into a jelly."--"How! wherefore!" cried the knight; "who were the
miscreants that treated you in such a barbarous manner? Do you know the
ruffians?"--"I know nothing at all," answered the peevish squire, "but
that I was tormented by vive houndred and vifty thousand legions of
devils, and there's an end oon't."--"Well, you must have a little
patience, Crabshaw--there's a salve for every sore."--"Yaw mought as well
tell ma, for every zow there's a zirreverence."--"For a man in your
condition, methinks you talk very much at your ease--try if you can get
up and mount Gilbert, that you may be conveyed to some place where you
can have proper assistance.--So--well done--cheerly!"

Timothy actually made an effort to rise, but fell down again, and uttered
a dismal yell. Then his master exhorted him to take advantage of a park
wall, by which he lay, and raise himself gradually upon it. Crabshaw,
eyeing him askance, said, by way of reproach, for his not alighting and
assisting him in person, "Thatch your house with t--d, and you'll have
more teachers than reachers."--Having pronounced this inelegant adage, he
made shift to stand upon his legs; and now, the knight lending a hand,
was mounted upon Gilbert, though not without a world of ohs! and ahs! and
other ejaculations of pain and impatience.

As they jogged on together, our adventurer endeavoured to learn the
particulars of the disaster which had befallen the squire; but all the
information he could obtain, amounted to a very imperfect sketch of the
adventure. By dint of a thousand interrogations, he understood, that
Crabshaw had been, in the preceding evening, encountered by three persons
on horseback, with Venetian masks on their faces, which he mistook for
their natural features, and was terrified accordingly. That they not
only presented pistols to his breast, and led his horse out of the
highway; but pricked him with goads, and pinched him, from time to time,
till he screamed with the torture. That he was led through unfrequented
places across the country, sometimes at an easy trot, sometimes at full
gallop, and tormented all night by those hideous demons, who vanished at
daybreak, and left him lying on the spot where he was found by his
master.

This was a mystery which our hero could by no means unriddle. It was the
more unaccountable, as the squire had not been robbed of his money,
horses, and baggage. He was even disposed to believe that Crabshaw's
brain was