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.