Isaac has to deal with Discordant feelings!

When we entered The Black Swan, we interrupted a Methodist Class Meeting led by  Benjamin Gregory, a charismatic character, very popular among the poor in the area.

Isaac’s wife Esther liked him, and it was she who had arranged for this little Class Meeting to be held in their pub. I was intrigued by what I heard – real hearty singing; words by Samuel’s father – ‘Love divine, all loves excelling’ – and sung to a catchy local folk-song – and, if I’m not mistaken, a tune harmonised by Samuel himself!

(A modern copy of Samuel Wesley’s setting of ‘Love Divine’)

‘I can’t get rid of that darned Wesley family!’ muttered Isaac, and dashing upstairs into his living space, he thrust me under the bed. 

That night, in my hearing, he couldn’t keep his secret any longer, telling Esther everything about his catastrophic day, about his pent-up festering jealousies, his anger and rage towards Samuel Wesley, and then his impetuous thieving act of revenge. Esther was deeply troubled.  I heard that same note of pain and crucifixion in her voice, a sound which was still resonating and reverberating in me from the ‘Chaconne’ in the hospital.

In no way could Samuel Wesley be Thomas’s father! 

‘Surely, Isaac’, said Esther, ‘you must have been storing up so much resentment because of your wild and irrational imagination!’ –  words to that effect! 

She reached down under the bed and carefully took me out of my case, gently caressing and strumming my strings.

‘You must take this beautiful instrument back to its owner immediately!  Go back to Bethel and confess to Wesley and return his precious fiddle!’.  And I insist you come to our next Class Meeting; there you will find real comfort and joy in the assurance of God’s forgiveness!’

(A Methodist Class Meeting Ticket – 1822)

The sound of confession

So, early next morning, off we went – back to Bethel.  As you can imagine, I was feeling vulnerable and shaken, pushed from pillar to sound post, and with so many conflicting and misapprehending voices ringing through my fragile frame. Isaac, of course, was totally unaware that I belonged to someone other than his ‘bete noire’!  We soon found Samuel Wesley, and – to Isaac’s utter amazement – Isaac’s mother Judith sitting together, deep in conversation!    When Wesley caught sight of us, he welcomed us with such great warmth, far more than he offered to my Sir George Smart the day before! There was something in his tone of voice which told me he was much more at home with ordinary ‘working’ people like Isaac and his mother than with pretentious aristocrats, or even well-to-do clergymen like his uncle and his father!  But, of course, he was delighted to see ME!

Isaac, without hesitation, launched into his confession about stealing Wesley’s fiddle and admitting to his fanatical fantasy of his being the father of Esther’s eldest child.  (And I must say, he sounded genuinely repentant with sorrowful ‘stimmung’).  Wesley burst into hysterical laughter!  Rejecting the rumour of his fathering Esther’s Thomas with a fleeting dismissive gesture, he then shouted:

‘Ha! Pompous old Sir George ‘Smart-arse’ left here last night in a right old state, after discovering his precious violin – now YOUR precious violin, the one under your arm – had gone missing!  I was just telling Judith here that he was blaming ME for leaving it unattended when we went into the garden for a walk together!’

(Sir George ‘Smart-arse’ Smart)

‘What! That’s Not your fiddle!’, exclaimed Isaac.

‘That’s worse than ever!  I’ll have to go and find that lummox ‘Smart-arse’, and confess all over again!’

An outrageous plan

Wesley told him not to fret.  And then he came up with an outrageous plan.   He said that Isaac needn’t return me to my rightful owner, old ‘Smart-arse’ Smart. 

 ‘That fiddle is far too good for him, and Sir George is so ‘full of himself’, I enjoy seeing him brought down a peg or two! [Was this mention of ‘pegs’ intentional? I’m very protective of my tuning pegs!]  I’d like you to have it so that ‘real’ people can have the joy of hearing its beauty and its unusually rich sounds’.

 ‘Judith tells me you’ve got music in your blood, inherited from your grandma, and you’ve played a friend’s fiddle a few times in The Black Swan and at harvest fairs, with a natural talent for feeling the musical soul of the locals.’

But there was a condition

He went on to explain that he had been working at setting some of his father Charles’s hymns to melodies which ordinary ‘everyday’ Methodists could easily sing, along with harmonies which could enrich them.  He had recently published a collection of 38 of these hymns, ‘Harmony in the Heart’, with some words from a couple of Moravians and others from his father and his uncle. 

 ‘So as to assure you there is nothing between me and your Esther, I want you, Isaac Richardson, to encourage the Methodists around here to sing these beautiful hymns, and play the music which matches their poetic spirit’.

Well, I think I felt the shock of this ‘in my bones’ (i.e.‘in my frame’) as much as did Isaac!  Here was this ‘madman’ genius who yesterday was thought to be Thomas’s father, now asking Isaac to throw himself into the arms of these resented Wesleyans, and promote and encourage a ‘stylish’ way of singing and expressing their raucous hymns!   And on top of it all, Esther was insisting he should join her ‘holy’ Class Meetings!