back again. They were still fishing perseveringly, when he peeped

in at the gate for the second time; but now they seemed to have got

a bite. There was a screwing and complaining sound down below,

and their bent figures were strained, as if by a weight. By slow

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

degrees the weight broke away the earth upon it, and came to the

surface. Young Jerry very well knew what it would be; but, when

he saw it, and saw his honoured parent about to wrench it open,

he was so frightened, being new to the sight, that he made off

again, and never stopped until he had run a mile or more.

He would not have stopped then, for anything less necessary

than breath, it being a spectral sort of race that he ran, and one

highly desirable to get to the end of. He had a strong idea that the

coffin he had seen was running after him; and, pictured as

hopping on behind him, bolt upright, upon its narrow end, always

on the point of overtaking him and hopping on at his side

perhaps taking his armit was a pursuer to shun. It was an

inconsistent and ubiquitous fiend too, for, while it was making the

whole night behind him dreadful, he darted out into the roadway

to avoid dark alleys, fearful of its coming hopping out of them like

a dropsical boy’s-Kite without tail and wings. It hid in doorways

too, rubbing its horrible shoulders