man of Belial left me on the road-even herebefore I was aware, passing by, like the Levite, on the other side." "The Gospel according to St. Luke, tenth chapter, thirty-first and thirty-second verses," interrupted Timothy. "And yet in truth," Ebenezer continued, "there was then no house, nor even a dyke, nor any workinanship whatsoever of men's hands beside me-and methought the sea, or some great ditch, was behind, into which my foot was slipping continually, notwithstanding that I held on, like grim death, to the bank; and methought, although it might peradventure be only a ditch, yet it was wider than could be spanned by the legs of a man, and deeper than the well Haran, as ye go up to Nahor, in the land of the people of the east." "Genesis-twenty-nine-the second verse," said Timothy. "Of a surety this is the work of the enemy!" concluded Ebenezer, looking up, in fear and perplexity, into the face of the elder of Skreigh. "Yea-of the enemy!" said Timothy, stepping upon the ledge of the footpath, where he poised himself gracefully, and extended his arms over his prostrate victim-" of the spirit of the lusts of the flesh, and of the abomination of drunkenness! Look at thy garments covered with glaur, and thy foot with foul water; consider thy desolate condition, lying all night in the public road, and an open house on the other side of the way; thy vain imaginations 17 VOL. I. anent oceans and ditches-thy groans and snorings while wallowing in the mire of thy filthiness! Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.'-twentythird Proverbs, twenty-ninth and thirtieth verses.” "As the Lord liveth,” said Ebenezer, endeavouring, but in vain, to rise," my soul is guiltless of this thing!" : "Look not thou upon the wine when it is red,” continued Timothy, "when it giveth its odour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright at the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder.— Thirty-first and thirty-second." Ebenezer bowed his head upon his breast in anguish and despair; for while Timothy was speaking, he became convinced of the impossibility of clearing his reputation by words; and yet, unused to listen without replying, or to hear reasonings without reasoning again, he could not help saying—“ I allow, Timothy, that wine may be received by a judicious commentator as the generic appellation of strong drink, and that thus it may signify either ale or whiskey-or even noyau; but shall it be said that wine is forbidden, and that strong drink is prohibited? Doth not holy Paul himself, in his Epistle from Laodicea to thy own namesake-but different from thee, inasmuch as he was younger in years and milder in conversation-command the Ephesian bishop to drink no longer water, but to use wine, for his stomach's sake?-See the fifth chapter and twenty-third verse. But to-morrow thou shalt have thy belly-full, even as I promised in my letter!" "And from thee!" exclaimed Timothy, spitting two yards over his body, "Is it with this dead dog I am come out to combat? Far be it from me that I should so disgrace myself in our Israel. Arise, and get thee gone; keep thy lips, if thou canst, from the cup of intoxication, and thy soul from foolishness with the mother of harlots and abomination of the earth, and from being made drunk with the wine of her f--oh! Revelations, seventeenth chapter, second verse, and last clause of the verse." And so saying, Timothy crossed over into the house, and in half an hour after went home to Skreigh in the night coach. Mr. Dick returned soon after to Dirdum, as Davie Moffat said, "with his tail between his legs;" and, to this day, it is a saying in that town, of any one embarking foolishly on an ambitious enterprize, that he is going on the Elder's Journey. THE MIDSHIPMAN. I HAVE read some theories, or rather hypotheses, of apparitions, in which the authors attempt to account for the appearance of those unsubstantial shadows, resembling the forms of living men, by circumstances connected with the physical laws of matter. But I am rather inclined to hold, with another class of inquirers, that the origin of such marvels must be looked for in the mind of the seers; although I do not go the length of their scepticism, and deny the actual existence of the ghostly show, as a real and visible spectacle, before the eyes. All objects of sight are, at best, but the external forms of things painted on the retina of the eye: it is not the things themselves that are seen, or touched, as it were, by the mind; and who that is familiar with the study of himself, will deny that these objects, when absent, are sometimes displayed before him with 17* VOL. I. |