Where Love Illumines (Where There is Love Book 2) Read online

  The amusing pictures those words called to mind made Mary relax, and her head ceased to ache. She read on through a few more letters of the novel until she came to one from an Oxford student.

  London itself can hardly exhibit one species of diversion to which we have not something analogous at Bath… and daily opportunities of seeing the most remarkable characters of the community. One sees them in their natural attitudes and true colors, descended from their pedestals and divested of their formal draperies, undisguised by art and affectation… There is always a great show of the clergy at Bath, waddling like so many crows along the North Parade. None of your thin, puny, yellow, hectic figures, exhausted with abstinence and hard study, but great, overgrown dignitaries and rectors with rubicund noses and gouty ankles—the emblems of sloth and indigestion.

  For a moment Mary could see nothing but Bishop Twysden in his gorgeous robes, sipping claret in the countess’s Nicodemus chamber.

  Was this truly what she wanted for Rowland? Should he abandon his passion for God and the souls of men for the sake of money, ease and honor? And yet what if no bishop could be found to ordain him? Would he spend his life in a field? A baronet’s son?

  And if he obtained ordination and a living and spoke the words to her he had so long hinted at, what would her answer be? There was no doubting her pleasure in his company, but would she be a worthy wife for a man of such serious calling?

  Shouldn’t he take a more serious wife to whom doing good came naturally—such as Lady Selina? But such musings did nothing to answer her question to herself—would she make a fit wife for Rowland Hill?

  If he were to be anything but a clergyman, she knew that she wouldn’t hesitate. Every occasion with him taught her heart more clearly what was truly in it. But having a good time was very important to her. She couldn’t live as pious Lady Huntingdon did. If that was how she’d have to be… She shuddered. But if she were to refuse him, if life were to hold no more pleasant times with her dear Rowland… Her throat closed, and her eyes filled with tears at the thought.

  And then Rowland’s twinkling eyes filled her mind. He wasn’t a long-faced ascetic, and she doubted he would want her to be one either.

  Still in the mood of serious reflection, she turned to her old favorite, Milton. But she didn’t find his sonnet on the brevity of youth to be of much comfort.

  How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,

  Stol’n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!…

  Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,

  It shall be still in strictest measure even

  To that same lot, however mean or high,

  Tow’rd which time leads me, and the will of heaven;

  All is, if I have grace to use it so,

  As ever in my great task-master’s eye.

  If only she could have Milton’s confidence that after her twenty years of accomplishing little more than three embroidered seat cushions, she could do something truly splendid.

  Nine

  The following week not even the drizzling August rain could dampen Mary’s sense of adventure as she set out in Sir Richard’s closed carriage with coronets on the door. Surely no one had ever been more elegantly conducted to a field preaching service. Elizabeth’s maid Minson sat on the seat facing her, holding Spit on a cushion on her lap. The little dog, usually a sleepy creature, today sat alert, his ears perked, watching everything outside the carriage window.

  Raindrops on the window pane dimmed Mary’s view of the Shropshire fields, some more green than ever in the rain, some the soft gold of ripening wheat.

  She had argued without success that it was quite ridiculous for Rowland to ride in the rain when he could just as well sit dry and comfortable in his father’s carriage. But he merely laughed and replied that he shouldn’t shrink from a little wetting—and it might not be such a bad thing if he did. And besides, the experience would be useful if he chose to preach a sermon on Noah.

  Although female members of Methodist societies often took such jaunts, Mrs. Tudway would have been unlikely to grant permission for her daughter to accompany a field preacher. But as Elizabeth had some sympathy for her brother’s activity and was far too occupied in assisting Jane in the nursing of their mother to give the matter much attention, there was no one to forbid the excursion.

  As they drove northwestward toward the Welsh border, the scenery became more mountainous and more intensely green. After traveling some miles in a narrow cultivated valley between wooded mountains, Mary could see the descent into the vale in which they would be meeting the first congregation on the morrow. Through a succession of gentle hills carefully cultivated by Marcher farmers wound the Afton Dyfrdwy, a tiny blue line. On the declivity of a mountain about a mile away stood a castle.

