Mr. Jenkins hesitated. “My wife will be wondering what has become of me; she’ll blow me up for keeping supper waiting,” debated he, aloud. “But--well, I don’t mind going with you this once, for company’s sake,” he added in his willingness to be obliging. The two large keys, one at each end of a string, were hung up just within the lodge door; they belonged to the two gates of the cloisters. Old Ketch took them down and went out with Jenkins, merely closing his own door; he rarely fastened it, unless he was going some distance. Very dark were the enclosed cloisters, as they entered by the west gate. It was later than the usual hour of closing, and it was, moreover, a gloomy evening, the sky overcast. They went through the cloisters to the south gate, Ketch grumbling all the way. He locked it, and then turned back again. Arrived about midway of the west quadrangle, the very darkest part in all the cloisters, and the most dreary, Jenkins suddenly startled his companion by declaring there was a light in the burial-ground. “Come along!” growled Ketch. “You’ll say there’s corpse-candles there next.” “It is only a little spark, like,” said Jenkins, halting. “I should not wonder but it is one of those pretty, innocent glowworms.” He leaned his arms upon the mullioned frame of the open Gothic window, raised himself on tiptoe to obtain as complete a view as was possible, and pushed his head out to reconnoitre the grave-yard. Mr. Ketch shuffled on; the keys, held somewhat loosely in his hand by the string, clanking together. “Be you going to stop there all night?” he called out, when he had gone a few paces, half turning round to speak. At that moment a somewhat startling incident occurred. The keys were whisked out of Mr. Ketch’s hand, and fell, or appeared to fall, with a clatter on the flags at his feet. He turned his anger upon Jenkins. “Now then, you senseless calf! What did you do that for?” “Did you speak?” asked Jenkins, taking his elbows from the distant window-frame, and approaching. Mr. Ketch felt a little staggered. His belief had been that Jenkins had come up silently, and dashed the keys from his hand; but Jenkins, it appeared, had not left the window. However, like too many other cross-grained spirits, he persisted in venting blame upon him. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, to play an old man such a trick?” “I have played no trick,” said Jenkins. “I thought I saw a glowworm, and I stopped to look; but I couldn’t see it again. There’s no trick in that.” “Ugh!” cried the porter in his wrath. “You took and clutched the keys from me, and throwed ‘em on the ground! Pick ‘em up.” “Well, I never heard the like!” said Jenkins. “I was not within yards and yards of you. If you dropped the keys it was no fault of mine.” But, being a peaceably-inclined man, he stooped and found the keys.