on unexpected objects, startled him,
and he thought he should have felt less frightened if it had been
quite dark. Once he ran for a bit, then he resolved to be brave, then
to be reasonable; he repeated scraps of lessons, hymns, and last
Sunday's Collect, to divert and compose his mind; and as this plan
seemed to answer, he determined to go through the Catechism, both
question and answer, which he hoped might carry him to the end of his
unpleasant journey. He had just asked himself a question with
considerable dignity, and was about to reply, when a sudden gleam of
moonlight lit up a round object in the ditch. Bill's heart seemed to
grow cold, and he thought his senses would have forsaken him. Could
this be the head of ----? No! on nearer inspection it proved to be
only a turnip; and when one came to think of it, that would have been
rather a conspicuous place for the murdered man's skull to have been
lost in for so many years.

My hero must not be ridiculed too much for his fears. The terrors that
visit childhood are not the less real and overpowering from being
unreasonable; and to excite them is wanton cruelty. Moreover, he was
but a little lad, and had been up and down Yew-lane both in daylight
and dark without any fears, till Bully Tom's tormenting suggestions
had alarmed him. Even now, as he reached the avenue of yews from which
the lane took its name, and passed into their gloomy shade, he tried
to be brave. He tried to think of the good GOD Who takes care of His
children, and to Whom the darkness and the light are both alike. He
thought of all he had been taught about angels, and wondered if one
were near him now, and wished that he could see him, as Abraham and
other good people had seen angels. In short, the poor lad did his best
to apply what he had been taught to the present emergency, and very
likely had he not done so he would have been worse; but as it was, he
was not a little frightened, as we shall see.

Yew-lane--cool and dark when the hottest sunshine lay beyond it--a
loitering place for lovers--the dearly-loved play-place of
generations of children on sultry summer days--looked very grim and
vault-like, with narrow streaks of moonlight peeping in at rare
intervals to make the darkness to be felt! Moreover, it was really
damp and cold, which is not favourable to courage. At a certain point
Yew-lane skirted a corner of the churchyard, and was itself crossed by
another road, thus forming a "four-want-