The Pilgrim

by Hugh Nissenson

  One night, lying side by side abed in our chamber, Hendy asked me, “Are you interested in taking Mistress Sarah to wife? I will confess to you that I have sometimes thought of courting her. ’Tis said her father will provide her with a large dowry. In truth, the prospect of marrying a fortune tempts me, but I cannot help but wonder what lies beneath her veil.

  “What of her nose? What is left of it? You cannot tell through her veil. Suppose the flesh between her nostrils has been eaten away? ’Tis possible. One big hole! Pah!”

  • • •

  I received an answer to my letter, writ in my attorney’s hand, from my uncle Roger.

  He thanked me for “The Rat Catcher’s Song,” writing, “I have already committed it to my prodigious memory—prodigious—that is my new word. I learned it from your attorney.” Then he wrote,

  Peter Patch was hanged after a felon who stole firewood from Sir Francis Fulford. The felon’s brother brake his neck. Up to that moment, I was determined to do likewise for Peter Patch but thereafter could not bring myself to suffer that drenching, just as your father, true Christian that he was, had suffered it for Mary Puckering. God forgive me, but I could not do it. Poor Peter paid the price. It took him many minutes to die. I shall spare you the details.

  The evening following, Zachariah Rigdale brought me my new stool. Hendy was that night at the Bear and Ragged Staff. He reveled there night by night with his wild companions repeating lascivious jests.

  Rigdale said, “God help me, I have a great passion to preach the Gospel. I have always had this passion. I was born and raised with my younger brother, John, in London. Poor John! I preached to him on every occasion that was afforded me. My greatest joy as a boy was to harken unto the preachers preaching on a Sabbath afternoon at Paul’s Cross. At the age of fourteen, I preached a sermon there on the text of Isaiah 6:7 wherein an angel of the Lord touched the Prophet’s mouth with a burning coal saying, ‘Thine iniquity shall be taken away, and thy sin shall be purged.’

  “I was arrested for preaching without a licence. My master—for I was by then apprenticed to a joiner—paid my fine.

  “Look you, I am a master joiner. I make a goodly amount of money. I belong to the Company of Joiners. We keep a garden in Friar Lane wherein I read Scripture on a bench under a pear tree. Sometimes, in the garden, my heart is filled with the spirit of the Lord and I preach to the pear tree. The preaching of the Word is a gift not tied to the person of a Minister!

  “But it grows now very late. I want very much to hear of your life. I warrant that the Lord hath touched you, too. I could tell from the change in your countenance as I spake. Come to my chambers sometime after a Sabbath ends. I live above my shop. There you will speak to me and I will harken unto you, as on this night you have harkened unto me.”

  • • •

  One morning, my master bade me accompany Sarah and her maid into London to buy some linen. In the shop, Sarah purchased two ells of cambric to make into lace. On the way home, she asked me when I was stricken with the smallpox and I replied, “Recently.”

  “Thank God for it! You had a happy youth. I was stricken at the age of eleven. The smallpox killed my two younger sisters. One day, at the age of thirteen, I heard a pretty gentlewoman say to her husband, ‘I am sick at heart for that poor girl but cannot wrest my gaze from her pitted cheeks.’ I have worn a veil ever since. Why hath God done this to me?”

  “Perhaps to bring you closer to Him by your suffering.”

  “That is what I strive to believe. Have you been born again?”

  “Yes, by the grace of God, I have. But my faith in Christ is a feeble thing.”

  She said, “Alas for us!”

  And I said, “Alas for us!”

  We walked to the Thames, which was filled with hundreds of boats and hundreds and hundreds of swans, swimming in snowy flocks. We watched a crow drop into the water, catch a dead fish floating atop the waves, and fly away with it.

  Sarah said, “I know not if God cares for the sparrow, but ’tis certain that He dotes upon the carrion crow.”

  My master oft did business in The Bear and Ragged Staff, and I sometimes sat with him and his client, making notes. I learned many words describing the degrees of the drunken, blaspheming vagabonds around us: rufflers (thieving beggars, apprentice uprightmen), uprightmen (leaders of robber bands), hookers or anglers (thieves who steal through open windows with hooks), &c. &c. This was the world of kinchin koes wherein Ben had lived.

