o drop it, you should never have
begun."

Glasses and even pipes rang sharply upon the old oak table in applause
of this British sentiment, and the young man, with a sheepish look,
submitted to the voice of the public.

"Well, then, all of you know where the big yew-tree stands, at the break
of the hill about half a mile inland, and how black it looms among the
other stuff. But Bob, with his sweetheart in his head, no doubt, was
that full of courage that he forgot all about the old tree, and the
murder done inside it a hundred and twenty years ago, they say, until
there it was, over his head a'most, with the gaps in it staring like
ribs at him. 'Bout ship was the word, pretty sharp, you may be sure,
when he come to his wits consarning it, and the purse of his lips, as
was whistling a jig, went as dry as a bag with the bottom out. Through
the grey of the night there was sounds coming to him, such as had no
right to be in the air, and a sort of a shiver laid hold of his heart,
like a cold hand flung over his shoulder. As hard as he could lay foot
to the ground, away he went down hill, forgetting of his kneecap, for
such was the condition of his mind and body.

"You must understand, mates, that he hadn't seen nothing to skeer him,
but only heard sounds, which come into his ears to make his hair rise;
and his mind might have put into them more than there was, for the want
of intarpreting. Perhaps this come across him, as soon as he felt at
a better distance with his wind short; anyhow, he brought up again'
a piece of rock-stuff in a hollow of the ground, and begun to look
skeerily backward. For a bit of a while there was nothing to distemper
him, only the dark of the hill and the trees, and the grey light
a-coming from the sea in front. But just as he were beginning for to
call himself a fool, and to pick himself onto his legs for trudging
home, he seed a thing as skeered him worse than ever, and fetched him
flat upon his lower end.

"From the black of the yew-tree there burst a big light, brighter than
a lighthouse or a blue thunder-bolt, and flying with a long streak down
the hollow, just as if all the world was a-blazing. Three times it come,
with three different colours, first blue, and then white, and then
red as new blood; and poor Bob was in a condition of mind must be seen
before saying more of it. If he had been brought up to follow the sea,
instead of the shoemaking, maybe his wits would have been more about