The friar proceeded as he had said, and all the rest joined him with becoming devotion, save the poet, whose orisons that night were somewhat cold. He could not brook the charm that drew Delany from his own side to his rival's knee. The Master sat aloof, biting his lip, and grinning in derision; but, at one part of the service, although the curate does not say what part, he was insensibly overcome, and fell into a painful oblivious dream. The strains of the sacred music, simple as they were, stole over his soul, as some remembrance of early life sometimes steals into the heart of enfeebled age, reminding the decaying and dying worm of joys he can no more see, and of feelings of delight that have perished for ever.--If a son of the mountains of the north were transported to some far foreign clime, and there doomed to remain for life: After sojourning in that land for half an age, until grey and bowed down, if by chance, on some still evening, or mayhap through the eddies of the storm, one of the strains of his native land were poured on his ear, think of the recollections it would awaken in his mind: How painfully thrilling the sensations! Would it not be like the last sweet beam of a hope he was never more to cherish, a last look of all that was dear on earth?--Such were the feelings that crept unbidden over the soul of the enchanter, on hearing the sweet sounds, that reminded him of a religion he had for ever renounced, and in which he had never firmly believed till he had believed to tremble. In this troubled trance he sat leaning against the wall, until the worshippers had reached the middle of the hymn to the Saviour. He then was seized with strong convulsions, and, rising up, with staggering steps, he fled from the chamber, crying as he went,--"Cruel and improvident things! reptiles! cursed, whining sycophants! that would send me to my doom before my time!" He rushed out to the battlements, and, groping his way through the storm, took shelter in the narrow staircase, that he might hear no more of the sounds that thus troubled and distracted his soul. What dread had seized him, or what he had seen or heard, his guests knew not; but they had scarcely well ended their hymn, when he rushed again in among them, with wildered looks, and his hair standing on end, seeming glad to take shelter among those from whom he had so lately fled with abhorrence. No one enquired the cause, for all were so weary and overcome with slumber; and every one then composed himself to sleep in the manner that best suited his convenience.