. Indeed the one hundred and
fifty miles that separate Retford in Nottinghamshire from Carlisle in
far-off Cumberland would have been a long distance even for a
full-grown man to travel on foot in those far-off, railroad-less days
of 1652. Whereas little James, who had undertaken this journey right
across England, was but a boy of sixteen, delicate and small for his
age.

'Ye will never get there, James,' the neighbours cried when he
unfolded his plans. 'To go afoot to Carlisle! Did any one ever hear
the like? It would be a wild-goose chase, even if a man hoped to come
to speak with a King in his palace at the end of it; but for _thee_ to
go such a journey in order to speak but for a few moments with a man
thou dost not know, and in prison, it is nothing but a daft notion!
What ails thee, boy?'

The only answer James gave was to knit his brows more firmly together,
and to mutter resolutely to himself, as he gathered his few belongings
into a bundle, 'I must and I will see George Fox!'

George Fox! The secret was out. That was the explanation of this
fantastic journey. George Fox, after gathering a 'great people' up in
the North, was now himself kept a close prisoner in Carlisle Gaol: yet
he was the magnet attracting this lad, frail of body but determined of
will, to travel right across England for the hope of speaking with him
in his prison cell.

* * * * *

Let us look back a little and see how this befell.

In the stately old church of Saint Swithin at East Retford a record
shows that 'James, son of Thomas Parnell and Sarah his wife, was
baptized there on the sixth day of September 1636.' James' parents
were pious church people. It must have been a proud and thankful day
for them when they took their baby son to be christened in the
beautiful old font in that church, where their elder daughter, Sarah,
had received her name a few years before. On the font may still be
seen the figure of Saint Swithin himself, the patron Saint of the
church. This gentle saint, whose dying wish had been that he might be
buried in no stately building of stone but 'where his grave might be
trod by human feet and watered with the raindrops of heaven,' was the
guardian the parents chose for their little lad. All through his short
life the boy seems to have shared this love of Nature and of the open
air.

James' parents were well-to-do people, and wisely determined to give
their only son a good educati