When each had taken a cup of the elevating beverage, the effect was delightful; all their cares, dangers, and wants faded; the terrors of the storm, that was still increasing, only startled them now and then, as it rattled on the tower, or yelled thro' the crevices below. They chatted, laughed, and broke jokes on each other, till even the sublime Master was diverted from his profound and brooding ideas, and smiled at the rustic simplicity of the characters around him. The laird of the Peatstacknowe told a great number of his long stories, of which something that was seen, said, or done, always reminded him; Charlie told confused stories about battles and forays; and the poet came in always between with his rythmatic descriptions and allusions; until at one time the associations of ideas followed one another in a manner so truly ludicrous, that the enchanter actually laughed till he had almost fallen into a fit, a thing that had not for twenty years been witnessed of him. The tempest still continued to rage, and the loquacity of the party beginning to flag, they became drowsy as midnight approached. The friar then looking gravely around him, and, laying aside his hood, took a small psalter book from his bosom; which volume also contained the four books of the Apocalypse; and, opening it reverendly, he proposed that they should all join in performing the evening service to the Virgin, and the hymn to the Redeemer. Delany rose from off the lap of the poet's cloak, where she had sat nestling all the evening, and came and kneeled down at the friar's knee. The Master started up with a look of indignation, stamped on the floor, and ordered the friar to put up his vain book, and refrain from such flummery in his presence. The friar looked at him with a steady countenance. "It is not meet that I should obey man rather than God," said he. "I have taken a vow in the face of Heaven, and I will pay that vow in spite of men and devils. I will sing my holy hymns with these my friends and children, and he that listeth not to join, let him be accursed, and translated from the presence." This last sentence sounded rather equivocally in the Master's ears. He liked not such a translation as he had lately witnessed; for, with all his power and mysterious art, the terrors of death still encompassed him about. He held his peace, therefore, although he growled like a lion at bay at being bearded thus in his own castle.