"Poor youth!" he began, after two or three hems; "poor youth! now truly thou lookest like an owl in the desert, yea, verily, even as one overtaken in the Slough of Despond. Now thou seest how atrocious is the crime of rebellion, and how bitter its meed. Now thou seest how wicked is the attempt to overturn our pure and blessed Kirk as by law established, and to substitute anarchy and confusion for peace and brotherly love, and to involve the innocent with the guilty in one common destruction. Ewhow! O guilty madness--O miserable infatuation, that for the phanton of kingly and hereditary right, would ruthlessly hurl back the land into the dark abyss of Popery, restore the abomination of the mass, and substitute the vile and tyrannical James for that beloved prince of our own persuasion, now seated on Britain's triple throne, if not by that imaginary hereditary right, at least by the laws of the land, and the voice of those that are above it--yea, mark me, youth, above it--the ministers of the Gospel. The pious and glorious William hath been our Saviour from the devilish practices of Popery, and the machinations of all those spurious children of Luther and of Calvin, the Seekers, the Libertines and Independents, Brownists, Separatists and Familists, Antitrinitarians, Arians, Socinians, Anti-Scripturists, Anabaptists, Antinomians, Arminians, and a myriad other teachers of heresy and preachers of schism--whilk, my brethren--my brother, I mean--may Beelzebub confound! Oh, youth, how wicked and ungracious it is in thee to reject the stately Fig-tree with its sweetness and good fruit, and raise up the ancient thorn and prickly bramble to reign over us!" "My good sir," replied Walter, "it is but a poor specimen of Presbyterian charity this, to come hither to a dismal vault, to heap contumely on the head of the fallen, to humble one who is already humbled--to bruise the bruised. Good sir, is it kind or charitable to rail at and exult over me in this my great distress?" At this unexpected accusation, tears started into the eyes of Ichabod Bummel, who was really a good man at heart, though his virtues were sadly obscured by the fanaticism of the times. "Do not misunderstand me, good youth," he replied hurriedly; "and do me not this great injustice. I come in the most humble and Christian spirit, to cheer thy last hour in this gloomy hypogeum, and for that godly purpose have brought with me a copy of my _Bombshell_, a most sweet and savoury comforter to the afflicted mind." He drew that celebrated quarto from his voluminous pocket, laid it on the table, and opening it at certain places, turned down the corners of the leaves. He then produced a thick little black-letter psalm-book, the board of which bore the very decided impression of a Bothwell-brig bullet; he adjusted a great pair of round horn spectacles on his long-hooked nose, and in a shrill voice began his favourite chant: "I like ane owle in desert am," &c.