illy snapped with fire,
like a hemlock log at Christmas: (for nothin' makes a woman so mad as a
parsonal slight, and them little ankles of hern were enough to move the
heart of a stone, and make it jump out o' the ground, that's a fact,
they were such fine-spun glass ones), it made her so mad, it gave her
fresh strength; and makin' two or three onnateral efforts, she got clear
back to the path, and sprung right up on eend, as wicked as a she-bear
with a sore head. But when she got upright agin, she then see'd what a
beautiful frizzle of a fix she was in. She couldn't hope to climb far;
and, indeed, she didn't ambition to; she'd had enough of that, for one
spell. But climbin' up was nothin', compared to goin' down hill without
her staff; so what to do, she didn't know.

"At last, a thought struck her. She intarmined to make that man help
her, in spite of him. So she sprung forward for a space, like a painter,
for life or death, and caught right hold of his cloak. 'Help--help me!'
said she, 'or I shall go for it, that's sartain. Here's my puss, my
rings, my watch, and all I have got; but oh, help me! for the love of
God, help me, or my flint is fixed for good and all.'

"With that, the man turned round, and took one glance at her, as if he
kinder relented, and then, all at once, wheeled back again, as amazed as
if he was jist born, gave an awful yell, and started off as fast as he
could clip, though that warn't very tall runnin' nother, considerin' the
ground. But she warn't to be shook off that way. She held fast to his
cloak, like a burr to a sheep's tail, and raced arter him, screamin' and
screechin' like mad; and the more she cried, the louder he yelled, till
the mountains all echoed it and re-echoed it, so that you would have
thought a thousand devils had broke loose, a'most.

"Such a gettin' up stairs you never did see.

"Well, they kept up this tantrum for the space of two or three hundred
yards, when they came to a small, low, dismal-lookin' house, when
the man gave the door a kick, that sent the latch a flyin' off to the
t'other eend of the room, and fell right in on the floor, on his face,
as flat as a flounder, a groanin' and a moanin' like any thing, and
lookin' as mean as a critter that was sent for, and couldn't come, and
as obstinate as a pine stump.

"'What ails you?' sais she, 'to act like Old Scratch that way? You ought
to be ashamed of yourself, to behave so to a woman. What on airth is
there about