rt--Seventy times seven times have you preposterously
forced me to resume my seat. The four hundred and ninety-first is too
much. Fellow-martyrs, have at him! Drag him down, and crush him to
atoms, that the place which knows him may know him no more!'

'_Thou art the Man_!' cried Jabez, after a solemn pause, leaning over his
cushion. 'Seventy times seven times didst thou gapingly contort thy
visage--seventy times seven did I take counsel with my soul--Lo, this is
human weakness: this also may be absolved! The First of the
Seventy-First is come. Brethren, execute upon him the judgment written.
Such honour have all His saints!'

With that concluding word, the whole assembly, exalting their pilgrim's
staves, rushed round me in a body; and I, having no weapon to raise in
self-defence, commenced grappling with Joseph, my nearest and most
ferocious assailant, for his. In the confluence of the multitude,
several clubs crossed; blows, aimed at me, fell on other sconces.
Presently the whole chapel resounded with rappings and counter rappings:
every man's hand was against his neighbour; and Branderham, unwilling to
remain idle, poured forth his zeal in a shower of loud taps on the boards
of the pulpit, which responded so smartly that, at last, to my
unspeakable relief, they woke me. And what was it that had suggested the
tremendous tumult? What had played Jabez's part in the row? Merely the
branch of a fir-tree that touched my lattice as the blast wailed by, and
rattled its dry cones against the panes! I listened doubtingly an
instant; detected the disturber, then turned and dozed, and dreamt again:
if possible, still more disagreeably than before.

This time, I remembered I was lying in the oak closet, and I heard
distinctly the gusty wind, and the driving of the snow; I heard, also,
the fir bough repeat its teasing sound, and ascribed it to the right
cause: but it annoyed me so much, that I resolved to silence it, if
possible; and, I thought, I rose and endeavoured to unhasp the casement.
The hook was soldered into the staple: a circumstance observed by me when
awake, but forgotten. 'I must stop it, nevertheless!' I muttered,
knocking my knuckles through the glass, and stretching an arm out to
seize the importunate branch; instead of which, my fingers closed on the
fingers of a little, ice-cold hand! The intense horror of nightmare came
over me: I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a
most me