"The boys began to gather round me as if I were something strange; and when I looked at them they would move back from me. 'What have you been doing, Abel?' one of them asked me at last. 'No good, I warrant you,' answered another, who stood back of me. And when I turned around to speak to him he drew behind the others, as if afraid I should harm him;--and I was too weak and frightened to hurt a fly. 'See his hands; they are stained all over.'--'And there's a crow's egg, as I'm alive!' said another. 'And the crow is the Devil's bird, Tom, isn't it?' asked a little boy. 'O Abel, you've been to that wood and made yourself over to Him.'--They moved off one after another, every now and then turning round and looking at me as if I were cursed. After this they would not speak to me nor come nigh me. I heard people talking, and saw them going about, but not one of them all could I speak to, or get to come near me; it was dreadful, being so alone! I met a boy that used to be with me all day long; and I begged him not to go off from me so, and to stop, if it were only for a moment. 'You played with me once,' said I; 'and won't you do so much as look at me, or ask me how I am, when I am so weak and ill too?' He began to hang back a little, and I thought from his face that he pitied me. I could have cried for joy, and was going up to him, but he turned away. I called out after him, telling him that I would not so much as touch him with my finger, or come any nearer to him, if he would only stop and speak one word to me; but he went away shaking his head, and muttering something, I hardly knew what,--how that I did not belong to them, but was the Evil One's now. I sat down on a stone and cried, and wished that I was dead; for I couldn't help it, though it was wicked in me to do so." "And is there no one," asked Paul, "who will notice you or speak to you? Do you live so alone now?" It made his heart ache to look down upon the pining, forlorn creature before him. "Not a soul," whined out the boy. "My grandmother is dead now, and only the gentlefolks give me anything; for they don't seem afraid of me, though they look as if they didn't like me, and wanted me gone. All I can, I get to eat in the woods, and I beg out of the village. But I dare not go far, because I don't know when He will want me. But I am not alone, He's with me day and night. As I go along the street in the daytime, I feel Him near me, though I can't see Him; and it is as if He were speaking to me; and yet I don't hear any words. He makes me follow Him to that wood; and I have to sit the whole day where you found me, and I dare not complain nor move, till I feel He will let me go. I've looked at the pines, sometimes, till I have seen spirits moving all through them. Oh, 'tis an awful place; they breathe cold upon me when He makes me go there." "Poor wretch!" said Paul. "I'm weak and hungry, and yet when I try to eat, something chokes me; I don't love what I eat."