The Road Home
THE ROAD HOME
When John had lived at Oxford for nearly ten years he began to think often of Epworth. It had been long since he and Charles had visited there. He could close his eyes and seem to smell the musky odor of the thatched roof of their early home and the clean, washed smell of dawn on wet leaves. Now, as he sat and heard the tap-tapping of a finger of green ivy on his window, he knew that summer was near. A door downstairs slammed shut and he heard the quick steps of Charles on the way up. John smiled and rose to greet him.
Charles sat down by the window. Together they stared at the sprig of ivy, which seemed to call to them to come out.
"T will make a guess as to your thoughts, Charles," smiled John. "They are home in Epworth, aren't they?"
Charles looked startled. "Yes, brother, but how did you know?"
"Mine are there, too. Perhaps it is the warm wind. Perhaps it is the letters we have had of late. Kezia writes that Father is not so well now."
"I£ we could go home for a few days?"
"Why not?"
Charles held out his empty hands, palms up. "Without coach fare? How could we? We have no horses, you know."
John smiled again. "Then we will walk." He laughed out-_ right at his brother's look of amazement.
"Have you forgotten that Epworth is beyond a hundred miles from here>"
"We can do it."
Charles went to make up a small bundle of a few necessities.
He knew that if John said they could do it, they could.
The brothers set out. Roads were scarcely more than tracks, rutted with holes, often filled with stones and water. Fine coaches and horsemen galloped past, scattering them with mud. But Charles laughed, and John suggested that they try two things.
They would speak nothing but Latin, for practice, and they would attempt to read while walking the two books they had brought.
This was no easy matter. Once John, with his eyes on a book, stepped into a muddy hole to the knees. After that, the one who was reading aloud walked just behind the other, to keep from falling.
The two brothers grew used to tramping as much as twentyfive miles a day. As they neared the village of Epworth their steps were brisk and they smiled at each other. There was the shop of
the butcher. And there was the old cloakmaker behind his little oreen-glass window. There was the quiet church, surrounded by its graves. And there was the Wesley parsonage, not so new now as when they had left it, somehow looking smaller than they remembered it. No straw thatch was on the roof, to risk a fire, but John smiled when he saw that a small brown bird had built her nest in the vines climbing above the windows. Perhaps this was of the same family of birds that had so annoyed the Reverend
Wesley by building in the thatch of the old cottage?
Home was the same, and yet different. John noticed at once that his father's step was slower, his shoulders more bowed, and that he put one gnarled hand on his heart when he moved quickly.
But Mr. Wesley had an eye as keen and a mind as alert for knowledge and for good works as ever. Mrs. Wesley still walked erectly and spoke with the old authority. Her hair showed gray under the ruffle of her neat cap. John and Charles saw the light of pleasure come into her face as she welcomed her sons home again.
Susanna, Emilia, and Kezia were here. Anne had died some years before. Mary, who was an invalid, lived at Wroote with her husband, the pastor, John Whitelamb. Hetty had left home when she married. Martha was now Mrs. Hall, living in London.
There her gift for poetry had made her a friend of the famous Dr.
Samuel Johnson. Susanna was back with her parents, after an unfortunate marriage that had not lasted.
Charles frowned at John as he saw that there was so little bread that their mother had not taken any. But he said nothing about it. And he and John brought smiles to their parents' faces with talk of Oxford, the Holy Club, and the friendship of another
young minister, George Whitefield, a member of their group.
Supper over, the family arose. But before they could reach the door, the latch flew up, and the door slowly opened a crack.
Kezia jumped back and shrieked, "That is Jeffrey! See!"
John stepped forward and flung the door wider open. But the hallway was empty. He smiled at Kezia. "Look here, sister.
This Jeffrey? Is he the same mysterious ghost that you wrote about when I was at Charterhouse, when you were a little girl>"
"Yes, Jeffrey is our ghost, Jack. He lives in the attic."
"Nonsense, Kezia, you don't really believe that, do you?"
But, on looking about him, John saw the family glancing uneasily at one another. He was a little disturbed himself during family prayers. As the old minister prayed, there were queer raps and knockings. They seemed to come from the table. Or was it the door? As soon as he got up from his knees, John went to look into the hall again. He found it as empty as before.
During their short stay both Charles and John wondered at
their sisters. This was a lonely place for girls who had received an education. And the girls were so poor that they could not leave.
They had to wear made-over clothes. By the time Kezia got a dress it had been worn by three or four others for years. Perhaps they entertained themselves imagining Jeffrey? If so, they did a good job of it. John, sitting quietly reading, would hear the door bang and see Susanna holding it stubbornly with her shoulder.
"Tt's Jeffrey," she said firmly, "and I shall not let him in."
John shook his head, but half believed in the ghost, too.
When John and Charles returned to Oxford, John was offered a place as assistant minister eight miles away. Now he became a preacher who rode from place to place on horseback. Farmers plodding the road got used to seeing the small thin man, on a slow horse, reading a book as he rode. Always in his saddlebags he carried books. After a while he began to translate foreign books into English. In his sermons he shared what he learned with the people.
He also shared his books with them, when they could read them.
To be good, a man must understand, and to understand he must read.
Old Samuel Wesley was growing weaker. He wished to have John take his place in Epworth. John considered this, and his older brother, Samuel, advised him to do it. John was coughing again, and was losing weight. One day as he rode beside a stream he felt a rush of blood from his mouth. This meant the dreaded disease, tuberculosis. He dismounted from his horse and plunged into the cold stream to stop the blood. What should he do? Life would be easier for him at Epworth, but he felt that his gifts did not belong in so small a place. As he rode on, he decided that he would not go to Epworth.
In 1735 Samuel Wesley died. Susanna Wesley left the parsonage to live with her daughters, first one and then another.
Brother Samuel was married and was teaching in London. At Oxford, John and Charles often talked of what they wanted to do.
They remembered the stories their mother had told of the wonderful work of the Danish missionaries. Their thoughts turned toward
such work. They listened eagerly to the tales of the American wilderness that were spreading in England.
Colonel Oglethorpe, who had already taken two shiploads of debtors from the prisons to his colony in Georgia, was back in England. John and Charles heard of the Indian chief who had come with him. The Wesley brothers talked of going to Georgia as missionaries to preach to the Indians. John's health was much improved. His outdoor life, and his regular way of living, had cured him of tuberculosis. His cough had left him, and he felt ready for new undertakings. He found that the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts would send him to Georgia. And Charles was promised a position as secretary to Colonel Oglethorpe.
The brothers worried about their mother. How would she take such news? They went to see her, to tell her that they were soon to sail to America. Her eyes lighted with pride, and the staunch old lady, as commanding as ever, said, "Had I twenty sons,
I should rejoice if they were all so employed."
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