"Poor dastardly braggart!" said Michael; "not for the soul that inhabits that old malicious frame, dare you do such a thing. I would seize on it, and make sport of it for ages. I have you wholly in my power, and, dead or alive, it is the same thing to me. Were you to do as you say, and take away your life by a ghastly wound, I could even make one of these fiendish spirits enter into your body, re-animate it, and cause you to go about with your gaping wound, unclosed and unpurified, as when death entered thereat. Think of what an existence that would be, and then go and put your miserable threat into execution." "Hah! There it is!" said Gourlay: "Turn me as I will, I see nothing but wretchedness. Cursed be the day that I saw you, and ten times cursed the confession I made, that has thus subjected me to your tyranny! However, use me another day as you have used me on this, and you do it at your peril, if you were the devil himself. I have warned you." Michael only smiled contemptuously at the threat; and again asked what living creatures were in the castle, as he wanted a retinue to receive the message of his kinsmen. "I have told you already," said Gourlay, in the same passionate and irritated mood; "and I again repeat it, that there is no mortal thing in the castle, but the old witch, and perhaps two or three hundred rats." "Take that in the first place then," said Michael, "for your impertinence,"--at the same time laying him flat on the floor by a tremendous blow, although he only moved his hand toward the steward; "and in the next place go call out these three hundred rats you talk of, marshal them up in the court, and receive the mighty warden's people with all manner of pomp and respect, and use them according to their demerits." The steward roared out with pain; and gnashing his teeth with rage, he arose growling, and was hasting away, when the Master asked him if he was going to accomplish what he had bidden him do. "Without doubt;" said he, "Is it not very likely that I shall be able?" "Take that then," said the Master, "and put it above the lock-hole of the door; it shall serve you as a summons, and Prig, Prim, and Pricker shall marshal your array." With that he gave him a small piece of parchment written in red characters, which the steward snatched angrily out of his hand, and going down the stair did as the Master had ordered him. The charm was effective, and its effects momentary. The bustling and the screaming of rats were heard in every corner of the castle, and forthwith a whole column of men marched out into the court in three files, led by the three pages, and headed by the incensed seneschal in his grey mantle and cap.