  I yearned for Ben’s garden, Dorset’s meadows and downs, and the smell of roses and freshly mown hay rather than the noisome stench of horse manure from the mews and offal rotting in the muddy streets. There is a street just north of Charing Cross called Dirty Street, which could be the name of all the streets in London and its suburbs.

  One morning, my master said, “Come with me, Wentworth, to Newgate Prison, wherein, at the behest of the prison chaplain, I shall try to save a horse thief named Francis Crocker from a horrible death. He stole a gelding from a stable on Algate Street and sold it for sixteen pounds to a knight before being arrested, arraigned, and imprisoned. The poor fool stood mute and spake not at his arraignment. He would not reveal to the magistrate the whereabouts of his stolen money, which would otherwise be confiscated by the king. As a result, he was sentenced to be pressed to death. Aye, you heard me: pressed to death.

  “He’ll be pressed to death by huge weights laid upon a board over his breasts, with sharp stones placed under his back. And he’ll be pressed slowly. Very slowly. It will take him two or three days to die. In the end, his ribs will break like frozen twigs. Man’s sinful desires make him impatient of government and subjection. Untamed spirits require judgment, prisons, even torture and the gallows to keep the world quiet.

  “Crocker held his peace to save his goods for his wife and babe. But if Crocker surrenders the sixteen pounds, he will only be hanged at Wapping. He hath hid the money somewhere. His wife knows its hiding place but will not tell without his permission. A dutiful wife, she obeys him in all things. He does not know it, but they will likely put her to the torture. She beseeched the prison chaplain—an idle, drunken lout—who asked me to try to persuade her husband to confess. Not for herself, mind you, but for his sake. She loves him dearly.

  “The common people, you know, can love each other dearly. Why, we are told that some of ’em are saved!

  “Come with me this morning to Newgate, Wentworth, and I will show you that even though I do not keep the Sabbath as well as you, I am as compassionate a Christian.”

  “I doubt it not, sir.”

  “Yes, you do, but durst not say so. Well, I agree with the Reverend Doctor Sommer: God made some rich and some poor for a divine purpose.”

  Crocker, chained up to a wet stone wall by his wrists, was being fed a loaf of barley bread and given ale to sip from a cup, which was held to his lips by his wife, who had laid their babe on a pile of rotten straw at her feet. Crocker was as pale as a new cheese. He said, “Body of me, wife, pick up the babe! Pick up the babe, or he will be eaten alive by rats. There’s a rat in here as big as a cat. I durst not close my eyes to sleep lest he gnaw off my toes. Rats, fleas, and flies! Rats, fleas and flies! Fie! The flies crawl up my nose.”

  His wife said, “Master Appletree, the attorney, is here to entreat you to reveal where you hid the sixteen pounds.”

  My master said, “Crocker, I pray you to comfort your good wife by surrendering the money. What say you?”

  “I say no! And again no! For if I do, who will care for her and our babe? They will be forced out on the streets to beg and to sleep in the mud beneath the hedges. They will starve or freeze. I cannot inflict that fate on those I so much love. What sort of a husband and father would I be?”

  My master said, “You will be the kind of husband that condemns his wife to torture. She will likely be put to the torture unless she tells where th
e money is hid.”

  “The torture?”

  “The whip and the rack.”

  “I did not know. I cannot bear it. I will tell.”

  Appleton said, “Where is the money hid?”

  “Do you know Bermondsey? ’Tis a little village on the south side of the river, opposite the Tower. We were born there, my wife and I, and there I thought my money would allow her to buy a cottage, a vegetable garden, some fruit trees, and a cow. I care not for fruit myself. She and the babe could live a goodly life in Bermondsey.

  “I worked as a groom in a stable on Algate Street. I stole a milk-white gelding and sold it to a gentleman for sixteen pounds. Sixteen pounds! Body of me, I was a rich man!

  “The villainous knave who got me arrested is another groom named William Williams. He wanted eight pounds for himself, but I would not share the money. The Judas betrayed me. God hath marked him with a hare lip. He is a mournful soul who cannot find himself a wife. Tell me, sir. How long does it take to be pressed to death?”

