So saying, he slunk from the crowd, cowed and disheartened by his defeat.
‘For you, Joshua Geddes,’ said Redgauntlet, approaching the Quaker, who, with lifted hands and eyes, had beheld the scene of violence, ‘l shall take the liberty to arrest thee for a breach of the peace, altogether unbecoming thy pretended principles; and I believe it will go hard with thee both in a court of justice and among thine own Society of Friends, as they call themselves, who will be but indifferently pleased to see the quiet tenor of their hypocrisy insulted by such violent proceedings.’
‘I violent!’ said Joshua; ‘I do aught unbecoming the principles of the Friends! I defy thee, man, and I charge thee, as a Christian, to forbear vexing my soul with such charges: it is grievous enough to me to have seen violences which I was unable to prevent.’
‘O Joshua, Joshua!’ said Redgauntlet, with a sardonic smile; ‘thou light of the faithful in the town of Dumfries and the places adjacent, wilt thou thus fall away from the truth? Hast thou not, before us all, attempted to rescue a man from the warrant of law? Didst thou not encourage that drunken fellow to draw his weapon—and didst thou not thyself flourish thy cudgel in the cause? Think’st thou that the oaths of the injured Peter Peebles, and the conscientious Cristal Nixon, besides those of such gentlemen as look on this strange scene, who not only put on swearing as a garment, but to whom, in Custom House matters, oaths are literally meat and drink,—dost thou not think, I say, that these men’s oaths will go further than thy Yea and Nay in this matter?’
‘I will swear to anything,’ said Peter. ‘All is fair when it comes to an oath AD LITEM.’
‘You do me foul wrong,’ said the Quaker, undismayed by the general laugh. ‘I encouraged no drawing of weapons, though I attempted to move an unjust man by some use of argument—I brandished no cudgel, although it may be that the ancient Adam struggled within me, and caused my hand to grasp mine oaken staff firmer than usual, when I saw innocence borne down with violence. But why talk I what is true and just to thee, who hast been a man of violence from thy youth upwards? Let me rather speak to thee such language as thou canst comprehend. Deliver these young men up to me,’ he said, when he had led Redgauntlet a little apart from the crowd, ‘and I will not only free thee from the heavy charge of damages which thou hast incurred by thine outrage upon my property, but I will add ransom for them and for myself. What would it profit thee to do the youths wrong, by detaining them in captivity?’
‘Mr. Geddes,’ said Redgauntlet, in a tone more respectful than he had hitherto used to the Quaker, ‘your language is disinterested, and I respect the fidelity of your friendship. Perhaps we have mistaken each other’s principles and motives; but if so, we have not at present time for explanation. Make yourself easy. I hope to raise your friend Darsie Latimer to a pitch of eminence which you will witness with pleasure;—nay, do not attempt to answer me. The other young man shall suffer restraint a few days, probably only a few hours,—it is not more than due for his pragmatical interference in what concerned him not. Do you, Mr. Geddes, be so prudent as to take your horse and leave this place, which is growing every moment more unfit for the abode of a man of peace. You may wait the event in safety at Mount Sharon.’
‘Friend,’ replied Joshua, ‘I cannot comply with thy advice; I will remain here, even as thy prisoner, as thou didst but now threaten, rather than leave the youth who hath suffered by and through me and my misfortunes, in his present state of doubtful safety. Wherefore I will not mount my steed Solomon; neither will I turn his head towards Mount Sharon, until I see an end of this matter.’
‘A prisoner, then, you must be,’ said Redgauntlet. ‘I have no time to dispute the matter further with you. But tell me for what you fix your eyes so attentively on yonder people of mine.’
‘To speak the truth,’ said the Quaker, ‘I admire to behold among them a little wretch of a boy called Benjie, to whom I think Satan has given the power of transporting himself wheresoever mischief is going forward; so that it may be truly said, there is no evil in this land wherein he hath not a finger, if not a whole hand.’