Through the holes which had fixed the bottles in position we could see everything without being discovered. The grand dignitaries, sitting in a semicircle, were about to proceed from physical to moral tests. Before them, his red nose hanging like a cameo from the white bandage which covered his eyes, and relieved upon his face, still perfectly white and calm, stood the Scot. The Grand Master arose--I should have said the Reverend--his head nodding with senility, his beard white as a waterfall: he appeared to be eighty years of age at least. He was truly venerable to look at, and reminded me of Thor. He wore a sort of dalmatica embroidered with gold. Calmness and goodness were so plainly marked on the aspect of this worthy that I felt ashamed of playing the spy, and felt inclined to return humbly to the good counsel of Athanasius, when the latter, pushing my elbow behind the shelves, said, referring to the Ancient of the Mountain, "That's Fortnoye: I knew I couldn't be mistaken." I was greatly mystified at discovering the first tenor voice of Épernay in an aged man; but the catechism now commencing, I thought only of listening. "The barleycorns of your native North having been partially cleaned out of your hair by contact with the two enchanted steeds--the steed you bridled without a head, and the steed that ran away with you without legs," said the Ancient--"we have brought you hither for examination. We might have gone much farther with the physical tests: we might have forced you, at the present session, to relieve yourself of those envelopes considered indispensable by all Europeans beneath your own latitude, and in our presence perform the sword-dance." "So be it," said the disciple, executing a galvanic figure with his legs, his countenance still like marble. "If we demanded the head of your best friend, would you bring it in?" "I am the countryman of Lady Macbeth," replied the red nose. "Give me the daggers." "We would fain dispense with that proof, necessarily painful to a man of such evident sensibility as yours." The red nose bowed. "What is your name?" He pronounced it--apparently MacMurtagh. "In future, among us, you are named Meurtrier." "MacMeurtrier," muttered the Scotchman in a tone of abstraction. "No! Meurtrier unadulterated. Your business?" "I am a homoeopathic doctor." "Are you a believer in homoeopathy? Be careful: remember that the Ancient of the Mountain hears what you say." The Scot held up his hand: "I believe in the learned Hahnemann, and in Mrs. Hahnemann, no less learned than himself; but," he added, "homoeopathy is a science still in its baby-clothes. I have invented a system perfectly novel. In mingling homoeopathy with vegetable magnetism the most encouraging results are obtained, as may be observed daily in the villa of Dr. Van Murtagh, near Edinburgh--"