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"Lord, have mercy upon me! I'll never do it no more!"

Mr. Lindsay was not likely to alter his opinion on the subject of
bullies. This one, like others, was a mortal coward. Like other men, who
have no fear of God before their eyes, he made up for it by having a
very hearty fear of sickness, death, departed souls, and one or two
other things, which the most self-willed sinner knows well enough to be
in the hands of a Power which he cannot see, and does not wish to
believe in. Bully Tom had spoken the truth when he said that if he
thought there was a ghost in Yew-lane he wouldn't go near it. If he had
believed the stories with which he had alarmed poor Bill, the lad's
evening walk would never have been disturbed, as far as he was
concerned. Nothing but his spite against Bessy would have made him take
so much trouble to vex the peace, and stop the schooling, of her pet
brother; and as it was, the standing alone by the churchyard at night
was a position so little to his taste, that he had drunk pretty heavily
in the public-house for half an hour before-hand, to keep up his
spirits. And now he had been paid back in his own coin, and lay
grovelling in the mud, and calling profanely on the Lord, whose mercy
such men always cry for in their trouble, if they never ask it for their
sins. He was so confused and blinded by drink and fright, that he did
not see the second ghost divest himself of his encumbrances, or know
that it was John Gardener, till that rosy-cheeked worthy, his clenched
hands still flaming with brimstone, danced round him, and shouted
scornfully, and with that vehemence of aspiration in which he was apt to
indulge when excited;--

"Get hup, yer great cowardly booby, will yer? So you thought you was
coming hout to frighten a little lad, did ye? And you met with one of
your hown size, did ye? Now _will_ ye get hup and take it like a man, or
shall I give it you as ye lie there?"

Bully Tom chose the least of two evils, and staggering to his feet with
an oath, rushed upon John. But in his present condition he was no match
for the active little gardener, inspired with just wrath and thoughts of
Bessy; and he then and there received such a sound thrashing as he had
not known since he first arrogated the character of village bully. He
was roaring loudly for mercy, and John Gardener was giving him a
harmless roll in the mud by way of conclusion, when he caught sight of
the two young gentlemen in the lane,--Maste