‘My fruit is being brought forth to Perfection. I am ripe in Christ. For Truth requires Plainness and Simplicity and my seed is sown. For the sorrowful nights of affliction are over, and the sun is burst upon us.’
Imagine my children what astonishment I received this with, I that was almost stuck fast with cold and could barely see my hand before me in the extremest danger of death and no allaying of the storm in sight with the words of the late service ashen as it were in my mouth and the wind whipping my hood almost threadbare and poor Mr Scablehorne’s span almost up beside me. Imagine my astonishment — nay, even fear — at those fateful words that appeared to me familiar and awful, except that I could not bring myself to imagine that the quaking habit had fallen upon mine own curate and rather imagined that this extremity of exposure had bred in him a kind of despair, or foolishness, and that he was not in his right mind.
And so, not wishing to break the truth of our situation too quick upon him, I put my hand upon his that was without glove upon mine arm and said:
‘It is meet that your thoughts should be filled with sunshine, Mr Kistle, for the inward man is the vital, and is fed by the Scriptures, which are the very Light of life.’
And I reached into mine pocket which was already sodden and bringing out mine holy Book laid his hand upon it and sought the lanthorn and did hold it above the holy Book, that the feeble rays might illumine sufficient to bring my curate out of his distraction.
And I did call out, through the great noise, ‘Herein are all things necessary to the eternal life. Though we cannot read we can lay our hands upon this Truth and think on our sins, and on the Day of Judgement. This shall be as the bread for the hungry, and the wine for the thirsty, and our mantle for the cold, Mr Kistle.’
But he then straightway seized hold of the Book that is the Light of our Lord and the Word of God and the path to our salvation if rightfully understood and inwardly digested, and did pull it violently out of my hands, and did hurl it from me, into the blackness and misery of the night, so that for a moment I was stonied into silence and could utter no word but a sort of gargling.
Bereft as it were of the Word itself, viciously cast into darkness.
And so astonied was I that my fingers let hold of the lanthorn, that straightway rolled across the snow throwing out its light as a wheel till snuffed by that motion.
And all was as blind as in the beginning before the Spirit of our God moved upon the face of the waters.
And despite my poor clerk being seized at that moment with a most severe coughing that did send his bloody gob forcefully against my cheek I could not turn to him in mine own extremity, but instantly did hurl myself forward into the night’s blasts, searching upon my knees for our holy Book. But so forcefully buffeted was I by that horrid tempest, that I was cast to the ground and did thereupon weep in the snow for my staff and our salvation. And when I rose again I was as the seed thrown upon the wind hurled hither and thither till my hand alighted upon a cloak of wool, being manna in that desert fastness, which did thereupon crumble to ashes in my mouth when I did handle it further and understand that it was but the frozen carcass of a sheep, withered almost to fleece and bone. Yet so distracted was I that I dragged it towards our poor shelter, and laid the sheep upon Mr Scablehorne’s legs, that had but the thinnest of leggings about them otherwise.
And still in that severe cold the beast did have a smell about it. O let us pray the Day of Judgement doth swiftly come, that our corrupt bodies may put on the mantle of innocence and our black and unwholesome bile be scoured and the blown flies fall away that our flesh and bones may walk cleanly into the house of our Lord.
Then instantly turning and fumbling in that blackness for Mr Kistle’s collar, that I soon found, I tugged him, as it were, out of his exultations.
For wrath is oft just.
‘Mr Kistle,’ cried I, ‘what mean you in throwing from us our holy Book, that is our Staff of Life, we being in such extremity and so near to death as it may be we are?’
And he did shout out, in a high voice:
‘Welcome the Resurrection! The Scriptures are but the way not the means!’
And I replied, in a trembling voice:
‘They are the Word of God, Mr Kistle!’
And he cried out again:
‘Worms might have God’s Word for supper, I say! Welcome the Resurrection!’
‘What are they then, Mr Kistle, if not the Word of God?’
‘Christ is within us! Open thyself and be free! Cast off! Cast off! Welcome the Resurrection!’
And other such roarings.
Then hanging though he was from my grip upon his collar, he did bring his mouth to mine ear, so that I could smell the sourness of his feeble breath, and uttered, quite certain of his wits, the following:
‘The Scriptures are but the declaration of the stipulations of the Saints, Mr Brazier. Let the worm now have them. Open thyself and be free.’
And at that moment the clouds tore asunder before the moon and a brilliant light was cast through the rent and indeed Mr Kistle’s collar choosing to tear at that same moment he fell from me onto the snow, so that I was delivered of the frightful vision of his glimmering face that the moon had illumined.
But still disbelieving of the filthy stinking blasphemies that had pierced the blasts, and fearful lest the wicked nature of the hummock had infected us with its fumes, I lifted up Mr Kistle from where he lay upon the snow upon his face, and asked him what need the Scriptures, and my ministry, and his curate’s post, and the Communion of the Church of England, if he had the Word of Christ within him and naught else needed. And raising his arms on high and shaking in his error so that I well nigh lost my grip upon his hair he did shout out that naught else was needed, that he had Perfection inwardly and God was in his conscience and that if I were to understand this I would cast aside my vestments and blossom. And the moon shone upon a sheet of snow that had adhered to his face within which his eyes and his mouth shifted constantly and so filled with horror was I by this vision that I stepped back and tripped upon William Scablehorne or rather the sheep about which his arms were held for he had evidently derived comfort therefrom. And sprawled beside him I saw that the bottle was drained at his lips, and that a mess of his fluids lay upon his cheek, and that he was no more in the living realm than the withered beast bound by his arms, against whose poor flayed skull his own face did nestle with a like grin.
I see in your own faces, my children, a mingling of horror and sorrow. We know not when the sickle of God will sweep deeply into us. His harvest obeys not summer. Mr Scablehorne now rests, my children, in the quietest of sleeps, sure of having performed his small round. And having filled his narrow way with an abundance of song and inward rejoicing and general diligence most especially witnessed in the white cleanliness of this surplice of which only having one, such is the thinness of my living, it must needs be cared for mightily, in all this lies the reward of a greater life, a peck to weigh in the scales and naught to scoff at.
And having ascertained his state I speedily administered the appropriate rites and fervently prayed for him even in mine own extremity of cold that was beginning to seize me like a vice. And I would indeed have covered his face with his own coat, but his limbs were exceeding stiff and I could not prise them from about the aforesaid sheep.
And so left him, alas, uncovered.
As ye have no doubt known of.
As ye have no doubt known of, and lamented thereof, from out of a whisper on the filthy wind, though not the worst that hath carried its poison amongst thee! A whisper carried calumniously against thy minister who did through his own trembling lay that soul to sleep nevertheless, my children, with the words that are ever fit.