“But thou seest that my hands are full of working, and my labour is great. For, lo! I have to feed all the people of my land, and none knoweth whence his food cometh, but each man openeth his mouth and my hand filleth it with pleasant things. (_This is more than a shrewd guess of the authorship of the Waverley Novels._) “Moreover, thine adversary also is of my familiars (_Constable, his publisher_). “Yet be thou silent, peradventure will I help thee some little.” Chapter II. shows us Blackwood gazing despondently from his inner chamber, when a veiled figure appears, who “Gave unto the man in plain apparel a tablet containing the names of those upon whom he should call; and when he called they came, and whomsoever he asked he came.... “And the first which came was after the likeness of the beautiful leopard, from the valley of the palm-trees, whose going forth was comely as the greyhound, and his eyes like the lightning of fiery flame (_Professor Wilson, author of the ‘Isle of Palms.’_)... “There came also from a far country, the scorpion which delighteth to sting the faces of men, that he might sting sorely the countenance of the man which is crafty, and of the two beasts (_Lockhart_). “Also the great wild boar from the forest of Lebanon, and he roused up his spirit; and I saw him whetting his dreadful tusks for the battle” (_James Hogg_). Then come Dr. Macrie, Sir William Hamilton, Arthur Mower, “and the hyæna that escheweth the light, and cometh forth at eventide to raise up and gnaw the bones of the dead, and it is as a riddle unto a vain man (_Riddell, the legal antiquarian_). “And the beagle and the slowhound after their kind, and all the beasts of the field, more than could be numbered, they were so many.” In Chapter III., Constable finds that the “bear” and the “lamb” are unprofitable servants, and he, too, calls for aid, but Jeffrey--“the familiar spirit unto whom he had sold himself”--Leslie, and Playfair--contributors to the _Edinburgh_--refuse to come. In Chapter IV., Constable does get aid from Macney Napier, and others. “And when I saw them all gathered together, I said unto myself, Of a truth the man which is crafty hath many in his host, yet, think I, that scarcely will these be found sufficient against them which are in the gates of the man who is clothed in plain apparel.... “Verily the man which is crafty shall be defeated, and there shall not escape one to tell of his overthrow. “And while I was yet speaking, the hosts drew near, and the city was moved; and my spirit failed within me, and I was sore afraid, and I turned to escape away. “And he that was like unto the messenger of a king, said unto me, Cry: and I said, What shall I cry? for the day of vengeance is come upon all those that ruled the nation with a rod of iron. “And I fled into an inner chamber to hide myself, and I heard a great tumult, but I wist not what it was.”