  “Two or three days.”

  “Body of me! As long as that? With God’s help, I will endure it for love of my wife and child.”

  His wife wiped his sweaty brow with a torn rag, kissed his filthy naked feet, and said, “Francis, tell the gentleman where you hid the money.”

  “I will, my dear Dorothy, I will. Dost think that I would allow you to be whipped and racked?”

  He said to my master, “I buried the sack of coins in the churchyard of St. Peter’s in Bermondsey, on the right-hand side, beyond the bones by the wall.”

  “I’ll see to it.”

  “Thank you, sir. Hold our babe up to me, Dorothy, that I may kiss his lips.”

  My master said to Dorothy, “Here is a pound and sixpence.”

  “Thank you, master. God save you, sir. You are a true Christian.”

  “I am of the same mind. But tell that to my clerk here.”

  Crocker said, “Good wife, call the keeper hither and pay him two shillings. For two shillings he will give me fresh straw, a goodly portion of meat to eat, and cider to drink. I crave a cup or two of cider ere I die. On the other hand, cider is a windy drink. So are all fruits windy in themselves. Call the keeper! We will have us a feast. But no fruit or cider! They make me fart. Dear God, I want to live!”

  Then he said to me, “Good master, I thank you for your tears.”

  “You are most heartily welcome, Sirrah. Would that mine eyes could mint shillings for you.”

  “Good master, thy tears are worth more to me than shillings, for ’twas your pity for me that minted them. You are a compassionate Christian—a good man!”

  “Thank you.”

  • • •

  I related what had transpired at Newgate to Mistress Sarah at dinner. She asked me, “‘With God’s help, I will endure it for love of my wife and child.’ Were those Crocker’s exact words?”

  “They were.”

  “Dorothy is a fortunate woman. God grant me a husband who loves me as much as Francis Crocker loves his Dorothy!”

  I returned to the apothecary for another decoction that would urge me to procreate. He suggested coriander seeds in sweet wine. I drank two cups a day for weeks, once more to no avail.

  • • •

  My readers will recall that God’s people, like all Englishmen, were subject in the summer of 1618 to a royal decree declaring it lawful to exercise upon the Sabbath after the afternoon service or sermon. Dancing was permitted for either men or women, archery for men, wrestling, leaping, vaulting, May games, Whitsun-ales, and Morris dances. Yea, even the setting up of Maypoles! On the Sabbath! But not bowling. Bowling was prohibited as a sport of the meaner sort of people.

  My master was incensed. “The meaner sort of people! The meaner sort of people! What means His Majesty by the meaner sort of people? Why, the best people bowl. Sir Francis Drake bowled! The richest attorneys in London bowl. My friend, the attorney Christian Martyn bowls! Christian Martyn, who goes in a velvet cloak laid about with russet lace and hath coach-horses and a manor house in Surrey! Christian bowls. We bowled together as youths at Gray’s Inn.

  “But, of course, His Majesty hath spoken, and he is the arbiter of fashion. If His Majesty sayeth the meaner sort of people bowl, why then I shall never bowl again. I shall miss it, though. I am too old to take up archery or wrestling. Can you see me wrestling? Or vaulting at my age? Ah, me! The world is for the young. You are fortunate, Wentworth, to have your youth! But it shall fly, Wentworth; mark me, it shall fly away, and you will have wasted all your Sunday afternoons by praying. They will reckon in the thousands. How old are you? Three-and-twenty?

  “If, by God’s grace, you live to be five-and-forty, that will be—I cannot reckon the sum in my head. But think on it, Wentworth! Think on it! Thousands of Sabbath afternoons, free of work, wasted praying! Forget the future. Think on this coming Sabbath, after church. What will you do on the Sabbath that comes in three days? Pray in your close chamber, read Scripture or the Book of Martyrs? I’ll wager that besides the Bible, that is your favorite book. Am I right? I knew it! It is steeped in Protestant blood. You have the rapt look of a would-be martyr about you.

