pace and gesture in unmixed amazement. The man must have turned round to
look before Israel had done so. Frozen to the ground, Israel knew not
what to do; but next moment it struck him that this very motionlessness
was the least hazardous plan in such a strait. Thrusting out his arm
again towards the house, once more he stood stock still, and again
awaited the event.

It so happened that this time, in pointing towards the house, Israel
unavoidably pointed towards the advancing man. Hoping that the
strangeness of this coincidence might, by operating on the man's
superstition, incline him to beat an immediate retreat, Israel kept cool
as he might. But the man proved to be of a braver metal than
anticipated. In passing the spot where the scarecrow had stood, and
perceiving, beyond the possibility of mistake, that by, some
unaccountable agency it had suddenly removed itself to a distance,
instead of being, terrified at this verification of his worst
apprehensions, the man pushed on for Israel, apparently resolved to sift
this mystery to the bottom.

Seeing him now determinately coming, with pitchfork valiantly presented,
Israel, as a last means of practising on the fellow's fears of the
supernatural, suddenly doubled up both fists, presenting them savagely
towards him at a distance of about twenty paces, at the same time
showing his teeth like a skull's, and demoniacally rolling his eyes. The
man paused bewildered, looked all round him, looked at the springing
grain, then across at some trees, then up at the sky, and satisfied at
last by those observations that the world at large had not undergone a
miracle in the last fifteen minutes, resolutely resumed his advance; the
pitchfork, like a boarding-pike, now aimed full at the breast of the
object. Seeing all his stratagems vain, Israel now threw himself into