It was late in the evening when we returned, and very dark; and this quarrelsome man, who had troubled himself and us in the morning, having gotten another lusty fellow like himself to assist him, waylaid us in the night, expecting we would return the same way we came. But when they found we did not, but took the common way, they, angry that they were disappointed, and loth to lose their purpose (which was to put an abuse upon us), coasted over to us in the dark, and laying hold on the horses’ bridles, stopped them from going on. My father, asking his man what the reason was that he went not on, was answered, “That there were two men at the horses’ heads, who held them back, and would not suffer them to go forward.” Whereupon my father, opening the boot, stepped out, and I followed close at his heels. Going up to the place where the men stood, he demanded of them the meaning of this assault. They said, “We were upon the corn.” We knew by the route we were not on the corn, but in the common way, and told them so; but they told us, “They were resolved they would not let us go on any farther, but would make us go back again.” My father endeavoured by gentle reasoning to persuade them to forbear, and not run themselves farther into the danger of the law, which they were run too far into already; but they rather derided him for it. Seeing therefore fair means would not work upon them, he spake more roughly to them, charging them to deliver their clubs (for each of them had a great club in his hand, somewhat like those which are called quarter-staves): they thereupon, laughing, told him, “They did not bring them thither for that end.” Thereupon my father, turning his head to me, said, “Tom, disarm them.”