'Na, na! if ye are nae friend to kirk
and the king, and are detained as siccan a person, ye maun answer to
honest men of the country for breach of contract; and I maun keep the
naig and the walise for damage and expense, in respect my horse and
mysell will lose to-morrow's day's wark, besides the afternoon
preaching.'
Edward, out of patience, hemmed in and hustled by the rabble on every
side, and every moment expecting personal violence, resolved to try
measures of intimidation, and at length drew a pocket-pistol,
threatening, on the one hand, to shoot whomsoever dared to stop him, and,
on the other, menacing Ebenezer with a similar doom if he stirred a foot
with the horses. The sapient Partridge says that one man with a pistol is
equal to a hundred unarmed, because, though he can shoot but one of the
multitude, yet no one knows but that he himself may be that luckless
individual. The levy en masse of Cairnvreckan would therefore probably
have given way, nor would Ebenezer, whose natural paleness had waxed
three shades more cadaverous, have ventured to dispute a mandate so
enforced, had not the Vulcan of the village, eager to discharge upon some
more worthy object the fury which his helpmate had provoked, and not ill
satisfied to find such an object in Waverley, rushed at him with the
red-hot bar of iron with such determination as made the discharge of his
pistol an act of self-defence.
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