Murphy, who knew well the temper of the mob, cried out, “If you are a bailiff, shew me your writ. Gentlemen, he pretends to arrest me here without a writ.”
Upon this, one of the sturdiest and forwardest of the mob, and who by a superior strength of body and of lungs presided in this assembly, declared he would suffer no such thing. “D—n me,” says he, “away to the pump with the catchpole directly—shew me your writ, or let the gentleman go—you shall not arrest a man contrary to law.”
He then laid his hands on the doctor, who, still fast griping the attorney, cried out, “He is a villain—I am no bailiff, but a clergyman, and this lawyer is guilty of forgery, and hath ruined a poor family.”
“How!” cries the spokesman—“a lawyer!—that alters the case.”
“Yes, faith,” cries another of the mob, “it is lawyer Murphy. I know him very well.”
“And hath he ruined a poor family?—like enough, faith, if he’s a lawyer. Away with him to the justice immediately.”
The bailiff now came up, desiring to know what was the matter; to whom Doctor Harrison answered that he had arrested that villain for a forgery. “How can you arrest him?” cries the bailiff; “you are no officer, nor have any warrant. Mr. Murphy is a gentleman, and he shall be used as such.”
“Nay, to be sure,” cries the spokesman, “there ought to be a warrant; that’s the truth on’t.”
“There needs no warrant,” cries the doctor. “I accuse him of felony; and I know so much of the law of England, that any man may arrest a felon without any warrant whatever. This villain hath undone a poor family; and I will die on the spot before I part with him.”
“If the law be so,” cries the orator, “that is another matter. And to be sure, to ruin a poor man is the greatest of sins. And being a lawyer too makes it so much the worse. He shall go before the justice, d—n me if he shan’t go before the justice! I says the word, he shall.”