heard a kick, saw the dog jump and bite the stranger's leg, and heard the sound of his trousers tearing. Then Fearenside's whip cut into his dbg, who, crying with pain, ran under the wheels of the carriage. It was all done in a quick half minute. No one spoke, everyone shouted. The stranger looked at his torn glove and at his leg, then turned and ran up the steps into the inn. They heard him go across the passage and up the stairs to his bedroom. 'Come here, you!' said Fearenside to his dog, climbing off the carriage with his whip in his hand, while the dog watched him through the wheel. 'Come here!' he repeated. 'You'd better!' Hall stood staring. 'He was bitten,' he said. 'I'd better go and see him.' And he went to find the stranger. He met his wife in the passage. 'The carrier's dog bit him,' he told her. He went straight upstairs, pushed open the stranger's door and went in. The blind was down and the room dark. He caught sight of a strange thing, a handless arm that seemed to be waving towards him, and a face of three large dark spots on white. Then he was struck in the chest and thrown out of the room, and the door was shut in his face and locked. All this happened so fast that it gave him no time to see anything clearly. A waving of shapes, a blow and a noise like a gun. There he stood in the dark little passage, wondering what he had seen. After a few minutes he came back to the little group that had formed outside the inn. There was Fearenside telling the story all over again for the second time; there was Mrs Hall saying his dog had no right to bite her guests; there was Huxter, the shopkeeper from over the road, asking questions; Sandy Wadgers looking serious and women and children, all talking. Mr Hall, staring at them from the steps and listening, found it hard to believe that he had seen anything very strange happen upstairs.
He wants no help, he says,' he said in answer to his wife's
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