I was both stunned and lamed on the knee; but, terror
prevailing, I got up and tried to escape. It was out of my power;
for there were divisions and cross divisions in the house, and mad
horses smashing everything before them, so that I knew not so
much as on what side of the house the door was. Two or three
times was I knocked down by the animals. but all the while I
never stinted crying out with all my power. At length, I was
seized by the throat and hair of the head, and dragged away, I
wist not whither. My voice was now laid, and all my powers,
both mental and bodily, totally overcome; and I remember no
more till I found myself lying naked on the kitchen table of the
farm-house, and something like a horse's rug thrown over me.
The only hint that I got from the people of the house on coming
to myself was that my absence would be good company; and that
they had got me in a woeful state, one which they did not choose
to describe, or hear described.
As soon as day-light appeared, I was packed about my business,
with the hisses and execrations of the yeoman's family, who
viewed me as a being to be shunned, ascribing to me the
visitations of that unholy night.
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