"Ails me!" I replied, repressing my fears, "why to tell you the truth, I'd just as soon be anywhere else as here."
"Pooh! pooh! young man; one must accustom one's self to everything in this world. We must learn—be always learning. Remember, for instance, for I'll be bound that you never heard of such a thing before, that worms taken in a burial-ground are the finest possible bait for barbel, do you hear?—taken by moonlight from the roots of the hemlock."
"Good heavens! Père Séguin, I would rather never catch a fish for the rest of my days than touch one of those worms!"
"Nonsense, my lad—nonsense; they are admirable bait—fine fat fellows—sure to take. We shall have a wonderful day to-morrow. You will soon see how the giants and gourmands of the streams will snap at these beauties."
"Hang the barbel, Père Séguin!—let us leave this cold churchyard. I feel sick, and a clammy cold creeping over me already—do let us be gone;" but he would not move.
"Don't feel unwell, pray don't; it is a well-known fact, that any person who feels ill in a churchyard is sure to die within the year."
"Let us leave then, for I do feel very ill;" but the purveyor of worms was now too much occupied to listen to me.
Hopeless, therefore, of inducing him to leave till he had filled his box, I sat down on a tombstone, and the noise he made with the spade in the silence, the darkness, and the peculiar and sickening odour of the place, filled me with an indescribable sense of fear and horror.