"And cannon, and horses, and smoke, and trees, and a dreadful splutter of blood and dead men, hah? Then, by the lord, you shall paint me the Fatal Field of Braddock, with the red-coats and the continentals, the savages and the Frenchmen,--and Braddock, lugged off on men's shoulders,--and George Washington rallying the colony-boys for another charge on the red-skins! What a picture that will make!--I'll tell you what, Mr. Harkem What-d'-ye-call-it, you shall come to my house, drink and be merry, and then you shall paint me that picture. You shall paint me the battle of Brandywine, too, with my poor Tom Loring bleeding to death, like a hero, as he was: and hark ye, you may bring _me_ in, too, holding him on my knee,--for I did it,--and telling him to die like a man,--for an old fool, as I was, to think he could die like any thing else! And stick in my girl, too, if you can, weeping and wringing her hands, when I carried Tom Loring home that day. And remember the bugles and trumpets, blasting up for the charge of cavalry; you should have heard them sweeping by, just as Tom was dying.--It was the finest sound in nature!" continued the Captain, vehemently, and as he spoke, dashing a tear from his eye; "the finest music ever heard; as Tom acknowledged himself: 'Father!' said he, as he bled in my arms, 'it is not hard to die to such music, for I hear our own trumpets among the others!' And so died Tom Loring; he went to heaven amid thunder and trumpets; and if I had seven sons more, I should wish nothing better for them, than that they might go to heaven the same way,--I would, by the lord! For why? there's no way that's better!" There was something in this eccentric burst of ardour, which, however ludicrous it seemed, touched some of the finer feelings of the painter, and checked the laugh which he could scarce repress, when the Captain began his energetic instructions. Not being disposed to accept a commission so capriciously proffered, or to undertake a composition, in which, it was evident, if he hoped to please his employer, he must mingle together as many different scenes and actions as would furnish subjects for a whole gallery, and desiring to temper his refusal to the peculiarities of his patron, he was puzzling himself in what way to express it, when his good-fortune sent him aid in the person of another stranger, who, as the capricious stars would have it, designed, like himself, to make trial of the accommodations of the Traveller's Rest. CHAPTER IV. _1st Friar_. No doubt, brother, but this proceedeth of the Spirit? _2d Friar_. Ay, and of a moving spirit, too; but come, Let us intreat he may be entertain'd. MARLOW--_The Jew of Malta_.