the house,
and have talked to him in the light of the candles. But I had risked it
once already; and in this scandal-mongering place, and in my critical
position, I was afraid to risk it again. The garden was not to be
thought of either, for the landlord smokes his pipe there after his
supper. There was no alternative but to take him away from the town.

"From time to time, I looked back as I went on. There he was, always at
the same distance, dim and ghost-like in the dusk, silently following
me.

"I must leave off for a little while. The church bells have broken out,
and the jangling of them drives me mad. In these days, when we have
all got watches and clocks, why are bells wanted to remind us when
the service begins? We don't require to be rung into the theater. How
excessively discreditable to the clergy to be obliged to ring us into
the church!"

----------

"They have rung the congregation in at last; and I can take up my pen,
and go on again.

"I was a little in doubt where to lead him to. The high-road was on one
side of me; but, empty as it looked, somebody might be passing when
we least expected it. The other way was through the coppice. I led him
through the coppice.

"At the outskirts of the trees, on the other side, there was a dip
in the ground with some felled timber lying on it, and a little
pool beyond, still and white and shining in the twilight. The long
grazing-grounds rose over its further shore, with the mist thickening on
them, and a dim black line far away of cattle in slow procession going
home. There wasn't a living creature near; there wasn't a sound to be
heard. I sat down on one of the felled trees and looked back for him.
'Come,' I said, softly--'come and sit by me here.'

"Why am I so particular about all this? I hardly know. The place made an
unaccountably vivid impression on me, and I can't help writing about
it. If I end badly--suppose we say on the scaffold?--I believe the last
thing I shall see, before the hangman pulls the drop, will be the
little shining pool, and the long, misty grazing-grounds, and the cattle
winding dimly home in the thickening night. Don't be alarmed, you worthy
creature! My fancies play me strange tricks sometimes; and there is a
little of last night's laudanum, I dare say, in this part of my letter.

"He came--in the strangest silent way, like a man walking in his
sleep--he came and sat down by me. Either the night was very close, or
I was by this