"There, sir!" said I.

He started, made a short run, and stopped
and looked over his shoulder.

"There, sir!" I timidly explained. "Also
Georgiana. That's my mother."

"Oh!" said he, coming back. " And is that
your father alonger your mother?"

"Yes, sir," said I; "him too; late of this
parish."

"Ha!" he muttered then, considering.
"Who d'ye live with—supposin' you're kindly
let to live, which I han't made up my mind
about?"

"My sister, sir — Mrs. Joe Gargery — wife of
Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, sir."

"Blacksmith, eh?" said he. And looked
down at his leg.

After darkly looking at his leg and at me
several times, he came closer to my tombstone,
took me by both arms, and tilted me back as
far as he could hold me; so that his eyes looked
most powerfully down into mine, and mine
looked most helplessly up into his.

"Now lookee here," he said, " the question
being whether you're to be let to live. You
know what a file is."

" Yes, sir."

"And you know what wittles is."

"Yes, sir."

After each question he tilted me over a little
more, so as to give me a greater sense of
helplessness and danger.

"You get me a file." He tilted me again.
"And you get me wittles." He tilted me again.
"You bring 'em both to me." He tilted me
again. " Or I'll have your heart and liver out."
He tilted me again.

I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that
I clung to him with both hands, and said, " If
you would kindly please to let me keep upright,
sir, perhaps I shouldn't be sick, and perhaps I
could attend more."

He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll,
so that the church jumped over its own weather-
cock. Then, he held me by the arms, in an
upright position on the top of the stone, and
went on in these fearful terms:

"You bring me, to-morrow morning early,
that file and them wittles. You bring the lot
to me, at that old Battery over yonder. You do
it, and you never dare to say a word or dare
to make a sign concerning your having seen
such a person as me, or any person sumever,
and you shall be let to live. You fail, or you go
from my words in any partickler, no matter how
small it is, and your heart and your liver
shall be tore out, roasted, and ate. Now, I ain't
alone, as you may think I am. There's a young
man hid with me, in comparison with which
young man I am a Angel. That young man
hears the words I speak. That young man
has a secret way pecooliar to himself, of getting
at a boy, and at his heart, and at his liver. It
is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself
from that young man. A boy may lock his door,
may be warm in bed, may tuck himself up, may
draw the clothes over his head, may think
himself comfortable and safe, but that young man
will softly creep and creep his way to him and
tear him open. I am a keeping that young man
from harming of you at the present moment, with
great difficulty. I find it wery hard to hold that
young man off of your inside. Now, what do
you say ?"

I said that I would get him the file, and I
would get him what broken bits of food I could,
and I would come to him at the Battery, early
in the morning.

"Say Lord strike you dead if you don't!"
said the man.

I said so, and he took me down.

"Now," he pursued, " you remember what
you've undertook, and you remember that young
man, and you get home!"

"Goo-good night, sir," I faltered.

"Much of that!" said he, glancing about him
over the cold wet flat. " I wish I was a frog.
Or a eel!"

At the same time, he hugged his shuddering
body in both his arms—clasping himself, as if to
hold himself together—and limped towards the
low church wall. As I saw him go, picking his
way among the nettles, and among the brambles
that bound the green mounds, he looked in
my young eyes as if he were eluding the hands
of the dead people, stretching up cautiously out
of their graves, to get a twist upon his ankle and
pull him in.

When he came to the low church wall, he got
over it, like a man whose legs were numbed and
stiff, and then turned round to look for me.
When I saw him turning, I set my face towards
home, and made the best use of my legs. But
presently I looked over my shoulder, and saw
him going on again towards the river, still
hugging himself in both arms, and picking his
way with his sore feet among the great stones
dropped into the marshes here and there, for
stepping-places when the rains were heavy, or
the tide was in.

The marshes were just a long black
horizontal line then, as I stopped to look after
him; and the river was just another horizontal
line, not nearly so broad nor yet so black; and
the sky was just a row of long angry red lines
and dense black lines intermixed. On the edge
of the river, I could faintly make out the only
two black things in all the prospect that seemed
to be standing upright; one of these was the
beacon by which the sailors steered—like an
unhooped cask upon a pole—an ugly thing
when you were near it; the other, a gibbet with
some chains hanging to it which had once held a
pirate. The man was limping on towards this
latter, as if he were the pirate come to life,
and come down, and going back to hook
himself up again. It gave me a terrible turn
when I thought so; and as I saw the cattle
lifting their heads to gaze after him, I
wondered whether they thought so too. I looked
all round for the horrible young man, and
could see no signs of him. But, now I was
frightened again, and ran home without stopping.