  Mary felt there could be no more beautiful country in the world. She wanted to drive on and on, deeper into this land she had never seen before. She had heard of the majesty and ruggedness of the mountains in Wales—and this was only a foretaste. She leaned forward on the carriage seat and pressed her face against the window. Rowland saluted her with a wave and a smile. Mary suddenly realized that the country could be quite as exciting as the city.

  After a night passed pleasantly at a rustic but comfortable inn, the party rose at five o’clock and drove a few miles northward toward Wrexham where Rowland planned to address his first congregation. He told Mary he had chosen to begin there because he had preached in that area before and knew the people to be friendly and receptive. As soon as Mary saw the sun rise over the mountains, she felt sure this would be a happy day. It was impossible to think of anything going amiss in this world.

  As the carriage slowed to a stop at the spot where Rowland knew people from nearby villages would be passing on their way to market, Mary saw another delightful scene. It appeared that giant spiders had been busily spinning through the night. An entire field was covered with fine white thread glowing silver in the morning light. “That field!” Mary pointed as Rowland helped her descend from the carriage.

  “A tenterfield,” Rowland said. “The women of the villages use it to dry their yarn. Make certain Spit doesn’t try to run in it. Neither he nor the women would be happy with the job of untangling him.”

  Rowland walked to the edge of the field and spoke to the women guarding it, inviting them to attend his service. They unlatched the gate to the field and followed him back to the stile he would use as a platform. Soon several laborers from neighboring fields, a group of dairymaids, and some families on their way to market had gathered around the preacher. It seemed to Mary that it was almost as if by magic that as soon as Rowland began preaching, his crowd of twenty listeners multiplied to forty and upwards. She thought fleetingly of the miracle of the loaves and fishes and smiled. She couldn’t wait to tell Rowland. He always liked commonplace illustrations, and she had found one for him.

  Three lads driving a pack of pigs stopped at the back of the crowd and let their charges root in the grass while the boys leaned on their staves and listened.

  “Often when I have been preaching, I have thought a whole village to be dead in trespasses and sins. But then success for the work of God came from a few quiet ones whom I left like a nest of eggs.” He pointed to a girl’s basket of eggs, carried on her arm, and she blushed with pleasure. “When I visited the people again, the numbers had increased, so that the little nest of eggs became a healthy brood.

  “Now I ask you to look into your own hearts. How many of you—”

  The most dreadful squealing and squalling Mary had ever heard suddenly drowned out the preacher’s words. Squeaking, grunting, and snorting were followed by sharp, frantic female screams. Spit, secure in Mary’s arms, added his yapping to the din. The entire congregation moved toward the sound of the disturbance. When Mary reached the fence, chaos met her gaze, but she couldn’t help laughing.

  The pigs, left to their own devices by their drivers, had wandered into the tenterfield, which the women in their hurry t
o attend the meeting had left unbarred. Five fat pink and black porkers had gotten their snout rings entangled in the yarn. The more they shook their heads to free themselves, the more they became imprisoned.

  It was impossible to say which made more noise—the women bemoaning the calamity to their yarn, the drivers shouting at their pigs, the congregation who had found a better entertainment than the preacher, or the frightened and enraged pigs. But it was the women who took the matter in hand. Each one grasped a hog by a back leg and, throwing her weight against the broadside of the pig, turned it on its back. Then straddling the animal to keep it capsized, each began to disentangle the muddy head from the twine—to the accompaniment of cheers and clapping from the crowd.

  Rowland took Mary’s arm and turned her toward the carriage. “I know when I’ve been outdone. There’ll be no more preaching here today.”

  Mary worried that he would be terribly disappointed. When he had tethered his horse to the back of the carriage and joined her and Minson inside, however, he exploded into laughter so hearty that the carriage rocked on its springs. “I had to get away before I disgraced myself by laughing,” he explained after regaining control.

