ho had procured the key from the
sexton, who was his patient, opened the door, and conducted our novice
into the middle of the chancel, where the armour was deposited. Then
bidding Crowe draw his hanger, committed him to the protection of Heaven,
assuring him he would come back, and find him either dead or alive by
daybreak, and perform the remaining part of the ceremony. So saying, he
and the other associates shook him by the hand and took their leave,
after the surgeon had tilted up the lantern to take a view of his visage,
which was pale and haggard.

Before the door was locked upon him, he called aloud, "Hilloa! doctor,
hip--another word, d'ye see." They forthwith returned to know what he
wanted, and found him already in a sweat. "Hark ye, brother," said he,
wiping his face, "I do suppose as how one may pass away the time in
whistling the Black Joke, or singing Black-eyed Susan, or some such
sorrowful ditty."--"By no means," cried the doctor; "such pastimes are
neither suitable to the place, nor the occasion, which is altogether a
religious exercise. If you have got any psalms by heart, you may sing a
stave or two, or repeat the Doxology."--"Would I had Tom Laverick here,"
replied our novitiate; "he would sing your anthems like a sea-mew--a had
been a clerk a-shore--many's the time and often I've given him a rope's
end for singing psalms in the larboard watch. Would I had hired the son
of a b---h to have taught me a cast of his office--but it cannot be holp,
brother--if we can't go large, we must haul up a wind, as the saying is;
if we can't sing, we must pray." The company again left him to his
devotion, and returned to the public-house, in order to execute the
essential part of their project.

CHAPTER SEVEN

IN WHICH THE KNIGHT RESUMES HIS IMPORTANCE.

Doctor Fillet having borrowed a couple of sheets from the landlady,
dressed the misanthrope and Tom Clarke in ghostly apparel, which was
reinforced by a few drops of liquid phosphorus, from Ferret's vial,
rubbed on the foreheads of the two adventurers. Thus equipped, they
returned to the church with their conductor, who entered with them softly
at an aisle which was opposite to a place where the novice kept watch.
They stole unperceived through the body of the church; and though it was
so dark that they could not distinguish the captain with the eye, they
heard the sound of his steps, as he walked backwards and forwards on the
pavement with uncom