When he got to a gate, instead of taking time to open it, he rolled
himself somersault-like right over it! When he met man or woman,
instead of turning from his straight course, he knocked them over and
passed on, garments flying and legs and arms circulating with the
velocity of a wheel.
The people whom he had successively met and overthrown in his course,
picking themselves up and getting into the village, reported that there
was a furious madman broke loose, who attacked every one he met.
And soon every man and boy in the village who could mount a horse
started in pursuit. Only race horses would have beaten the speed with
which Wool ran, urged on by fear. It was nine miles on the turnpike
road from Tip Top that the horsemen overtook and surrounded Wool, who,
seeing himself hopelessly environed, fell down upon the ground and
rolled and kicked, swearing that he would not be taken alive to have
his eyelids cut off!
It was not until after a desperate resistance that he was finally
taken, bound, put in a wagon and carried back to the village, where he
was recognized as Major Warfield's man and a messenger was despatched
for his master.
And not until he had been repeatedly assured that no harm should befall
him did Wool gain composure enough to say, amid tears of cruel grief
and fear: "Oh, marsers! my young missus, Miss Black, done been captured and
bewitched and turned into somebody else, right afore my own two looking
eyes and gone off in dat coach! 'deed she is! and ole marse kill me!
'deed he will, gemmen! He went and ordered me not to take my eyes offen
her, and no more I didn't! But what good that do, when she turned to
somebody else, and went off right afore my two looking eyes? But ole
marse won't listen to reason. He kill me, I know he will!" whimpered
Wool, refusing to be comforted.