The Weavers | Page 3

heard Quakers use "thee" in just such a way in England and America.
The facts are, however, that Quakers differ extensively in their habits,
and there grew up in England among the Quakers in certain districts a
sense of shame for false grammar which, to say the least, was very
childish. To be deliberately and boldly ungrammatical, when you serve
both euphony and simplicity, is merely to give archaic charm, not to be
guilty of an offence. I have friends in Derbyshire who still say "Thee

thinks," etc., and I must confess that the picture of a Quaker rampant
over my deliberate use of this well-authenticated form of speech
produced to my mind only the effect of an infuriated sheep, when I
remembered the peaceful attribute of Quaker life and character. From
another quarter came the assurance that I was wrong when I set up a
tombstone with a name upon it in a Quaker graveyard. I received a
sarcastic letter from a lady on the borders of Sussex and Surrey upon
this point, and I immediately sent her a first-class railway ticket to
enable her to visit the Quaker churchyard at Croydon, in Surrey, where
dead and gone Quakers have tombstones by the score, and inscriptions
on them also. It is a good thing to be accurate; it is desperately essential
in a novel. The average reader, in his triumph at discovering some
slight error of detail, would consign a masterpiece of imagination,
knowledge of life and character to the rubbish-heap.
I believe that 'The Weavers' represents a wider outlook of life, closer
understanding of the problems which perplex society, and a clearer
view of the verities than any previous book written by me, whatever its
popularity may have been. It appealed to the British public rather more
than 'The Right of Way', and the great public of America and the
Oversea Dominions gave it a welcome which enabled it to take its
place beside 'The Right of Way', the success of which was unusual.

NOTE
This book is not intended to be an historical novel, nor are its
characters meant to be identified with well-known persons connected
with the history of England or of Egypt; but all that is essential in the
tale is based upon, and drawn from, the life of both countries. Though
Egypt has greatly changed during the past generation, away from Cairo
and the commercial centres the wheels of social progress have turned
but slowly, and much remains as it was in the days of which this book
is a record in the spirit of the life, at least. G. P.

"Dost thou spread the sail, throw the spear, swing the axe, lay thy hand
upon the plough, attend the furnace door, shepherd the sheep upon the
hills, gather corn from the field, or smite the rock in the quarry? Yet,
whatever thy task, thou art even as one who twists the thread and

throws the shuttle, weaving the web of Life. Ye are all weavers, and
Allah the Merciful, does He not watch beside the loom?"

BOOK I

CHAPTER I
AS THE SPIRIT MOVED
The village lay in a valley which had been the bed of a great river in the
far-off days when Ireland, Wales and Brittany were joined together and
the Thames flowed into the Seine. The place had never known turmoil
or stir. For generations it had lived serenely.
Three buildings in the village stood out insistently, more by the
authority of their appearance and position than by their size. One was a
square, red-brick mansion in the centre of the village, surrounded by a
high, redbrick wall enclosing a garden. Another was a big, low,
graceful building with wings. It had once been a monastery. It was
covered with ivy, which grew thick and hungry upon it, and it was
called the Cloistered House. The last of the three was of wood, and of
no great size--a severely plain but dignified structure, looking like
some council-hall of a past era. Its heavy oak doors and windows with
diamond panes, and its air of order, cleanliness and serenity, gave it a
commanding influence in the picture. It was the key to the history of
the village--a Quaker Meeting-house.
Involuntarily the village had built itself in such a way that it made a
wide avenue from the common at one end to the Meeting-house on the
gorse- grown upland at the other. With a demure resistance to the will
of its makers the village had made itself decorative. The people were
unconscious of any attractiveness in themselves or in their village.
There were, however, a few who felt the beauty stirring around them.
These few, for their knowledge and for the pleasure which it brought,
paid the accustomed price.