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 me to frighten you so, you great onmannerly, onmarciful,
coward, you. Come, scratch up, this minute.'

"Well, the more she talked, the more he groaned; but the devil a word,
good or bad, could she get out of him at all. With that, she stoops
down, and catches up his staff, and says she, 'I have as great a mind to
give you a jab with this here toothpick, where your mother used to spank
you, as ever I had in all my life. But if you want it, my old 'coon, you
must come and get it; for if you won't help me, I shall help myself.'

"Jist at that moment, her eyes being better accustomed to the dim light
of the place, she see'd a man, a sittin' at the fur eend of the room,
with his back to the wall, larfin' ready to kill himself. He grinned
so, he showed his corn-crackers from ear to ear. She said, he stript his
teeth like a catamount, he look'd so all mouth.

"Well, that encouraged her, for there ain't much harm in a larfin' man;
it's only them that never larf that's fearfulsome. So sais she 'My good
man, will you he so kind as to lend me your arm down this awful peak,
and I will reward you handsomely, you may depend.'

"Well, he made no answer, nother; and thinkin' he didn't onderstand
English, she tried him in Italian, and then in broken French, and then
bungled out a little German; but no, still no answer. He took no more
notice of her and her mister, and senior, and mountsheer, and mynheer,
than if he never heerd them titles, but jist larfed on.

"She stopped a minit, and looked at him full in the face, to see what he
meant by all this ongenteel behaviour, when all of a