The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

108 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
a foolish tale about apparitions as I came this way, and now I find you all
half mad with fear, and cannot get a word of sense among so many of you.
Fie, Colonel Desborough - fie, Master Bletson - try to compose yourselves,
and let me know, in Heaven's name, the cause of all this disturbance. One
would be apt to think your brains were turned."
"And so mine well may," said Desborough, "ay, and overturned too,
since my bed last night was turned upside down, and I was placed for
ten minutes heels uppermost, and head downmost, like a bullock going to
be shod."
"What means this nonsense, Master Bletson? - Desborough must have
had the nightmare."
"No, faith, Colonel; the goblins, or whatever else they were, had been
favourable to honest Desborough, for they reposed the whole of his person
on that part of his body which - Hark, did you not hear something? - is
the central point of gravity, namely, his head."
"Did you see any thing to alarm you?" said the Colonel.
"Nothing," said Bletson; "but we heard hellish noises, as all our people
did; and I, believing little of ghosts and apparitions, concluded the cavaliers were taking us at advantage; so, remembering Rainsborough's fate, I
e'en jumped the window, and ran to Woodstock, to call the soldiers to the
rescue of Harrison and Desborough."
" And did you not first go to see what the danger was?"
" Ah, my good friend, you forget that I laid down my commission at the
time of the self-denying ordinance. It would have been quite inconsistent
with my duty as a Parliament-man to be brawling amidst a set of ruffians,
without any military authority. No-when the Parliament commanded me
to sheath my sword, Colonel, I have too much veneration for their authority
to be found again with it drawn in my hand."
"But the Parliament," said Desborough, hastily, "did not command you
to use your heels when your hands could have saved a man from choking.
Odds dickens! you might have stopped when you saw my bed canted heels
uppermost, and me half stifled in the bed-clothes —you might, I say, have
stopped and lent a hand to put it to rights, instead of jumping out of the
window, like a new-shorn sheep, so soon as you had run across my room."
"Nay, worshipful Master Desborough," said Bletson, winking at Everard,
to show that he was playing on his thick-sculled colleague, "how could I
tell your particular mode of reposing?-there are many tastes-I have
known men who slept by choice on a slope or angle of forty-five."
" Yes, but did ever a man sleep standing on his head, except by miracle?"
said Desborough.
"Now, as to miracles" -said the philosopher, confident in the presence
of Everard, besides that an opportunity of scoffing at religion really in some
degree diverted his fear-" I leave these out of the question, seeing that the
evidence on such subjects seems as little qualified to carry conviction as a
horse-hair to land a leviathan."
A loud clap of thunder, or a noise as formidable, rang through the Lodge
as the scoffer had ended, which struck him pale and motionless, and made
Desborough throw himself on his knees, and repeat exclamations and prayers
in much admired confusion.
"There must be contrivance here," exclaimed Everard; and snatching
one of the candles from a sconce, he rushed out of the apartment, little
heeding the entreaties of the philosopher, who, in the extremity of his distress, conjured him by the Animus Mundi to remain to the assistance of a
distressed philosopher endangered by witches, and a Parliament-man assaulted by ruffians. As for Desborough, he only gaped like a clown in a
pantomime; and, doubtful whether to follow or stop, his natural indolence
prevailed, and he sat still.
When on the landing-place of the stairs, Everard paused a moment to