“The major always said that he resisted stoutly for a long time, even after his tormentor had fairly prostrated him with only a tap of his finger, and until strange figures, of unearthly shape, uttering terrible cries of anger, and attended by a strong smell of brimstone, came rushing into the room, without any apparent way of ingress, and surrounding him in a body, awaited the signal of his conductor to bear him off, he knew not whither, and inflict on him unheard of torments;—but as I knew the major was sometimes given to vaporing in his cups, I always set the better part of it down for exaggeration. However, at length he gave in, even according to his own account, and signified his willingness, though not without some qualms as he looked at the bride, to have the ceremony performed.
“‘I knew it, major—a brave man never should struggle against fate,’ said the little fellow with goggle eyes.
“‘Sir,’ said the little fellow, turning fiercely around.
“But to wind up my story—for, egad, I believe you’re asleep—the major was married, had kissed the bride, and was actually performing the same duty on the bridemaids, when the little fellow with the goggle-eyes, perceiving what he was at, seized him angrily by the arm, whisked him up the chimney, bore him swiftly through the air, and with a roar of malicious laughter, that might have been heard a mile, exclaiming,—
“‘There—wait, and your wife will pop in on you when you least expect it,’—let him drop to the earth, on the very common, and aside of the very pile of stones, where he had been sitting when he first saw the little, old fellow. But meantime the night had passed, and it was broad morning. The birds were singing in the neigboring woods,—the sound of the village clock striking the hour, boomed clear upon the air,—and a few cattle, with the monotonous tinkle of their bells, were leisurely crossing the commons, under the charge of a herd boy. For some minutes the major could not persuade himself but what it had all been a dream; but the damp sweat was still upon his brow, and every limb ached with the fall. So he couldn’t comfort himself with that assurance, but set himself down, on the contrary, as one of the most luckless men alive.