snap, and the neck was straight. She then began to stroke it with
gentle yet firm hand. In a few moments he began to breathe. As soon
as she saw his chest move, she called for a wisp of hay, and having
shaped it a little, drew herself from under his head, substituting
the hay. Then rising without a word she walked from the yard.
Stopchase lay for a while, gradually coming to himself, then
scrambled all at once to his feet, and staggered to his pitchfork,
which lay where it had fallen. 'It is of the mercy of the Lord that
I fell not upon the prongs of the pitchfork,' he said, as he slowly
stooped and lifted it. He had no notion that he had lain more than a
few seconds; and of the return of Goody Rees and her ministrations
he knew nothing; while such an awe of herself and her influences had
she left behind her, that neither the woman nor the cow-boy ventured
to allude to her, and even Richard, influenced partly, no doubt, by
late reading, was more inclined to think than speak about her. For
the man himself, little knowing how close death had come to him, but
inwardly reproached because of his passionate outbreak, he firmly
believed that he had had a narrow escape from the net of the great
fowler, whose decoy the old woman was, commissioned not only to
cause his bodily death, but to work in him first such a frame of
mind as should render his soul the lawful prey of the enemy.






CHAPTER IV.

A CHAPTER OF FOOLS.