afeard

“Man!” he said, “but it made us afeard, for we expeckit that we should have to pay for it wi’ some rare piece o’ ill luck, so as to keep up the average.

“Dear Becky,” she began, “I take my pen in hand to tell you that I am well, but so afeard and worried, for we are going to the battle tomorrow.”

While perusing, you might take the advice of Caliban, in “The Tempest”: “Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises / Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.”

Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises.

Though the play quotes the phrase “be not afeard” from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” the purpose of “Privacy” is to scare you silly, through only seemingly silly means.