The day wore on, and the philosopher, with a struggle against his misgivings that whispered "cruelty and barbarity," reckoned mightily on the triumph his newly acquired knowledge was to give him over the powers of darkness as soon as night arrived, and the murky hour of twelve approached. He sharpened a knife till the edge was most deadly keen; he made up a good fire: he collected, at least, one hundred pins from the patches on his shop-board and in his drawers: he prepared the string by which the dove's heart was to be hung to roast; and he drove in the nail to which the string was to be tied. And now the black midnight hour was near, and trembling with agitation that might almost be called horror, Toby Lackpenny took the poor fluttering pigeon out of its hiding-place, and took the fierce knife into his hand to be ready to dash into its breast as soon as the church clock struck the first stroke of twelve. Need he had for self-possession and preparedness of mind and act, in order to complete his necromantic feat like a true adept,--for although he was not to wound the bird till he heard the first stroke of twelve, yet he must have its heart out, alive, and have it stuck full of pins, and placed down at the fire to roast,--and all before the church clock had told the last stroke of twelve! "Pshaw!--nonsense--what a chicken-hearted fool I am!" said poor Toby to himself, as he stood trying to confine the bird's wings with one hand, and holding his sharp knife in the other: "let me think of the victory I shall obtain over these agents of the Evil One,--and not give way in this childish manner!" But Toby _did_ give way, and could not help it; as he said to Joe when he afterwards described this strange temptation to his beloved young friend. The faster the moments flew, and the more nearly the magical moment approached, the more Toby trembled, and the more loudly his heart beat against his ribs, and the more terrifically his conscience menaced his peace, till--as the last half minute was elapsing, he threw down the knife, and releasing the pigeon from his grasp, declared aloud, though out of the hearing of every human being, that he neither could nor would hurt the poor harmless dove, even if all the witches on earth, and all the fiends they dealt with in the other place, should, thenceforth, have power to torment him every minute of his remaining life.