He had his eye often upon me, for I was a young man, and had at that time a black suit on. At length he bid me follow him, and went into a private room and shut the door upon me.
I knew not what he meant by this; but I cried in spirit to the Lord, that he would be pleased to be a mouth and wisdom to me, and keep me from being entangled in any snare.
He asked me many questions concerning my birth, my education, my acquaintance in Oxfordshire, particularly what men of note I knew there; to all which I gave him brief but plain and true answers, naming several families of the best rank in that part of the county where I dwelt.
He asked me how long I had been of this way, and how I came to be of it. Which when I had given him some account of, he began to persuade me to leave it, and return to the right way—the Church, as he called it. I desired him to spare his pains in that respect, and forbear any discourse of that kind, for that I was fully satisfied the way I was in was the right way, and hoped the Lord would so preserve me in it that nothing should be able to draw or drive me out of it. He seemed not pleased with that, and thereupon went out to the rest of the company, and I followed him, glad in my heart that I had escaped so well, and praising God for my deliverance.
When he had taken his seat again at the upper end of a fair hall, he told us he was not willing to take the utmost rigour of the law against us, but would be as favourable to us as he could. And therefore he would discharge, he said, Mr. Penington himself, because he was but at home in his own house. And he would discharge Mr. Penington of London, because he came but as a relation to visit his brother. And he would discharge the grocer of Colchester, because he came to bear Mr. Penington of London company, and to be acquainted with Mr. Isaac Penington, whom he had never seen before. And as for those others of us who were of this county, he would discharge them, for the present at least, because they being his neighbours, he could send for them when he would. “But as for you,” said he to George Whitehead and me, “I can see no business you had there, and therefore I intend to hold you to it, either to give bail or go to gaol.”
We told him we could not give bail. “Then,” said he, “you must go to gaol;” and thereupon he began to write our mittimus; which puzzled him again; for he had discharged so many, that he was at a loss what to lay as the ground of our commitment, whose case differed nothing in reality from theirs whom he had discharged.
At length, having made divers draughts (which still George Whitehead showed him the defects of), he seemed to be weary of us; and rising up said unto us: “I consider that it is grown late in the day, so that the officer cannot carry you to Aylesbury to-night, and I suppose you will be willing to go back with Mr. Penington; therefore if you will promise to be forthcoming at his house to-morrow morning, I will dismiss you for the present, and you shall hear from me again to-morrow.”
We told him we did intend, if he did not otherwise dispose of us, to spend that night with our friend Isaac Penington, and would, if the Lord gave us leave, be there in the morning, ready to answer his requirings. Whereupon he dismissed us all, willing, as we thought, to be rid of us; for he seemed not to be of an ill temper, nor desirous to put us to trouble, if he could help it.
Back then we went to Isaac Penington’s. But when we were come thither, oh the work we had with poor John Ovy! He was so dejected in mind, so covered with shame and confusion of face for his cowardliness, that we had enough to do to pacify him towards himself.
The place he had found out to shelter himself in was so commodiously contrived, that undiscovered he could discern when the soldiers went off with us, and understand when the bustle was over and the coast clear. Whereupon he adventured to peep out of his hole, and in a while drew near by degrees to the house again; and finding all things quiet and still, he adventured to step within the doors, and found the Friends who were left behind peaceably settled in the meeting again.