and the blood ran down several people so as I never
saw the like in my life, as I looked at them when they were dragging
me along. And Judge Fell's son, running after me to see what they
would do to me, they threw him into a ditch of water and cried, "Knock
the teeth out of his head!"'

Once well away from the town, apparently, the constables were content
to let their prisoner go, knowing that they might trust their
fellow-townsmen to finish the job with right good will. The mob yelled
with joy to find their prey in their hands at last. With one accord
they fell upon Fox, and endeavoured to pull him down, much as, at the
huntsman's signal, a pack of hounds sets upon his four-footed namesake
with a bushy tail. The constables and officers, too, continued to
assist. Giving him some final blows with willow-rods they thrust Fox
'amid the rude multitude, and they then fell upon me as aforesaid with
their stakes and clubs and beat me on the head and arms and
shoulders, until at last,' their victim says, 'they mazed me, and I
fell down upon the wet common.'

The crowd had won! George Fox was down at last! He lay, bruised and
fainting, on the wet moss of the common on the far side of the town.
Yes, there he lay for a few moments, stunned, bruised, bleeding,
beaten nigh to death. Only for a few moments, no longer. Very soon his
consciousness returned. Finding himself helpless on the watery common
with the savage mob glowering over him, he says, 'I lay a little still
without attempting to rise. Then suddenly the power of the Lord sprang
through me, and the eternal refreshings revived me, so that I stood up
again in the eternal power of God, and stretched out my arms among
them all and said with a loud voice: "Strike again! Here are my arms,
my head, my cheeks!"'

Whatever would he do next? What sort of a man was this? The rough
fellows in the circle around him insensibly drew back a little, and
looked in each other's faces with surprise, as they tried to read the
riddle of this disconcerting behaviour. The Quaker would not show
fight! He was actually giving them leave to set upon him and beat him
again! All in a minute, what had hitherto seemed like rare sport began
to be rather poor fun.

'There's no sense in thrashing a man who doesn't strike back! Better
leave the fellow alone!' some of the more decent-minded whispered to
each other in undertones, and then slunk away ashamed. Only one man, a
mason, well known as the bully