  “Come this Sabbath, you could be out exercising your strong young body in the fresh air! I bid you, walk again along the Thames with Sarah and Bess. But you hear me not. You might as well have stuffed your ears with shoemaker’s wax. All that I spake to you, I committed to the air. You are an incorrigible Puritan, Wentworth. Incorrigible! Well, I am five-and-forty and shall not waste the Sabbath afternoons I have left to me by praying or reading the Book of Martyrs! But what shall I do, now that I cannot bowl?”

  There was tumult in the realm because the king declared that his decree be promulgated from all the pulpits in the land. The pastors protested so much that the royal declaration stood but need not be read aloud from the pulpit. Even the Reverend Doctor Sommers at St. Martin in the Fields protested—but feebly, for he took as the subject of a sermon, 2 Kings 15: “Elisha said unto him, take bows and arrows, and he took unto him bows and arrows.”

  The Rev. Doctor said, “His Majesty hath commanded us, and I bid you, obey. Good Englishmen, take up bows and arrows on the Lord’s Day and practice with them that we may smite our foes with arrows, as our mighty forebears smote our foes upon the fields of Crécy and Agincourt.

  “Also practice with the musket on the Sabbath! Your papist Spanish soldier is an able musketeer.”

  I knew that God would punish England for violating the Sabbath and went to see Zachariah Rigdale in his chambers above his joiner’s shop. He plucked a wood shaving from his beard and said, “On my life, I agree, this is ominous for England. Those who break the Sabbath will suffer curses and wretchedness. Those who observe it shall thrive in the Lord’s house and in religion and worldly matters. They shall enjoy true prosperity. God will surely take vengeance upon England!”

  We exchanged many bitter words against the form of the established religion. Rigdale fulminated against our churches that hallow water, practice baptism, anoint children by spitting in their mouths, and conduct other lewd ceremonies.

  Then he said to me, “Now, Charles, pray tell me about yourself.”

  “I fear that I am damned.”

  “Damned? What say you? What makes you think such a thing?”

  “I am responsible for my father’s death.”

  “How so?”

  I related the circumstances to him, and he said, “His death was God’s will. Love God and all things are for the best.”

  “My uncle said the very same thing.”

  “God spake through us both.”

  “I want to believe it, but I am far removed from Him.”

  “Who is close to Christ all the time? Am I? Surely not. He comes and goes from me like the tide upon the beach I once saw at Dover. At full tide, I am soaked by Him, i
mmersed in His mercy, but then He leaves me high and dry, covered with sandy sea weed. Right now, at this moment, I am high and dry, covered with sea weed, sand, and cockle shells. Yet I have faith that the living waters—His precious blood—will wash over me again.”

  I said, “We are both of us presently at low tide upon the beach.”

  “Then let us repent and wait upon the Lord together. Pray with me.”

  I harkened to him. On the Sabbath following, I attended his church, St. Dunstan in the East, in Tower Street, wherein the Ten Commandments were painted on the wall above the altar, and the pastor wore a torn surplice. He preached a sermon in the morning and the afternoon to a great parish of many rich merchants and other occupiers of divers trades, namely saltars and ironmongers. Why, I could almost have been at Winterbourne again; one day in the week, on the Lord’s Day, I felt at home. The young Rector, Joannes Childerly, had taken his degree in Divinity at Peterhouse. We talked of Cambridge together, and I was back in my chamber there with Robin, reading Scripture. Robin, my Robin! Burning in hell!

  • • •

  Some months went by. And then, one afternoon at dinner, Mistress Sarah said, “Bess and I go shopping for a loaf of sugar today, Master Charles. Will you bear us company to Fish Street?”

  “I will, indeed.”

  On our way home, Sarah said to me, “Have you found a godly maiden at St. Dunstan in the East?”

  “Why, no, Mistress. I have found no maiden there of any kind.”

  “I am glad to hear it. But if you find one, what should she have to be? Pious, I warrant, and obedient.”

  “Yes, and have an understanding heart.”

  “What must her heart comprehend?”

  “That all my life I will yearn for Christ more than I yearn for her.”

  “That’s not too much to ask of a Christian maid.”

  She stopped by a street vendor, sniffed a meat pie, and inquired of me, “Have you not wondered about my face? Nay, that was not fair of me to ask such a thing. I have discomforted you. Forgive me. Chide me!”