Staying Forever
It’s said the past is a foreign country. The future is no more a comprehensible place to arrive at: With its foreign tropes; its loose, complicated, easiness. A world where the horizons have shrunk so that everywhere is a distance measured in hours of travel. The here, the now, easily bewilders, bemuses, confuses.
Not that I travel any magnificent distances.
Once, once I made a great journey, and maybe that is where my regrets have their source. Or maybe like all great rivers, it is merely one of many, many, tributaries.
April 1681
“The minister asked why you were not in church this morning.”
“And what did you tell the hell-breathing leech?” I sat at the crude wooden bench which was the focus of our small living area. Near my elbow a small leather flagon of weak home-brewed beer stood next to a platter, scattered with the remains of my lunch. I looked at my wife, returned from the day’s service and the ten-mile round trip on foot it entailed.
“I told him enough to protect us, so he makes no trouble in the parish. But John there will be consequences, and soon, because of your pride,” she said.
I watched as she removed her woolen cloak, hung it near the door. She moved to the table and gathered my plate. Her movements were small and jerky, failing to cover her anxiety and frustration. The fire hissed as she scraped the remains from the plate into it.
“Mary, my dearest, I have news for you that makes Pastor Carson irrelevant.”
Stopping, she turned to look at me, worry lines creasing her brow, lips pursed into a cupid’s bow. She tucked wisps of dark hair behind her ear and waited for me to speak.
“I have more word from Master Penn. His messenger came this morning. Although we have different views on scripture, we are of the same mind on each man's right to be unbound by either the King, or his religious popinjays. Master Penn has permitted us to join him in a new venture, Mary we are going to the new world to be free!”
Mary smothered a gasp with her hand. She knew I had been in correspondence with William Penn; his Lordship she called him. She seemed impressed that an aristocrat was willing to be in contact with a man of no status or wealth, such as I. To share ideas freely and be willing to accept her lowly husbands’ thoughts.
Like an increasing number I was strong, not only in arm, but in mind and spirit; dissatisfied with the layering of society that was accepted, by so many, as right and ongoing. In Master Penn, there seemed to be a man open to such thoughts, and with the ability to do more than merely talk; giving hope to those of us held lower down the ranks of society.
Unusually, for the child of a tenant farmer in rural Lincolnshire, my father had me taught to read. I devoured words in the ravenous manner a runt suckles when it latches onto a teat. Later, I was apprenticed to a forward-thinking guildsman. He too encouraged me to read. But also, to think, and to express myself. He gave me access to more books, folios and pamphlets than I could reasonably have expected, philosophy, theology, plays. I read them all.
It gave me ideas above my 'natural station’ according to many. When my Master died unexpectedly, the council of guildsmen acted decisively to ensure that I was offered no other position. They then acted with wicked vindictiveness by providing no reference or reason for a half finished apprenticeship, making it appear I had left under a cloud.
By then, Mary and I had already formed an attachment, so we hastened our plans for marriage. Through friends of my father we found an old tithe cottage, fallen into disrepair. In return for restoring it, we negotiated a peppercorn rent for the first ten years. We would not be here for all of those years.
“When are we to go, how, when, what about…” Mary waved her arms about as the enormity of the matter hit her. Reaching out my arms, I gathered her towards me, sitting her beside me.
Moving the thirty or so miles from her home town had been difficult, even though she left behind no family of note, following the death of her mother. Her father had re-married quickly and made it clear that she was now a botherment in his life.
But this would be a move to leave everything familiar. All the rhythms of life which were natural and comfortable would be uprooted and displaced in ways that neither of us could fully comprehend. I had already considered the matter deeply, but for Mary the surprise was coming as a sudden clap of thunder does on one of the muggy summer afternoons we’ve had these past few years.
“It will be strange my love, it will be new. But I am promised we will have land of our own, good land, where we can build our own home and raise our family. This colony will be a holy experiment, the seed of a holy nation, if God so wills it.” The words Lord Penn had written excited me, and I wanted to take away the worries of my dear wife and replace them with the enthusiasm that I had.
“This is sudden John, I had no idea you were considering such a thing. How are we to do this?”
So I told her of the plans as I knew them. Along with the offer to travel we had also received a grant of land. We were to join a ship with other colonists. That on arriving in the new world, we would all travel together to our allotted land, and assist each other in constructing our dwellings, laying out a town and building society anew.
I told her we were to leave before the summer solstice.
While William Penn, and his views, existed, John and Mary are creations. The reality of many folks living within a few miles of their birthplace is also a reality of the time.
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
text and picture by stuartcturnbull. picture created via openart.ai