  “Why should you, who are noted for your humor, not laugh?” Mary asked.

  Rowland shook his head and dabbed his eyes. “It’s one thing to make people laugh. It’s another to do it yourself. I wouldn’t want to become characterized as a laughing parson, even though I do hope to counteract the current notion that wit is wicked and humor sinful. Or that dullness is holy and solemn stupidity is full of grace.” He reached up and rapped sharply on the roof of the carriage as a signal to the coachman to drive on. “If dullness were a divine power, the world would have been converted by now.”

  After a few miles Rowland signaled the driver to stop. He would continue the journey as outrider. “We should have a large meeting across the border at Garth. I have preached there many times, and they have put up notices of my coming. I want to think how I can liken our pigs in the tenterfield to the story of the Gadarene demoniac.”

  That evening it seemed that, indeed, the entire town of Garth had learned of Hill’s coming. When Mary saw the size of the congregation, she was delighted. But Rowland had no more than mounted the haywain, his platform, when a terrible din began. People banged on pans, shovels, buckets—anything of tin or iron that would make a noise. Others blew horns and rang bells.

  For a moment Mary hoped the din might be some sort of welcoming band, but when she saw Rowland pelted with eggs and mud, she knew the truth. And she knew too the truth of her feelings.

  With all her might, Mary wanted to leap on the wagon and fling herself in front of her friend to protect him from the degrading missiles. She wanted to tell that ragtag mob just what she thought of them. She wanted…

  Spit began yapping shrilly and struggling in her arms so that she became aware of her own voice. With red-faced alarm, she realized that the things she wanted to do she had actually done in a burst of temper.

  “Rowland Hill has come here at considerable discomfort to himself so you can hear the Word of God. And this is the way you treat him! He’d be far better off preaching to a flock of sheep or a field of stones. They’d be more polite, and they’d get just as much out of it!”

  Spit caught her fervor and barked an emphatic punctuation to each sentence. Whether it was her outraged action or Spit’s fine performance that carried the day, she couldn’t tell, but the crowd suddenly grew quiet.

  Rowland stepped to her side, wiping a blob of egg off his cheek. “Thank you, Mary. Stay with me,” he said in her ear. Then he turned to the audience. “I see we are a band of music lovers gathered here tonight.”

  The crowd roared with laughter. “Now it’s exceedingly fine to love music—but it’s important to understand the difference between music and noise. If you will, I’ll show you how we can work together and turn this hubbub into harmony.”

  Not a murmur sounded in the field as they waited to hear what the preacher had to say. “This fine lady, Miss Tudway; has come all the way from Wells.” The fact that few in the crowd knew where Wells was made the announcement more impressive. “And she is going to help me lead in singing Charles Wesley’s hymn, ‘Blessed Be the Name.’ Now here’s what I want you to do. Those of you with, er, drums will mark the rhythm. Those with bells will ring them on the phrase, ‘Blessed be the name of the Lord!’ and those with horns will blow them at the end of each phrase. Now let’s try it!”

  Mary sang her heart out, trying to add a bit of real melody to what was only a slightly more organized version of the earlier din. The enthusiastic thumping and banging went on to accompany “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing” followed by an ear-splitting blast from the horns; then they returned to a reprise of “Blessed be the name of the Lord!” Each time the phrase could just be heard above the jangle of bells.

  The results left Mary, who had a strong but untrained voice, wishing heartily she had not begged to be allowed to discontinue her music lessons. But the mob loved it, and Rowland good-naturedly led them on through succeeding verses. They sang, “Jesus, the name that charms our fears,” with a blare of trumpets and ended with a final, triumphant, “Blessed be the name of the Lord!” that left everyone panting for breath.

  “And I’m sure the angels are applauding you right now!” Rowland congratulated his audience as he handed Mary down off the makeshift platform. “Now my audiences almost always stand while listening to me, but as you’ve worked so hard, I’d like to invite you to sit right down in God’s green grass while I tell you a story.”

