“Could not his Excellency, my kinsman Noll,” he said, “have given his poor relative and brother-in-law a sop somewhere else than out of this Woodstock, which seems to be the devil’s own porridge-pot? I cannot sup broth with the devil; I have no long spoon—not I. Could he not have quartered me in some quiet corner, and given this haunted place to some of his preachers and prayers, who know the Bible as well as the muster-roll? whereas I know the four hoofs of a clean-going nag, or the points of a team of oxen, better than all the books of Moses. But I will give it over, at once and for ever; hopes of earthly gain shall never make me run the risk of being carried away bodily by the devil, besides being set upon my head one whole night, and soused with ditch-water the next—No, no; I am too wise for that.” Master Bletson had a different part to act. He complained of no personal annoyances; on the contrary, he declared he should have slept as well as ever he did in his life but for the abominable disturbances around him, of men calling to arms every half hour, when so much as a cat trotted by one of their posts—He would rather, he said, “have slept among a whole sabaoth of witches, if such creatures could be found.” “Then you think there are no such things as apparitions, Master Bletson?” said Everard. “I used to be sceptical on the subject; but, on my life, to-night has been a strange one.” “Dreams, dreams, dreams, my simple Colonel,” said Bletson, though, his pale face and shaking limbs belied the assumed courage with which he spoke. “Old Chaucer, sir, hath told us the real moral on’t—He was an old frequenter of the forest of Woodstock, here”— “Chaser?” said Desborough; “some huntsman, belike, by his name. Does he walk, like Hearne at Windsor?” “Chaucer,” said Bletson, “my dear Desborough, is one of those wonderful fellows, as Colonel Everard knows, who live many a hundred years after they are buried, and whose words haunt our ears after their bones are long mouldered in the dust.” “Ay, ay! well,” answered Desborough, to whom this description of the old poet was unintelligible—“I for one desire his room rather than his company; one of your conjurors, I warrant him. But what says he to the matter?” “Only a slight spell, which I will take the freedom to repeat to Colonel Everard,” said Bletson; “but which would be as bad as Greek to thee, Desborough. Old Geoffrey lays the whole blame of our nocturnal disturbance on superfluity of humours, ‘Which causen folk to dred in their dreams Of arrowes, and of fire with red gleams, Right as the humour of melancholy Causeth many a man in sleep to cry For fear of great bulls and bears black, And others that black devils will them take.’” While he was thus declaiming, Everard observed a book sticking out from beneath the pillow of the bed lately occupied by the honourable member. “Is that Chaucer?” he said, making to the volume; “I would like to look at the passage”—