“You know what Stephen Redfurn is, sir,” observed Mr Linacre. “Roger beats even him for mischief. And we are at their mercy, sir. There is not a magistrate, as you know, that will hear a complaint from one of us against the country-people. We get nothing but trouble, and expense, and ridicule, by making complaints. We know this beforehand; for the triumph is always on the other side.”
“It is hard,” said the pastor: “but still,—here is only a man, a woman, and a boy. Cannot you defend yourselves against them?”
“No, sir; because they are not an honourable enemy,” replied Mr Linacre. “If Stephen would fight it out with me on even ground, we would see who would beat: and I dare say my boy there, though none of the roughest, would stand up against Roger. But such fair trials do not suit them, sir. People who creep through drains, to do us mischief, and hide in the reeds when we are up and awake, and come in among us only when we are asleep, are a foe that may easily ruin any honest man, who cannot get protection from the law. They houghed my cow, two years ago, sir.”
“And they mixed all mother’s feathers, for the whole year,” exclaimed Mildred.
“And they blinded my dog,” cried Oliver;—“put out its eyes.”
“Oh! What will they do next?” said Mildred, looking up through her tears at the pastor.
“Worse things than even these have been done to some of the people in my village,” replied the pastor: “and they have been borne, Mildred, without tears.”
Mildred made haste to wipe her eyes.
“And what do you think, my dears, of the life our Protestant brethren are leading now, in some parts of the world?”
“Father came away from France because he was ill-used for being a Protestant,” said Oliver.