Invoking the aid of the preternatural, he taught his brother that the hollow behind the house was haunted by a monstrous and malevolent phantom, to which, in the plenitude of his imagination, he gave the name of Peningre.

Gradually the child discovered that Peningre was an illusion, and began to suspect that other ideas of Hurrell's might be illusions too.

Superstition is the parent of scepticism from the cradle to the gave.

At the same time his own faculty of invention was rather stimulated than repressed.

He was encouraged in telling, as children will, imaginative stories of things which never occurred.
In spite of ghosts and muddy water Anthony worshipped Hurrell, a born leader of men, who had a fascination for his brothers and sisters, though not perhaps of the most wholesome kind.