The parson held his knife over a half-peeled potato, and looked the young man in the face, while his eyes glowed with excitement.
“Well, had you been one of Bill Thomson’s riders, I would have sent a bullet through you without a word. It is written: ‘This day will the Lord deliver thee into my hand; and I will smite thee, and take thy head from thee.’”
“Pardon me for what I am about to say,” continued Warren, “but I cannot understand how you can reconcile such a proposed course with your profession. I make no pretention to piety myself, but I have a profound respect for those who conscientiously do.”
The preacher faltered.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” Warren hastened to say, seeing the man of God hesitate. “I am not charging you with anything. I simply cannot reconcile the two ideas, that’s all. I don’t quite understand your position.”
“That’s jest what I’ve wanted to say to Steward here, many a time, but not being gifted with gab, which mos’ people calls eddi-kation, I haven’t been able to perceed like the prefesser,” meaning our English friend, Mr. Maxwell. “Thar was that secret citizens’ meetin’ down in the timber, and Steward was fer shootin’ down at sight without a trial all onery cusses that was even suspected of bein’ onfriendly to the principles of the Free-Staters. Dad gum ’em, that’s my methods to a T, but it’s kin’ o’ rough jestice fer a parson,” chuckled Maybee.
“Well, gentlemen, what would you do in my place? What show have I against a gang of ten or more men unless I meet them promptly with the initiative? What better course could I have pursued with the mob that came to our church during service? When I beheld them round about us and heard their savage cries, when I saw the terror of the women and children and bethought me of their fate if perchance, the men were all slain, I girded up my loins and taking a pistol in each hand, I led forth my elders and members against the Philistines; and I said to them: ‘This day I will give the carcasses of your hosts unto the fowls of the air, and the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.’ Verily, not one was spared.”
“To-night I was here single-handed. I have a wife and two children dependent on me for support. Must I be denied the right of defense against superior numbers because I hate slavery and have the courage of my convictions?”
The speaker’s eyes—his whole face, in fact—glowed and scintillated with holy wrath and firm conviction in the justice of his case.
“No, let me explain further!” Warren hastened to exclaim, “It is not your defense that I question, but your aggressive spirit. Now, as I understand it, these men are a part of the territorial militia; if so, do not your acts smack somewhat of treason?”