“A light, ye cowardly poltroons?” said the philosopher; “what—to show which of you looks palest when a rat squeaks?—but take a candlestick and begone, you cowardly villains! the devils you are so much afraid of must be but paltry kites, if they hawk at such bats as you are.” The servants, without replying, took up one of the candlesticks, and prepared to retreat, Trusty Tomkins at the head of the troop, when suddenly, as they arrived at the door of the parlour, which had been left half open, it was shut violently. The three terrified domestics tumbled back into the middle of the room, as if a shot had been discharged in their face, and all who were at the table started to their feet. Colonel Everard was incapable of a moment’s fear, even if any thing frightful had been seen; but he remained stationary, to see what his companions would do, and to get at the bottom, if possible, of the cause of their alarm upon an occasion so trifling. The philosopher seemed to think that _he_ was the person chiefly concerned to show manhood on the occasion. He walked to the door accordingly, murmuring at the cowardice of the servants; but at such a snail’s pace, that it seemed he would most willingly have been anticipated by any one whom his reproaches had roused to exertion. “Cowardly blockheads!” he said at last, seizing hold of the handle of the door, but without turning it effectually round— “dare you not open a door?”—(still fumbling with the lock)—“dare you not go down a stair-case without a light? Here, bring me the candle, you cowardly villains!—By Heaven, something sighs on the outside!” As he spoke, he let go the handle of the parlour door, and stepped back a pace or two into the apartment, with cheeks as pale as the band he wore. “_Deus adjutor meus_!” said the Presbyterian clergyman, rising from his seat. “Give place, sir,” addressing Bletson; “it would seem I know more of this matter than thou, and I bless Heaven I am armed for the conflict.” Bold as a grenadier about to mount a breach, yet with the same belief in the existence of a great danger to be encountered, as well as the same reliance in the goodness of his cause, the worthy man stepped before the philosophical Bletson, and taking a light from a sconce in one hand, quietly opened the door with the other, and standing in the threshold, said, “Here is nothing!” “And who expected to see any thing,” said Bletson, “excepting those terrified oafs, who take fright at every puff of wind that whistles through the passages of this old dungeon?” “Mark you, Master Tomkins,” said one of the waiting-men in a whisper to the steward,—“See how boldly the minister pressed forward before all of them. Ah! Master Tomkins, our parson is the real commissioned officer of the church—your lay-preachers are no better than a parcel of club-men and volunteers.”