'The Quakers, WHOM YOU WERE SENT TO FETCH from Drawwell and for whose non-appearance you are yourself wholly responsible, HAVE NOT ARRIVED,' answered the Justice tartly, raising his eyebrows as if to emphasise his words. All men knew that good Sir John Otway was no friend to persecution; and gay Lawrence Hodgson was no favourite of his.
With a louder oath than that with which he had entered the house, the Ensign flung out of it again, and rode off at the head of his men—all of them discomfited by their vain search, for not a Quaker was to be seen in the neighbourhood. The 'Lambs' were less docile than had been supposed. After all, they had successfully managed to avoid the 'slaughter-house'; they must have retreated to Drawwell, if they had not even seized the opportunity to escape.
Back again along the road to Drawwell, therefore, the whole sulky company of horsemen were obliged to return, much out of humour. Cursing their leader's carelessness, as he doubtless cursed his own folly, they trotted along, gloomily enough, till they came to the bend of the road where the homestead comes in sight, and where they had taken leave of their prisoners. There, as they turned the corner, suddenly they all stopped, thunderstruck, pulling their horses back on to their haunches in their amazement.
The Lambs had not escaped! Though they had not followed meekly to the slaughter-house, at least they had made no endeavours to flee, or even to return to the sheepfold on the hillside above them. All the time that the soldiers had been carousing in the alehouse, or searching the lanes, the little company of Friends had remained in the very same spot where the soldiers had left them nearly two hours before.
And there they were still, every one of them;—sitting on the green, grassy bank by the wayside. There they were, quietly going on with their uninterrupted worship. Yes; out there, under the shadow of the everlasting hills, untroubled by the shadow of even a passing cloud of fear, the Friends calmly continued to wait upon God.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] This paragraph is taken from E.E. Taylor's description of Drawwell.