rays which it cast perpendicularly down—­so I must have sat a long, long time upon my stone.  And now, once more, I rested my head upon my hand, but almost instantly lifted it again in a kind of fear, and began looking at the objects before me—­the forge, the tools, the branches of the trees, endeavouring to follow their rows, till they were lost in the darkness of the dingle; and now I found my right hand grasping convulsively the three fore-fingers of the left, first collectively, and then successively, wringing them till the joints cracked; then I became quiet, but not for long.

Suddenly I started up, and could scarcely repress the shriek which was rising to my lips.  Was it possible?  Yes, all too certain; the evil one was upon me; the inscrutable horror which I had felt in my boyhood had once more taken possession of me.  I had thought that it had forsaken me—­that it would never visit me again; that I had outgrown it; that I might almost bid defiance to it; and I had even begun to think of it without horror, as we are in the habit of doing of horrors of which we conceive we run no danger; and lo! when least thought of, it had seized me again.  Every moment I felt it gathering force, and making me more wholly its own.  What should I do?—­resist, of course; and I did resist.  I grasped, I tore, and strove to fling it from me; but of what avail were my efforts?  I could only have got rid of it by getting rid of myself:  it was a part of myself, or rather it was all myself.  I rushed amongst the trees, and struck at them with my bare fists, and dashed my head against them, but I felt no pain.  How could I feel pain with that horror upon me?  And then I flung myself on the ground, gnawed the earth, and swallowed it; and then I looked round; it was almost total darkness in the dingle, and the darkness added to my horror.  I could no longer stay there; up I rose from the ground, and attempted to escape.  At the bottom of the winding path which led up the acclivity I fell over something which was lying on the ground; the something moved, and gave a kind of whine.  It was my little horse, which had made that place its lair; my little horse; my only companion and friend in that now awful solitude.  I reached the mouth of the dingle; the sun was just sinking in the far west behind me, the fields were flooded with his last gleams.  How beautiful everything looked in the last gleams of the sun!  I felt relieved for a moment; I was no longer in the horrid dingle.  In another minute the sun was gone, and a big cloud occupied the place where he had been:  in a little time it was almost as dark as it had previously been in the open part of the dingle.  My horror increased; what was I to do?—­it was of no use fighting against the horror—­that I saw; the more I fought against it, the stronger it became.  What should I do:  say my prayers?  Ah! why not?  So I knelt down under the hedge, and said, ‘Our Father’; but that was of no use;