“Naow get up, will ye?” he said; and the unfortunate Dick rose to his feet.

“Who’s hurt?  What’s happened?” asked poor Mr. Bernard again, his memory having been completely jarred out of him for the time.

“Come, look here naow, yeou, don’ Stan’ askin’ questions over ‘n’ over;—­’t beats all! ha’n’t I tol’ y’ a dozen times?”

As Abel spoke, he turned and looked at Mr. Bernard.

“Hullo!  What ’n thunder’s that ‘ere raoun’ y’r neck?  Ketched ye ’ith a slippernoose, hey?  Wal, if that a’n’t the craowner!  Hol’ on a minute, Cap’n, ‘n’ I’ll show ye what that ’ere halter’s good for.”

Abel slipped the noose over Mr. Bernard’s head, and put it round the neck of the miserable Dick Veneer, who made no sign of resistance,—­whether on account of the pain he was in, or from mere helplessness, or because he was waiting for some unguarded moment to escape,—­since resistance seemed of no use.

“I ‘m go’n’ to kerry y’ home,” said Abel; “‘T’ th’ ol Doctor, he’s got a gre’t cur’osity t’ see ye.  Jes’ step along naow,—­off that way, will ye?—­’n’ I Ill hol’ on t’ th’ bridle, f’ fear y’ sh’d run away.”

He took hold of the leather thong, but found that it was fastened at the other end to the saddle.  This was too much for Abel.

“Wal, naow, yeou be a pooty chap to hev raound!  A fellah’s neck in a slippernoose at one eend of a halter, ‘n’ a hors on th’ full spring at t’ other eend!”

He looked at him from’ head to foot as a naturalist inspects a new specimen.  His clothes had suffered in his fall, especially on the leg which had been caught under the horse.

“Hullo! look o’ there, naow!  What’s that ‘ere stickin’ aout o’ y’r boot?”

It was nothing but the handle of an ugly knife, which Abel instantly relieved him of.

The party now took up the line of march for old Doctor Kittredge’s house, Abel carrying the pistol and knife, and Mr. Bernard walking in silence, still half-stunned, holding the hay-fork, which Abel had thrust into his hand.  It was all a dream to him as yet.  He remembered the horseman riding at him, and his firing the pistol; but whether he was alive, and these walls around him belonged to the village of Rockland, or whether he had passed the dark river, and was in a suburb of the New Jerusalem, he could not as yet have told.

They were in the street where the Doctor’s house was situated.

“I guess I’ll fire off one o’ these here berrils,” said Abel.

He fired.

Presently there was a noise of opening windows, and the nocturnal head-dresses of Rockland flowered out of them like so many developments of the Nightblooming Cereus.  White cotton caps and red bandanna handkerchiefs were the prevailing forms of efflorescence.  The main point was that the village was waked up.  The old Doctor always waked easily, from long habit, and was the first among those who looked out to see what had happened.