Somebody had a grip on each arm, so that he could not defend his face from the brambles, and that worried him, for his whole head seemed one aching bruise and he dreaded anything touching it.

But all the time he did not open his mouth, for silence was the one duty that his muddled wits enforced.

He felt that he was not the master of his mind, and he dreaded what he might disclose if he began to babble.
Presently there came a blank space of which he had no recollection at all.

The movement had stopped, and he was allowed to sprawl on the ground.

He thought that his head had got another whack from a bough, and that the pain put him into a stupor.