"Of course, I do," said Bill, beginning to feel vaguely uncomfortable.
"It must be dark now before school looses?" was the next inquiry; and the boy's discomfort increased, he hardly knew why, as he answered—
"There's a moon."
"So there is," said Bully Tom, in a tone of polite assent; "and there's a weathercock on the church-steeple but I never heard of either of 'em coming down to help a body, whatever happened."
Bill's discomfort had become alarm.
"Why, what could happen?" he asked. "I don't understand you."
His companion whistled, looked up in the air, and kicked vigorously, but said nothing. Bill was not extraordinarily brave, but he had a fair amount both of spirit and sense; and having a shrewd suspicion that Bully Tom was trying to frighten him, he almost made up his mind to run off then and there. Curiosity, however, and a vague alarm which he could not throw off, made him stay for a little more information.
"I wish you'd out with it!" he exclaimed, impatiently. "What could happen? No one ever comes along Yew-lane; and if they did they wouldn't hurt me."
"I know no one ever comes near it when they can help it," was the reply; "so, to be sure, you couldn't get set upon. And a pious lad of your sort wouldn't mind no other kind. Not like ghosts, or anything of that."
And Bully Tom looked round at his companion; a fact disagreeable from its rarity.