But the dearest friend of Mr Glowry, and his most welcome guest, was Mr Toobad, the Manichaean Millenarian. The twelfth verse of the twelfth chapter of Revelations was always in his mouth: 'Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come among you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.' He maintained that the supreme dominion of the world was, for wise purposes, given over for a while to the Evil Principle; and that this precise period of time, commonly called the enlightened age, was the point of his plenitude of power. He used to add that by and by he would be cast down, and a high and happy order of things succeed; but he never omitted the saving clause, 'Not in our time'; which last words were always echoed in doleful response by the sympathetic Mr Glowry. Another and very frequent visitor, was the Reverend Mr Larynx, the vicar of Claydyke, a village about ten miles distant;--a good-natured accommodating divine, who was always most obligingly ready to take a dinner and a bed at the house of any country gentleman in distress for a companion. Nothing came amiss to him,--a game at billiards, at chess, at draughts, at backgammon, at piquet, or at all-fours in a _tete-a-tete_,--or any game on the cards, round, square, or triangular, in a party of any number exceeding two. He would even dance among friends, rather than that a lady, even if she were on the wrong side of thirty, should sit still for want of a partner. For a ride, a walk, or a sail, in the morning,--a song after dinner, a ghost story after supper,--a bottle of port with the squire, or a cup of green tea with his lady,--for all or any of these, or for any thing else that was agreeable to any one else, consistently with the dye of his coat, the Reverend Mr Larynx was at all times equally ready. When at Nightmare Abbey, he would condole with Mr Glowry,--drink Madeira with Scythrop,--crack jokes with Mr Hilary,--hand Mrs Hilary to the piano, take charge of her fan and gloves, and turn over her music with surprising dexterity,--quote Revelations with Mr Toobad,--and lament the good old times of feudal darkness with the transcendental Mr Flosky. * * * * * CHAPTER II