It was about twelve o’clock at night, and he reached the church-yard. Some boys would have been afraid of going into the church-yard, for fear of ghosts. John said to himself, “If the living do not hurt me, I am sure the dead will not; besides, why should I be afraid, when I am doing what is right.”
John thought he would have one look in the church porch, so he drew towards it. The old arch seemed to frown on him; and it looked so dark within, it made him shudder, although he would not be afraid. He stepped boldly in, and cried, “Paul, are you there?”
Something started with a loud noise, and bounded by him, calling out, “Halloo! halloo!” and leaped to one of the tombstones. When John looked, he found it was a poor silly boy, whom they used to call Silly Mike; and whose part John had often taken, when other boys used to tease him.
“Ah! Mike,” said John, “don’t you know me?” The poor idiot knew him directly, and said, “He is in the sack! he is in the sack!—buried in the wood! Dong, dong—no bell go dong, dong.”
After some trouble, John made Mike understand that he was in search of Paul; who kept saying, he was in a sack in the wood: “Gipsy men,—sack in wood;—Mike frightened.”
At last John prevailed upon the poor fellow to show him to the wood; for the boy thought it might be that Paul had been taken away by somebody.
So they went on till they came to the wood. Mike led the way. At last they thought they heard a moan. John listened:—he heard it again; he then pushed through the brambles, tearing his face and hands at every step.
He called out, “Paul, Paul?” “Here, here,” was faintly said in reply. John rushed to the spot, and there lay the poor little boy, half dead.
John ran and helped him up; he then pulled off some of his own clothes, and put them upon him. Mike then lifted him on his back, and they soon got out of the wood.
Paul’s father had been out all night after him. His poor mother had also been searching every place she could think of, and had given him up for lost. They thought he had fallen into the river, and had been drowned.