"Ye be contemners and despisers of our holy heritage. I have not bowed the knee to Baal, nor will I worship the beast or they that have his name on their foreheads. Do with me as ye list. Ye would cover mine eyes that your iniquities may be hidden;—but ye shall suddenly be destroyed, and none shall deliver."
A loud laugh was the answer to this denunciation; for truly it were a marvellous thing to hear an ignorant, arrogant drummer, misapply and profane the words of Holy Writ, wresting the Scriptures to their destruction, if not his own.
In the outer court soldiers were playing at span-counter with silver moneys, which Gideon observing, again lifted up the voice of warning and rebuke.
"But destruction cometh upon them, even as upon a woman in"——
"Peace, thou spirit of a drum-stick!" cried one of them, and, as though he were playing at chuck-farthing, he threw a tester between his teeth; for the soldiers had about fifty pounds amongst them in silver coin, but it was of no use except as so many counters, which they lent one another by handfuls without telling. Sometimes one soldier had won the whole, then another; but if they had been heaps of the rarest jewels they had been of less worth than pebble-stones.
Gideon's speech was marred in the delivery; thinking he had been hit with a stone, he sputtered out the offending morsel; but, seeing the coin with the king's image and superscription, he gathered it up again.
"This shall be to me for a prey, even a spoil, as Moses
spoiled the Egyptians." Saying this Gideon thrust the king's money into his pocket, and consented to be blindfolded, as was customary, in order that he should not act the spy in his progress. He heard many gates unbarred, many sentries challenged, and the pass-words demanded. Indeed the order and discipline throughout was of an excellent and well-contrived regularity.
"Make way for the drum!" ran along the avenues, as though he were passing through a numerous array of guards and soldiery. At length he was safely deposited in a spacious hall used as a guard-room; where his conductors delivered him to Captain Ogle, the officer in waiting that morning upon her ladyship. Being informed she was at prayers, for, as we are told, "her first care was the service of God, which in sermons and solemn prayers she daily saw performed," Gideon lifted up his hands and said—
"Their new moons and their fasts are an abomination." He then desired to be conducted near the fire, for the double purpose of drying his threadbare red coat, and relieving his extreme length by a change of position.