But Hind was not one whit abashed, and he would
never forego the chance of an encounter with his country's enemies. His
treatment of Hugh Peters in Enfield Chace is among his triumphs. At the
first encounter the Presbyterian plucked up courage enough to oppose
his adversary with texts. To Hind's command of 'Stand and deliver!' duly
enforced with a loaded pistol, the ineffable Peters replied with ox-eye
sanctimoniously upturned: 'Thou shalt not steal; let him that
stole, steal no more,' adding thereto other variations of the eighth
commandment. Hind immediately countered with exhortations against the
awful sin of murder, and rebuked the blasphemy of the Regicides, who,
to defend their own infamy, would wrest Scripture from its meaning.
'Did you not, O monster of impiety,' mimicked Hind in the preacher's own
voice, 'pervert for your own advantage the words of the Psalmist, who
said, "Bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of
iron"? Moreover, was it not Solomon who wrote: "Men do not despise a
thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry"? And is not my
soul hungry for gold and the Regicides' discomfiture?' Peters was still
fumbling after texts when the final argument: 'Deliver thy money, or I
will send thee out of the world!' frightened him into submission, and
thirty broad pieces were Hind's reward.
Not long afterwards he confronted Bradshaw near Sherborne, and, having
taken from him a purse fat with Jacobuses, he bade the Sergeant stand
uncovered while he delivered a discourse upon gold, thus shaped by
tradition: 'Ay, marry, sir, this is the metal that wins my heart for
ever! O precious gold, I admire and adore thee as much as Bradshaw,
Prynne, or any villain of the same stamp.
Pages:
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57