“Oh, the bloody-minded wretches!” he exclaimed, “give them fair words or
foul, their sole retort to you is still, the hatchet! the cleaver! the
tomahawk! Shall I endure this treatment? Never! I’ll return on my trail
this moment, and be revenged on the whole of the iniquitous generation.”
So saying, he furiously dashed back the way he had come, rushed into the
shepherds’ huts, sprang upon and tore the eyes out of several of their
children, and was only finally subdued and killed after a hard struggle,
during which he managed to inflict a number of rather ugly wounds upon
his captors.
It was then that a venerable shepherd of five score years and ten, the
patriarch of the village, spoke to them as follows:--“How much better,
my friends, would it have been for us if we had acceded at first to the
terms proposed by this reckless destroyer! Whether he was sincere or not,
we could have easily established so vigilant a system of discipline with
respect to him that he should not have had it in his power to injure
us. Now, too late, we may deplore the evil that we cannot remedy. Ah,
believe me, my friends, it is an unwise policy to drive the vicious to
desperation: the hand of the outcast from society becomes at last armed
against all mankind; he ceases after a season to distinguish between
friends and enemies. Few, perhaps none, are so bad as to be utterly
irreclaimable; and he who discourages the first voluntary efforts of
the guilty towards reforming themselves, on the pretence that they are
hypocritical, arrogates to himself that discrimination into motives which
belongs alone to the Supreme Judge of all hearts, and becomes in a degree
responsible for the ruinous consequences that are almost certain to
result from his conduct.”