“No—I remember who are within,” replied his friend. “I only sing to my merry goblins, who will like me all the better for it. Tush, man, the devils are my _bonos socios_, and when I see them, I will warrant they prove such roaring boys as I knew when I served under Lunford and Goring, fellows with long nails that nothing escaped, bottomless stomachs, that nothing filled,—mad for pillaging, ranting, drinking, and fighting,—sleeping rough on the trenches, and dying stubbornly in their boots. Ah! those merry days are gone. Well, it is the fashion to make a grave face on’t among cavaliers, and specially the parsons that have lost their tithe-pigs; but I was fitted for the element of the time, and never did or can desire merrier days than I had during that same barbarous, bloody, and unnatural rebellion.” “Thou wert ever a wild sea-bird, Roger, even according to your name; liking the gale better than the calm, the boisterous ocean better than the smooth lake, and your rough, wild struggle against the wind, than daily food, ease and quiet.” “Pshaw! a fig for your smooth lake, and your old woman to feed me with brewer’s grains, and the poor drake obliged to come swattering whenever she whistles! Everard, I like to feel the wind rustle against my pinions,—now diving, now on the crest of the wave, now in ocean, now in sky—that is the wild-drake’s joy, my grave one! And in the Civil War so it went with us—down in one county, up in another, beaten to-day, victorious tomorrow—now starving in some barren leaguer—now revelling in a Presbyterian’s pantry—his cellars, his plate-chest, his old judicial thumb-ring, his pretty serving-wench, all at command!” “Hush, friend,” said Everard; “remember I hold that persuasion.” “More the pity, Mark, more the pity,” said Wildrake; “but, as you say, it is needless talking of it. Let us e’en go and see how your Presbyterian pastor, Mr. Holdenough, has fared, and whether he has proved more able to foil the foul Fiend than have you his disciple and auditor.” They left the apartment accordingly, and were overwhelmed with the various incoherent accounts of sentinels and others, all of whom had seen or heard something extraordinary in the course of the night. It is needless to describe particularly the various rumours which each contributed to the common stock, with the greater alacrity that in such cases there seems always to be a sort of disgrace in not having seen or suffered as much as others.