(For we did run away.) Overstrain and collapse, ill-usage short of torture, hard living and short commons, one got a certain accustomedness to, according to the merciful law which within certain limits makes a second nature for us out of use and wont.

The one pain that knew no pause, and allowed of no revival, the evil that overbore us, mind and body, was the evil of constant dread.

Upon us little boys fear lay always, and the terror of it was that it was uncertain.

What would come next, and from whom, we never knew.
It was I who settled we should run away.

I did it the night that Jem gave in, and would do nothing but cry noiselessly into his sleeve and wish he was dead.