the road going toward the yet lighted sky. the evening wind breathed around them, the rich dusk{408} gained, the evening star shone out.... desert spaces—far clumps of trees like palm trees.
they moved slowly, for they had been savagely beaten. but the interior sphere knew bliss. “where shall we go—what shall we do—we who never met before to-day and have met thousands of times before to-day?”
“myriads of times. so blessedly true it is that we are one!”
“so blessedly true!”
“near greenfield, in the country, live a family of the people called friends. let us go there first.”
they moved across the plain. the stars were all lighted. theirs were the worlds beneath, around, above and within.