  After they were settled, Rowland told of their morning encounter with the pigs. He went on to recount the story from Mark 5 of Jesus casting out a legion of demons from the possessed man and then granting their request that He not send them out of the country but allow them to enter a herd of swine. “Now I’m not suggesting that those pigs this morning were demon-possessed, though you might have thought so to hear the ruckus they set up. What I want you to notice from this story is that Jesus did this because those demons asked Him to. Now if Jesus would grant the request of demons, just think how much more readily He will grant the prayers of His children.”

  The anger and antagonism of an hour before was completely gone, and a sense of relaxed warmth pervaded the meadow. The setting sun painted the western sky pink and gold, more elegant than any stained-glass window. Mary, who could never before have imagined worshiping without a prayer book in her hand and a rail at which to kneel, looked around her. She noted the richness of Rowland’s voice, the ease with which his words came, and the good sense they spoke to her heart. She saw how much Rowland’s preaching meant to him and how right he was for the task, even if no bishop could be convinced of that.

  That night over a late supper at the inn, Mary tried to convey some of her feelings to Rowland. “I understand much better now what you’ve tried to tell me. I won’t say I’ve been wrong to urge you to seek a less irregular path, but I do have a better idea of the force of your preaching.”

  He looked at her in the fire-lit room. “And, Mary, if circumstances arrange themselves so that our paths become—ah, closer, can you be content to see me despised and rejected in my Master’s service?”

  She dropped her head. That was the crucial question. And she didn’t know the answer. A day ago she would have thought an affirmative impossible. But after her quick, protective action that evening where for a moment she had entered as wholly as he into the service… She finished her meal in silence.

  “Go have Minson tuck you in bed.” Rowland smiled at her. “We have just one service tomorrow, and then I must return you to my sister.”

  As they drove toward Oswestry the next day, Mary couldn’t help wishing that the meeting might be sparsely attended. The fact that the rain seemed to be getting heavier gave rise to her hopes. Surely a smaller crowd would be more orderly, and only those who truly wished to hear the preacher would come out in the wet.

  When
they drew nearer the town, however, the road became increasingly filled with traffic. Mary had the disturbing feeling that they all had the same destination. If not the same motive for being there.

  The crowd that met them at the appointed field told Mary she was right. Rowland was just helping her from the carriage when a rough-looking man approached with a determined look in his eye. Mary blanched and pulled back into the carriage. Then, angered at her own cowardice, she stepped forward to take her place at Rowland’s side.

  The man, though, had not come to mill Rowland down, rather to whisper a warning in his ear. He said something Mary couldn’t hear and pointed toward the front of the crowd, to a man standing head and shoulders above everyone else. Rowland nodded, thanked his informant and shook hands with him heartily. Then Rowland turned to Mary. “Our friend tells me that the local publican has engaged a prizefighter to disturb the meeting.”

  “The mountain?” Mary nodded her head at the enormous fellow. “What are you to do? I have heard of bulls being let loose on field preachers, but he looks far more fearsome.”

  Rowland just smiled and walked toward the man. “Ah, my good Goliath!”

  The fighter turned to him with a surly look and flexed his muscles. A murmur went through the nearby observers.

  “Excuse me, sir.” Rowland spoke just to his Goliath but in a voice that others could hear. “I have come a great distance to preach to this congregation, and you can see from their carriages and other conveyances that the people have traveled a long way to hear me. I am therefore anxious to have an orderly service. Now if anything should occur, you are just the man to put matters straight. Can I rely upon your honor to do so?”

  Goliath raised his huge, hairy fist and shook it in the air, causing those around him to take a step backwards. He glared into the crowd, then turned back to Rowland, and spoke in a booming voice. “If anybody meddles with you, he will have to take the consequences.”

  That afternoon Rowland preached on the Scripture verse, “Ye must be born again.” There was not a single interruption to the entire service. Before the hour was out, the rain ceased and upwards of a hundred souls sought the salvation Rowland Hill preached to them.