More grewsome, haggard-seeming than before.
Ere from his sinister armpit his right hand
Could pluck the sheets, I thundered forth, “Aroint!”
Not using the Anglo-Saxon shibboleth,
But exorcismal terms, unusual, fierce,
Such as would make a saint disintimate.
The witless terror in his face nigh stayed
My speech, but I was firm and passed him by.
Ah, not three weeks were sped ere he again
Waylaid me in the meadows, with these words: