"Bad company!" said the clergyman. "I am afraid, young woman, you have not been sufficiently anxious to avoid them."
"Indeed, sir," returned Jeanie, "I have been brought up to shun evil communication. But these wicked people were thieves, and stopped me by violence and mastery."
"Thieves!" said Mr. Staunton; "then you charge them with robbery, I suppose?"
"No, sir; they did not take so much as a boddle from me," answered Jeanie; "nor did they use me ill, otherwise than by confining me."
The clergyman inquired into the particulars of her adventure, which she told him from point to point.
"This is an extraordinary, and not a very probable tale, young woman," resumed Mr. Staunton. "Here has been, according to your account, a great violence committed without any adequate motive. Are you aware of the law of this country—that if you lodge this charge, you will be bound over to prosecute this gang?"
Jeanie did not understand him, and he explained, that the English law, in addition to the inconvenience sustained by persons who have been robbed or injured, has the goodness to intrust to them the care and the expense of appearing as prosecutors.
Jeanie said, "that her business at London was express; all she wanted was, that any gentleman would, out of Christian charity, protect her to some town where she could hire horses and a guide; and finally," she thought, "it would be her father's mind that she was not free to give testimony in an English court of justice, as the land was not under a direct gospel dispensation."
Mr. Staunton stared a little, and asked if her father was a Quaker.
"God forbid, sir," said Jeanie—"He is nae schismatic nor sectary, nor ever treated for sic black commodities as theirs, and that's weel kend o' him."