I hadn't
taken nothing but a quart of John Prater's ale--and you know what his
measures is--not a single sip of grog; but the Hangel of the Lord he
come and stand by me in the middle of the night. And he took me by the
hand, or if he didn't it come to the same thing of my getting there, and
he set me up in a dark high place, the like of the yew-tree near Carne
Castle. And then he saith, 'Look back, Zeb'; and I looked, and behold
Springhaven was all afire, like the bottomless pit, or the thunder-storm
of Egypt, or the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. And two figures was
jumping about in the flames, like the furnace in the plain of Dura, and
one of them was young Squire Carne, and the other was my son Daniel, as
behaveth below his name. And I called out, 'Daniel, thou son of Zebedee
and Kezia Tugwell, come forth from the burning fiery furnace'; but he
answered not, neither heeded me. And then Squire Darling, Sir Charles is
now the name of him, out he come from his Round-house, and by the white
gate above high-water mark, to order out the fire, because they was all
his own cottages. But while he was going about, as he doth for fear of
being hard upon any one, out jumps Squire Carne, from the thickest of
the blazes, and takes the poor Squire by the forepart of his neck, which
he liketh to keep open when he getteth off of duty, and away with him
into the burning fiery furnace made of his own houses! That was more
than I could put up with, even under the Hangel, and I give such a kick
that Kezia, though she saith she is the most quietest of women, felt
herself a forced to bounce me up.
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